Moonlight upon the Sea - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Art by Meialoue

Chapter Four

Ash avoided her on the 30th.

He shouldn’t have. He knew he shouldn’t have. He’d been trying to get her to a place where they could talk about the memory for weeks, so for him to just give up wasn’t like him.

Except that it was.

It was in-character for him to give up on people. It was in-character for him to put way too much of himself and his energy into things, only to completely fail and burn out as soon as he reached the finish line. It was in-character for him to try and try and try with his father, only to end up in jail and then a year later, stuff his letters into a chest on his dresser.

The loneliness had become chronic in the way it pervaded his very existence. Like threads of shadow woven in amongst his countenance, he wore it like a cloak to shield himself from anything that could hurt him.

Because at his foundation, Ash knew that he was a creature of fear, and that the only reason why he put so much of himself into everything was because he was scared of what would happen if they failed. The reason why he threw his entire being into relationships with people around him was because he was scared of what would happen if they left. It was the same reason why he chose to follow his father into that ice cream shop.

He was a coward.

So, he avoided her. He kept his distance and alternated the times he left his bedroom so that he didn’t have to look her in the eyes and admit that he was terrified. He was terrified of his emotions—of the way his dreams of her had influenced his life. How the dreams simultaneously made him feel more qualified to watch over her than anyone else, and less qualified because he’d watched her father bleed and hadn’t done anything about it. Avoiding her meant avoiding the answers to how he felt.

That day, Elijah approached Ash at lunch.

The two of them hadn’t spoken in days. After the party, Elijah had proceeded to ignore his texts for almost a week. When Ash sent him a confrontational text about it, it devolved into a tense conversation about the fight outside the nurse’s office. Ash knew there were people who disliked him for what he’d done, but having his best friend think less of him sucked.

It hurt.

When Ash looked up from his sandwich to see Elijah sitting down across from him, he raised an eyebrow. He viewed his friend in silence that was stoic, wondering what Elijah could possibly have to say to him after an entire month.

“Did you see the news?”

“Huh? No.” Ash regarded him warily. “What was on it?”

“There’s a huge rainstorm coming, wind, the whole shebang. I highly doubt anyone’s going to be able to leave their houses. The power might even go out.”

“Oh, shit,” Ash said. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew it was gonna rain, but...”

“Were you doing anything?”

“For Halloween?” He shook his head. “Probably just chillin’ at home. You?”

“I was gonna stay home and play video games, maybe stream it.”

Ash nodded. They stared at one another. The awkwardness felt palpable.

“I...well, I apologize,” Elijah said, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. “For what I...for everything I said.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ash felt that palpable, present awkwardness stretching between them like a tense band. “Do you?”

“Yeah. Ignoring you after the party wasn’t cool, either.”

“It’s whatever,” Ash said, shrugging one shoulder as he picked up his sandwich and took a bite. After he chewed, he said, “You were being honest, and honesty is key.”

“Yeah, but there’s honesty and then there’s honesty. I literally eviscerated you.”

“You eviscerated me.” Ash rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together. He scrutinized Elijah. “But you were right. We’re best friends but it’s dumb to pretend like we can’t have opinions of each other’s choices.”

“I mean, I get it. Your dad was terrifying. But yeah, it’s better for our friendship if we’re honest.”

“I’m trash,” Ash said with another shrug. “What else is new?”

“Oh, shut up. You know you’re not—”

“Just stop. If you feel like apologizing, cool. But let’s not turn this into a therapy session. I’m eating.”

The two boys held each other’s gazes for a moment, engaging in a battle of wills and silence before Elijah conceded. He withered like burnt paper beneath Ash’s fiery glare. His hands went up near his chest.

"Whatever you say, man. So, what have you been up to?”

They spent the majority of breakfast catching up. Elijah’s life had been much less eventful than Ash’s had been, and he seemed to be unaware of the fact that Ash was keeping his information close to the breast.

“... and I think I’ll just write the essay on something architectural or something,” Elijah was saying as he peeled his orange. “It’s not like it’s gonna be difficult. The last thing I want to do is write a fucking essay on Halloween when I’d rather be eating candy. You know what I mean?”

