Chapter 11
Ash is waiting for me.
“That help?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
He nods. “Yeah, me either.”
I follow him to his room, at the other end of the hall. I’ve never been inside before, only glimpsed it through the crack in the door, and it was dark and lit by the glow of screens. In reality, it isn’t all that different from my own: a queen bed with dark, rumpled sheets; a backpack and school stuff haphazardly spilled across the carpeted floor; a desk and a computer. He has his own set of the Children of Hypnos books on a shelf above a small fish tank, where a few colorful guppies swim around asubmerged skull and some fake seaweed. Besides the fish tank, the one thing unique to his room is a metric shit ton of Monstrous Sea merchandise.
Monstrous Sea was a webcomic that got popular almost a decade ago and spun off into a huge franchise. I know it by internet osmosis, so I recognize the characters on the posters around the room and in figurine form on his desk and shelves. The bound copies of the Monstrous Sea graphic novels sit on the shelf right next to his CoH books, and next to those are the Monstrous Sea novelization series. His computer tower is covered in Monstrous Sea stickers.
“You match your room,” I say, motioning to his shirt.
He looks down at his sleeves and blushes. The reaction makes him seem softer, more approachable. “Ah. Yeah. Usually people don’t come in here. I forgot I was wearing it.”
“It’s nice to know that you like something that much,” I say, looking around at the posters, trying to ease his embarrassment by showing my interest. “I had no idea. But I guess we’re finding out there’s a lot I didn’t know about you.”
“What do you mean, it’s nice to know I like something this much?” he asks.
“It’s... hmm... I guess it feels like a lot of boys don’t act interested in anything. Like it isn’t cool. Unless it’s sports. If you enjoy something too much, you get made fun of for it.” I pause at the shelf above his desk and examine one of the figurines, acharacter with feathery black hair and ice-blue eyes, and blue fog rolling from his upheld hands. This one has a place of honor, and the most representation among the posters. His favorite. “But I think it’s cool that you like it. And that you like cooking, and sitting outside under trees. I like... that you like things.” Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed, for heat to flush my face. “That sounded stupid.”
He smiles a bit. “No, it didn’t. I get what you mean. I used to pretend I didn’t like the things I liked because, yeah, it wasn’t cool to like them. But after the crash, after everything almost got taken away... who cares? It’s not important what people think anymore.”
“Exactly!” My voice is too loud for the small room, so I dial it back, but excitement pours out of me. “I was thinking that at lunch. Like, what the fuck are we talking about? None of this matters!”
He throws his hands out, his eyes wide. “Yes!”
“I haven’t been going to track practice because it’s so stupid and a waste of time and I want to do something thatmatters. Sitting in school for seven hours a day is a waste. Talking to everyone who doesn’t get it is awaste. I feel like I’m living on another planet!”
“Youget it.” Ash runs his hands through his hair. “Evie, you’re the only person I’ve talked to in two weeks who’s on the same frequency I am. My parents are like ghosts, they don’t evenhear me anymore. My friends have been weird since my accident. Even my teachers seem scared of me.” He drops his hands and looks at me with a strange expression. “And you’re here. Like...”
I wait. “What?”
He doesn’t finish. Just smiles, laughs to himself, and shakes his head. He scrubs his face. “Oh, fuck, I shouldn’t have eaten that before you came over.”
“Eaten what?”
He falls over on his bed. He’s so tall he takes up the whole thing. “I was talking to a guy on the soccer team about how I wished I was still on the pain meds they gave me after the crash. I still have a few in the cabinet. They used to totally numb me out. I’d sleep like a baby. He told me not to do that, said he had a better option, one that wouldn’t get me addicted to opioids. He gave me some gummies. His brother brought them from Chicago when he came home a couple of weeks ago.”
“Like, weed gummies?”
“Yeah.” With one arm covering his eyes, Ash’s other arm flails out, and he catches the handle of his bedside drawer. Inside is a pouch of gummies. “He said they’d help me chill out. I took one right before you got here, and it’s hitting me now.”
He doesn’t seem that different to me, but I’m not good at telling when people are in an altered state of mind. I look at the bag. “You feel okay?” I ask.
“I feel great,” he replies. “Nothing matters, still, but in a different way. A better way.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad to me,” I say.
“Yeah, but, like, I want to tell you a bunch of things all of a sudden. This sucks. I normally don’t tell people anything.” He rolls over onto his stomach and buries his head in the pillow. Okay, he’s getting easier to read.
I sit on the bed next to him. Take the bag and turn it over in my hands. Open it.
“You just took one?” I ask.
Ash lifts his head. “Yeah, he said not to do any more than that, since I’ve never taken them before.”
