Page 11 of What Goes Around

I told myself it was about forgetting, about survival.

Then I heard it. A small gasp.

I froze.

I turned my head toward the door and saw her.

Ashley.

For a second, everything inside me stopped. My pulse, my breath, my thoughts. Panic flooded first: what was she doing here? How had she found me? But after hearing her speak, the panic folded into a white-hot fury so sudden I felt like I might combust.

I yanked my pants up and crossed the room in two steps. My voice didn’t sound like my own when I spoke.

“It’s nothing you didn’t do,” I spat, grabbing her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Now you know what it feels like. You’re a liar and a cheat, and I wish you all the evil in the world.”

Her eyes widened, the pain there so real it almost broke me.

Almost.

Apple’s voice cut through the silence. “Ashley, you should leave.”

Ashley looked at her like she didn’t even recognize her. Hell, I didn’t recognize myself.

I wanted her to scream.

To fight back.

To hate me.

Anything that would make the emptiness stop.

But she didn’t. She just cried.

Wanting this to end, I turned back to the bed and yanked Apple to me by the ankle. She squealed.

“She can stay and watch,” I said, trying to sound indifferent. “I don’t care. Let’s continue.”

But after the door slammed and the silence swallowed the room, the victory I’d imagined never came.

I sat on the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands. Apple put a tentative hand on my shoulder and murmured something I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears.

I thought making her hurt would fix the hollow.

It didn’t. If anything, it made the emptiness deeper, colder and more absolute. For the first time since the funeral, something inside me turned and asked a question I didn’t want to answer.

Had I become the kind of man I’d sworn I’d never be?

Chapter 5: Empty

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the smell.

Antiseptic. Sharp and sterile. The kind that burned your nose and told you you were somewhere you didn’t want to be.

I groaned and shifted. My body ached. I blinked until the shapes around me stopped blurring. White walls, a monitor beside me, a drip in my arm, a woman in scrubs leaning over my bed.

“Hey, sweetheart,” the nurse said softly. “Can you hear me?”

I swallowed, my throat raw. “Where… am I?”