“Elijah, when have I ever done homework on a holiday?”

“Never. Which is why I know you’ll support me writing an essay on Wednesday that’s due Thursday.”

They exchanged glances. Elijah laughed. Ash hid a smirk behind another bite of his sandwich.

“So, how’s things going with Tayshia?”

Ash sipped his soda, stifling the urge to cough as it nearly went down the wrong side of his throat.

“What the fuck are you talking about? There’s no things to be going.”

“Come on.” Elijah popped an orange slice into his mouth and grinned. “Just admit you like her already. It hurts less.”

“I don’t like her.”

“Lie.”

Ash narrowed his eyes, casting a few surreptitious glances to the left and right. They had a bit of space between them and the rest of the students at the table, but it wasn’t much. “Truth.”

“You care about her. You care about what happens to her.”

He paused. There was no harm in caring about her, was there? They were friends. They were friends, and friends cared what happened to one another. That was okay.

“Yes. I care about her.”

“Do you find her like, annoying to be around, or do you think she’s easy to sit with? Like, could you—for a second, just imagine you’re in a-a library or something. Could you sit and study with her, or would that bother you?”

“Inherently, yes it would bother me,” Ash said. Under his breath, he added, “The air of annoying around her would become insufferable.”

“So you wouldn’t study with her?”

Ash looked him directly in the eyes. “If someone told me they’d slit my throat and murder me in my sleep, I would still not study with Tayshia Cole.”

“Harsh.”

“The woman has slapped me in the face, Elijah.”

“Ooh.” Elijah’s eyes went wide and he held the side of his fist over his mouth. “That’s—that’s not chill.”

“Not chill at all.”

“Well, do you think she’s pretty?” Elijah’s brown eyes glittered like crystals. “Because it’s okay if you do. I mean, if you think she’s pretty, there’s nothing wrong with that. She’s hot and she has a nice smile.”

“Yeah, I guess she...” Ash trailed off, sandwich frozen halfway to his mouth.

Why did Elijah’s questions feel like they were wrapped in barbed wire? Why did Elijah keep trying to get him to admit it? It held no bearing on his life.

Unless it did.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Elijah asked.

“You asshole,” Ash said with a sneer. “I told you I don’t like her. Why do you keep trying to get me to admit to something that isn’t true?”

Elijah offered Ash a shrug as he tucked into his food. As he ate, Ash watched the way he seemed to keep pushing his wavy hair out of his eyes—his eyes, which he kept carefully averted from Ash’s own. He looked uncomfortable.

“Do you like her?” Ash asked.

“Huh?”

“What?”

“What’d you say?”

Ash scowled. “I know you’re not going to pretend like you didn’t hear me asking you.”

“What? I didn’t hear you!”

Yeah, right.

“Do you like her, Elijah?”

“No.”

“Well, neither do I. And I’m gonna shave your fucking head if you don’t drop the subject.”

Ash’s gaze slid to the right, moving on past Elijah’s head and across the cafeteria. It landed on Tayshia at her usual table. She sat on one end of it, staring at the air in front of her face while she ate from a plate stacked high with chicken tenders, fries, cookies, and a few other sweets. Her curls were still in the same pile on her head that she’d worn yesterday—it looked like she hadn’t bothered to take it out. The amount of food didn’t shock him anymore. Her appetite seemed to fluctuate between extremes every day.

Ash knew he was being suspicious just by insisting he didn’t like Tayshia. He knew he did. They’d hooked up, for fuck’s sake.

He just felt guilty about it.

---

It was Halloween and it was already raining.

Elijah’s claims about the news and the weather had been correct. Sometime in the middle of the night before, the skies opened up. Ocean winds blew in from the west, intensifying in their power as the hours went on. Ash woke to the howling, whipping sounds, and a text message from the school’s notification system that school was cancelled until tomorrow, or until the dangerous winds had passed.

Ash tried to go back to sleep after that but it felt impossible.

Not when he could hear her counting.

He had officially lost control of his feelings and the situation. He had no clue what to do about the memory. How was he supposed to approach her about something like that?

What right did he have to her memories, anyway?

