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I was crossing the quad when I heard the faint sounds of wheels on concrete. My back went rigid, and even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was around here somewhere. The one girl I didn’t want to see, the one who was the last straw, the one that broke my will.
Hmm. I didn’t want to see her, but maybe I should. Maybe I should tell her face-to-face that it was over, that I was done with it. Maybe then I could forget all about her and move on with my life.
Yeah, that was the dream.
I ended up turning around, seeing her slowly skate her way alongside the quad, her hands in the pockets of her jean jacket, an unreadable expression on her face. Her blonde hair sparkled in the sun, their light pink tips looking like cotton candy.
My stomach clenched as I hurried to follow her. She ended up skating to the sociology hall, and it was as she was slowing herself and bending down to grab her skateboard that I called out to her, catching her just as she was about to open one of the hall’s many doors.
“Ash,” I said, “I need to talk to you.”
I noticed her spine tense, and she didn’t turn around to look at me. Other students passed by us, and I wondered what we looked like. Two weirdos with pink hair? A boy and a girl, lost in a fight that was threatening to ruin their relationship? Ash and I weren’t together, we’d never be together, but still, dreaming of her had been nice.
Seeing her in that hospital bed after her accident? Not so nice.
I needed to cut ties with her right now, otherwise who knew how bad things would get.
“I’m going to be late for class,” she said, and I knew with the number of students still walking around outside that classes still had quite a few minutes before they started.
Glancing up to the blue sky, I heaved a sigh, moving closer to her, blocking her entrance to the building with my wide body. Standing before me, she seemed extra small, almost too tiny to be a freshman in college. She looked even thinner than she had before, but maybe that was the drugs talking, making me notice new things about her.
Hell, at this point, I shouldn’t notice anything about her.
“It won’t take long,” I said, staring into her grey eyes. Their almost unnatural hue was rimmed in a dark black, making her eyes look smoky even if she wore no makeup. I saw she refused to look at me, instead staring squarely at my chest.
This girl was so small; how the hell did I find her intimidating? Right now, there was nothing intimidating about her. She hardly looked like herself. The way she held herself, how she refused to make eye contact…it was almost like the girl before me wasn’t Ash, just someone else wearing her skin.
“Fine,” Ash relented, slowly lifting her gaze to look at me. I noticed bags under her eyes, and it took me a moment to overcome the shock. She looked like shit—and this girl had never looked like shit, even when coming to my house to ruin my parties. No matter what she wore, she looked good. She was a skeleton of her usual self right now, and even though this was goodbye forever, something inside of me ached.
I didn’t want to see her like this, which was stupid. We’d done nothing but antagonize each other. We were never friends. She’d walked into a feud and chose sides, and she didn’t choose me, not that I could blame her. I was the king of assholes.
“What is it, Sawyer?” Ash asked when I stayed quiet. I was too lost in my own head as I stared at her, wondering why she had to choose today to look like shit. It was only making what I had to do harder. I could offer her one of the pills in my bag, but she didn’t strike me as the kind of girl who liked to crush up pills and snort them.
Well, it was now or never.
“I just wanted to say that I’m done,” I told her, one of my hands grasping the strap wrapped around my shoulder. If I didn’t hold onto something, I might be tempted to reach for her and hold her—and that was definitely something I couldn’t allow myself to do. Touching her again might just mean I’d passed the point of no return when it came to her.
She blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m done going after Declan. I’m done trying to get back at you. I’m done, Ash. I just want to be done.” I sounded a bit rambly, like I was going around in circles, but I meant every word.
Ash eventually heaved a sigh. “Then be done.” Around us, there were fewer students out, meaning it was almost time for class. “No one made you go after Declan to begin with, and no one made you be such an ass to everyone else. If you’re done, then be done. Stop trying to drag me into your shit, because unlike you, I have real problems.”
Damn. This goodbye was not going how I imagined it would.
I wanted to grab her and shove her against the nearest wall—which would be the outer brick of the sociology hall. I wanted to shout, you think I don’t have problems? You think my life is just roses and butterflies? I wanted to demand things of her I had no right to.
My life wasn’t roses and butterflies. My life wasn’t good or even fun anymore. My life was miserable…but of course she couldn’t see it. She was living in her own little bubble, oblivious to my suffering. I said I wanted Declan to want to die, but here’s the kicker: I wanted to die.
Me, Sawyer Salvatore. I wanted to die. Dying would be easier than living a life like this, than knowing that I’d failed my baby sister and would never live up to the image my parents had built for me. I was cocky, arrogant, confident beyond all belief, but deep down I wanted to die. I was just too scared to actually go through it.
Not so cocky after all, huh?
Ash blinked, and for a quick moment, I could’ve sworn I saw tears forming in her eyes. But then that moment was gone, and she muttered, “Goodbye, Sawyer. Have a nice life.” Saying nothing else, she turned to enter the sociology hall, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, alone.
Something deep inside of me hurt when I watched her walk away, maybe because I knew that this was it. This was goodbye. No Ash for me, no anything for me. I might be a spoiled shit, but in reality, I never got what I wanted.
A sister who was happy, sane, and alive. A girl who cared for me, not my money or my dick. And, above all else, a normal, quiet life.
