Page 179 of Shade
“Nine years ago,” I say, barely able to speak the words, my voice distant as I picture that tattoo shop and the night I walked out of it.
Shade nods. “How?” His voice is soft, and I see that he’s not pushing me to talk about; he’s just asking.
And here’s where our connection lies, and I’m about to confess it. Maybe I should have told him sooner, but I couldn’t. “He. . . uh. . . killed himself.”
Shade doesn’t offer much in the way of a reaction. But I know him well enough now to see the signs. The way he shifts in his chair, the way his jaw clenches and the realization that this is why we’re drawn together, digs at his brow and he sighs. “Were you afraid to tell me?”
I nod. “I was. I know I should have told you sooner but with Rhya. . . I guess I didn’t know how to. I should have though and I’m sorry.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” He tightens his grip on my hands, forcing my eyes to his. “While I know how it feels to lose someone close to you by suicide, I don’t expect you to tell me everything that happened between you, just like you don’t know everything about Rhya.”
We’re silent, for a moment before he asks, “How long were you with Asher?”
“Couple years.” I make eye-contact with him when I say, “I blamed myself.
Carefully, he tips his head to the side. “Why?”
“Because the night he took his life, I had broken up with him hours before and I thought it was because of me.”
“And you don’t believe that now?”
“No, I don’t. People who end their own lives. . . it’s not because of any one event. It’s years upon years of being stuck in a place they don’t understand. Suicide isn’t selfish. It’s a decision made when they’re weak and powerless to their own mind.”
Shade nods and draws in a breath. I’m not entirely sure he’s heard everything I said. Maybe he’s not ready to. He’s squinting as if he’s thinking about something and fiddling idly with his sunglasses on the table. “I don’t think I ever understood the level of darkness she was really in.” He draws in a breath. “Rhya. . . fuck, she was a horrible influence on me.” He laughs, his shoulders shaking, and then his eyes find mine and they’re filled with so much emotion I can’t decipher which one to focus on. “But I remember when I knew how bad it really was for her.”
“At Glen Helen?”
He nods. “She was always trouble. The type of girl who was looking for it, you know? Her dad would be jacking cars, her mom in the passenger seat doin’ lines and Rhya’d be in the backseat saying go faster. It was a shit show.”
My eyes widen. “Where are her parents now?”
“Mom overdosed. Dad’s in prison.”
“Jesus. And Reece turned out normal?”
He laughs. “Normal as possible. All us freestyle guys are labeled as crazy so that’s debatable.” He gives me a wink, then his jaw tightens. “What happened with you and Asher?”
“He didn’t know. . . ” I pause, unsure how to answer because I don’t know the answer, even after nine years. It takes me a moment because I have to think about it, and then again, no, I don’t.
“He didn’t know how to exist in a world that didn’t understand him.”
Can you see Shade’s face? The emotion surfacing? The way his blue eyes soften and focus on mine? He gets it.
Asher spent his whole life trying to be something he wasn’t to the point it became an effort to even breathe on his own because he’d somehow forgotten how.
I don’t know why, but I open up to Shade when his eyes soften and tell him a little more about the boy who taught me what love was. “I met him at a tattoo shop just before I turned fifteen. Sort of became my home away from home. He was. . . so angry and didn’t care what anyone thought. I liked that about him, you know? Soon he became the perfect way to rebel against my mother, like she gave a fuck though. And then eventually I wasn’t just a girl looking to rebel. I was a girl suffocating under his anger. I didn’t realize how dark his mind really was until it was too late.”
Now I imagine mine are filled with emotion and I’m sure he’s trying to decipher it. “Did he. . . ever hurt you?”
“He never hit me. I think. . . .” I laugh, but tears burn my eyes. “It’s weird to say, even now, but he loved me too much to hit me, though I know he had it in him. If that makes sense.”
He nods, his jaw clenching.
“Asher smothered me with his own insecurities until they became mine, and I knew if I didn’t leave, I’d become him.”
I wonder if he realizes how closely our relationships with the people we lost mirrored one another. The corner of Shade’s mouth moves, not exactly a smile, but not a frown either. Like he understands exactly what I’m saying.
“Did you and Rhya ever date?”