Who was he to have even experienced that with her? Not that it was his fault, of course, but still. How violating would it feel to know that someone had seen your memory of an attack like that? It would be humiliating. She probably felt ashamed. He was inside of her mind, feeling everything that she felt for the entire duration. It was an extreme violation.

Fuck, he felt evil thinking about all this.

How was it possible to watch other people’s dreams and memories and nightmares? How was it possible that a fucking rock could connect him to her dreams? It didn’t make any sense.

It was like magic.

Ash didn’t bother changing out of his black joggers and navy V-neck, and he didn’t bother taking care of his bedhead, either. He went out to the living room with his fleece blanket and pillow, taking up his normal spot on the couch and turning the TV and game console on. He pulled up a streaming service app so he could put on a random horror movie and pressed play. The volume of the movie warred with the wind and rain outside.

A few minutes later, Tayshia came strolling out of the hallway.

She wore a pair of leggings and another hoodie—this one actually belonging to her—and her curls were loose. In her ears were the silver hoop earrings he’d gotten her for her birthday. She held an umbrella in her hand.

God, he hated himself. She looked so cute.

“I’m heading out,” she said.

“Where?”

“My friend wants to go to that buffet. They got good breakfast, apparently.”

“Again?” He gave her a surprised look. “Must be a good buffet.”

“It is.” She flashed him a faint smile. “I’ll see you.”

“Wait.”

She stopped and looked back at him.

“Are you busy tonight? The storm is supposed to get worse and if the power doesn’t go out, I’m watching horror movies all day.” He bit his lower lip and studied her for a second. “If you wanted to chill when you get back.”

“Oh, um...sure,” she said, and her tone was cautious. “I guess I could stop by the store and get some candy.”

“Okay.”

They watched each other and for a moment, all Ash could think about was going with her and holding her hand. Putting his arm around her. Keeping her safe.

“Anyway,” she said. “Bye.”

“Later.”

The front door swung shut.

Ash got up to eat when lunchtime rolled around, unsurprised to see all the dishes she’d managed to stockpile while he was asleep. She’d recently started extending her eating habits to the nighttime, so Ash woke up most mornings to a full sink.

He didn’t get angry anymore—he simply cleaned them.

Ash spent the majority of the day watching movies, wondering why Tayshia was gone for so long. Was she okay? What if she’d gotten hurt? He was being so fucking weak, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

One day, he was going to have to get her to talk about it. He didn’t know what it was like to be her but he knew what it was like to be there. It had felt so real to him that there was no doubt in his mind it had happened. Magic, crystals, stars, whatever—it was real to him.

Maybe tonight, they’d reach some sort of breakthrough.

Around three in the afternoon, Tayshia finally walked in. She shook her umbrella out on the pavement outside before closing the front door and propping it against the wall. A plastic shopping bag swung on her wrist, full of colorful things.

“Jeez,” Ash said, swathed in his blanket with only his head poking out. “Did you get lost?”

Tayshia looked at him and let out a small laugh. “I ended up going to my friend’s house and hanging out for a while. Then I went and got candy.”

“Nice,” he said, feeling exhausted by the rain and his own thoughts. “I’m just finishing the last movie up, so...horror movie marathon?”

She nodded. “Let me go put on my pajamas.”

After dropping the plastic bag off on the kitchen counter, she practically skipped off to her room. Ash hadn’t seen her in this good of a mood since...well, since the day they’d last hooked up.

Guilt rocketed through his body. He could still remember the way she’d panicked the first time. It all made sense now. She’d probably just wanted to feel normal and all he had done was remind her of her trauma. He hated the fact that he’d kissed her like that, letting his emotions and their volatile relationship get the best of him. He hated the fact that he’d treated her like any other hook-up, being rough with her and doing whatever he wanted without thinking about how she might feel.

Did that make him as bad as the man in Paris?

“I’m so excited,” Tayshia said as she pranced back out into the room.

“Why?” Ash asked.

She had changed into his blue hoodie, which surprised him. She’d also taken her leggings off and was wearing the hoodie as a makeshift dress.

As she skidded into the kitchen, he saw her getting a large plastic bowl out of the cupboard and pouring the Halloween candy into it.

“Next to Christmas, Halloween is my favorite,” she said.

