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My feet drew me out of the living room, and I found myself glancing toward the stairs. It took every ounce of restraint in me not to go up those steps, not to see Ash for myself, not to ask her why she’d gotten so lucky. Any other girl wouldn’t have made it out of those situations without a scratch, but her? She’d been hit by a car, nearly raped, and practically kidnapped by her psycho ex, and yet here she was, still alive, still breathing.
I’d lost Sabrina, but Ash? Ash had been through a hell of a lot, too—and she was a lot stronger than I was.
No, I couldn’t go upstairs, so I headed to the patio in the back, sitting myself on the nearest chair. I sank into the cushion, leaning back as I stared at the sky. Twilight, a few stars peeking through but not as many as there would be once the world was shrouded in black. I breathed in deeply, and suddenly I was so very tired. Tired of it all. Physically exhausted. Mentally drained.
Was this what life was supposed to be like? Was this how it was supposed to feel? I didn’t like it. It was so much easier to be numb to it all, to block out the pain and the hurt and the worry.
I sighed, closing my eyes. Declan didn’t follow me out, but I knew if I looked at the house, I’d see him watching. None of us could ever truly be alone here, not with everything that was going on.
I did my best as I sat there to not let my mind wander, but it was difficult. Impossible, really. I failed in saving Sabrina, so why should I even attempt to try to help Ash? Ash had Declan and Travis—and Will, clearly—she didn’t need another fuckup trying to make things better. In all honesty, I’d only make things worse. That’s what I did. That was my name brand.
Sawyer Salvatore, resident playboy and fuckup. If you need a dick, he’s your man, but don’t ask him to feel. Don’t ask for anything real.
Wasn’t that just the depressing truth?
I couldn’t say how long I sat there, but it was a while. The next time I opened my eyes, I wasn’t outside, or even at my house. I was…home? Sitting on the front marble steps to my parents’ house. Odd, but my mind couldn’t remember the last thing I’d been doing.
Almost instinctively, I got up, turning to head towards the door, pushing inside and entering this place that hardly felt familiar anymore. The first moment my feet stepped into the house, my stomach plummeted. Whatever I was about to see, I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
Out of the foyer, into the hall. Past the greeting room, where my mother always had her drinks with her friends after church. The socializing room that I hardly ever stepped foot in. I made it to the dining room, rich wooden beams overhead, the ceiling taller than in a typical house. When you were rich, you tended to go extravagant on absolutely everything.
One of the chairs from the long dining table was pulled away from it, a note scribbled and left at the table’s head. A girl was busy climbing onto the chair and reaching for something that hung from one of the beams—a noose. A thick rope tied to become a noose.
Immediately my mind flashed back, and I wondered if this was finally my chance at saving my sister, at helping Sabrina when I normally couldn’t, but then the girl stood on the chair, facing me as she reached for the noose and lifted it over her head. Her blonde, pink-tipped head.
It wasn’t Sabrina. It was Ash.
I stood ten feet from her, and yet the distance felt like miles. “Ash,” I called out to her, afraid to rush closer, fearing that she’d slip and fall, accidentally kick the chair to the side and break her own neck before I got to her. “What are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” Ash answered, looking at me with those storm grey eyes. Staring at her was like staring at an approaching hurricane. Half of you wanted to run, while the other half desperately wanted to stay and watch whatever havoc it would bring. She tightened the noose around her neck, the rope snug.
“Don’t,” I begged, taking a single step closer. Or, at least, I thought I moved closer. But she seemed to grow farther away as the seconds ticked on, as if the house itself was stretching, refusing to let me near her.
“It’s too late,” Ash whispered, a single tear falling along her cheek, curving with her face until it ran to her chin, dropping onto her chest. I noticed then she wore no shoes, and her feet were bloody. “It’s always been too late, Sawyer. Nothing you ever do will change it.” And then Ash did the one thing I didn’t want her to: she pushed herself off the chair, practically jumping, her feet kicking the chair away.
I called out to her, screamed for her, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a big fall, so her neck didn’t break. I tried running to her, but the house wouldn’t let me near. This was my fate, to lose it all. To lose everything I ever cared about. Ash’s end was just like Sabrina’s, only this time—this time there was no one to blame but myself.
It was only when Ash’s body became limp that I was finally able to reach her, to grab her midsection and hoist her up, undoing the noose around her neck even though I knew it was too late. That was my motto: too little, too late. After all this time, I didn’t know how to change it.
Once I got her down, I collapsed to the floor, cradling her body against mine. She was limp, and already cold somehow. One arm kept her body against mine, the other swept a hand through her hair, getting it away from her face. A bruised ring was already forming around her neck. How did she get so cold so fast?
“No,” I murmured, feeling my shoulders begin to shake. “Ash, why…” It seemed my tongue could hardly form words. I could barely speak as I gazed down at her. A simple, flawless perfection I didn’t even notice until it was too late.
This…there was no going back from this. This was the point of no return, and I hated it. I would give anything and everything to undo this, to take it all back. She didn’t deserve any of those things I said, what I did. I never should’ve dragged her into my mess; if I hadn’t, odds were she’d still be alive.
And that—that was the worst thought of them all.
“This is my fault,” I whispered. “This is all my fault, Ash. I didn’t want this to happen.” I was about to say more, to tell her that I was sorry for it all, even though it was far too late for apologies, but the world around me faded, and I jerked awake.
A dream.
Just a dream.
My back ached from falling asleep on the patio chair, and as I let out a groan and sat up, I found I was no longer alone outside. Travis leaned against the house, watching me with eyes that knew too much, as if he’d seen my dream for himself. He was busy lighting up a cigarette, hardly blinking.
The sky above us was pitch-black now, clouds having rolled over and covered the view of the stars and the moon. The only light around us was the light coming from inside the house. I saw Ash on the couch through the windows, sitting near Declan. She was busy laughing, and inside my gut, I felt a pang of…something. Regret? Longing?
Or maybe it was fear. Fear over losing her. Fear for what she was doing to me.
