Page 142 of Lessons In Grey
Grey
December 7th, 2021
Iran my hand through my hair and straightened as Ash turned to me in question, anger in her eyes. “Why does she need you to get on the phone?”
I dried my hands and slid the dish towel over the rung of the oven. Emily had wanted to tell them anyway. “I know both of you know something happened last week, and you’re right. Emily was kidnapped and beat,” I explained, watching as Ash’s face shifted to horror. “As far as I could tell, her concussion was severe, and she kept going in and out of consciousness directly after she had gotten it. We’ve been working on her memory, but I never considered that she would lose that.”
It was completely separate from everything else. It happened a year ago. If she had lost that, what else had she lost?
“What thefuck, Navarro,” Ash breathed.
I watched the door carefully. “Since I got home, I’ve been on the phone with my family trying to find the people who did it.”
“Who did it?” Ash snapped. “Who hurt her?”
My eyes shifted back to hers. “I don’t know, and before you go blaming me for any of this, Emily and I have talked about it. We’ve been speaking at length for weeks about my life before this happened, she understood what she was getting into. She’s forgiven me.”
Ash rushed up to the counter, baring her teeth at me. “I don’t. I willneverforgive you. Your life did this to her? Some…some…enemyof your stupid father’s? Is that what it is? Your enemies are now going to use her to get to you?”
My eyes hardened. She had every right to feel the way she did, but she couldn’t possibly understand the depth in which Emily and I discussed this. “I don’t care if you never forgive me, Ash, you’re not who I’m worried about. She’s angry and stressed and her mind is cracking right now, and you’re here blaming me?”
“She wouldn’t be in this situation if you didn’t fucking put her there.”
“Ash,” Syn warned.
I snarled at her, feeling the rage bubbling under my skin. “I know that,Iunderstand that and so does she. You’re angry because your friend is reliving the worst day of her life, but rather than trying to help her, you’re lecturing me.”
“It’s your fault!” she shouted.
“Ash,” Syn stated.
And the guilt would eat me alive forever. I pressed my hands down flat on the counter and leaned in. “She is in there wondering why her mind is betraying her. Wondering why the one thing she had in this world is hurting heragain, and you’re here. Lecturing me about a life Emily chose. Her one fucking choice in this world. Shechoseme. She picked me. Sostopberating me about the one choice she allowed herself to make, and go talk to her.”
Her lip curled. “If you two are so fucking connected, however toxic it is, why don’t you go talk to her?”
“Ash,” Syn snapped.
Oh, I wanted to fucking kill something, I wanted to take my gun and put a bullet between the eyes of whoever did this to Emily, but I didn’t have a choice right now. I didn’t have a place to displace this anger, all I could do was breathe.
And I was finding it so hard to do that right about now.
After several seconds, Ash straightened and turned to her girlfriend.
I straightened myself, rolling my head on my shoulders, trying to regain control.
“He can’t go in there,” Syn said, shaking her head. “She needs you.”
“She recoiled from my touch, she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Syn’s eyes softened as she reached out for Ash. “We’ve been through this before, Ash. All three of us. Don’t you remember?”
I leaned back against the counter, focusing on my breathing, watching them carefully. I wish I could have been there when it happened. I wish I could have held her tightly until all of her pieces slid back into place.
Ash’s shoulders fell, defeat filling her eyes.
“When silence doesn’t work, acting out does,” Syn went on. “She hurts the people she trusts the most. Last time, it was you, this time it was him.” Her eyes flicked to mine. “If she trusts him that much, you need to let her do that, but just because she trusts him, doesn’t mean that, in this moment, he’s who she needs.”
Ash sanded her hands together, her nerves building. “She shut me out last time.”