“You do know that’s my hoodie, right?” he said, trying and failing to keep himself from smirking.

“Huh?” She gasped, jaw dropping and eyes opening wide. “Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry. I have literally been wearing this for like two days now. Do you want it back?”

“Nah, you can keep it,” he said. “I just didn’t know if you knew whose it was.”

She beamed at him and he saw her teeth flash in the dimness of the kitchen, which was only lit by the window and the grey, stormy day. His heart skipped a beat.

“Sweet, because it’s super comfy and I want it.” She picked up the bowl and brought it out to the living room. As she sat down, she gasped. “Damn, I should have grabbed my blanket. Hold up.”

“Ah, ah. This is a queen size. You can share.”

“With you?”

He shot her a sour look. “Yes, with me. What, you too scared to sit next to me?”

“Why are you asking me that? You’re the one that’s been avoiding me.”

Tayshia stared at him as he pulled the fleece blanket from around him and held it up. Slowly, she walked over to him and sat down one cushion away, closer to the inner corner of the sectional. As she did, Ash felt a strange tingling spreading along the half of his body that was closest to hers.

She settled back against the cushions, pulled the blanket up to her neck, and pursed her lips.

“Well?” she said. “Put it on.”

Ash obliged, picking the first installment in the series so they could watch it.

They watched the film in silence. Ash maintained the distance between them, finding that he felt strange. The choppy waters of anxiety that usually kept him on edge seemed to have quieted in her presence. He couldn’t stop sneaking glances in her direction out of the corner of his eye. She looked tired—beleaguered, really—but in a generally good mood. Nothing about her countenance gave him any sort of indication as to her mental state regarding what happened in Paris, or what happened in her dream.

It was weird, sitting here, thinking about the fact that he literally walked her dreams every night and he’d just...accepted it. He’d accepted it like it wasn’t completely fucking bizarre. It was like magic, yet in a way, it didn’t feel like it. If the legend of the hot springs was correct, then whatever was going on with them was tied to the crystals. And crystals, like everything else, came from the stars.

Wouldn’t it be wild if we were written in them?

“These movies always make me laugh,” Tayshia said with an amused tone when they were thirty minutes into the movie and half of the candy was already devoured by both of them. “Everything’s always so dramatic, they’re always trying to find out who the ghost or demon is, and everyone always stays in the house. I’d be outta there so fucking fast.”

“Trust me on this,” Ash said. “There would be no movie if they left the house.”

“Well, obviously. I’m just saying, is all.”

He looked over at her right as she looked up at him. His gaze flitted all over her face and then landed on her hairline.

“What is that thing you do with your hair? There, by your hairline. Is that intentional?”

“My—my edges?” She reached up as if to touch them, her hand appearing from the depths of the blanket. Then, she lowered it. “Yeah, I do it on purpose.”

“Oh. Is that something people with curly hair do?”

She gave him a strange look. “It’s something Black girls do. We lay them flat and shape them.”

“Ah, okay. Why?”

“Because it’s cute.”

“Yeah, it looks good.”

She side-eyed him. “Thank you.”

Ash didn’t want to talk through the movie, but he didn’t want to sit in complete silence with her. It made things more awkward, and it made it more difficult for him to ignore the way he felt inside.

“I, um...I like your tattoos,” Tayshia said after a few minutes, the words tumbling out rushed and quiet. “If we’re sharing compliments.”

Ash’s heart raced for reasons unknown to him. He supposed it was because he didn’t get many compliments on them unless it was from Andre or something. He arched an eyebrow down at her.

“Which ones?”

She frowned. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Yeah,” he said through a lopsided grin as his head turned and faced the TV screen again.

“Good, because you have like, 3500 of them.”

“Yeah.”

Silence prevailed, broken only by the screams and raucous symphony music in the movie. Tayshia cleared her throat.

“I guess I have a couple of favorites,” she said. “I like the roses on the backs of your hands. And I like the waves and crescent moons on your forearms. I suppose—well, I like the—the snakes on your collarbones. But honestly, I like them all. There’s so many details in them that there’s like, a lot to look at.”

“You were staring at me?” he said, his voice coming out in an accidental purr of amusement. He hadn’t meant it to, but for a moment, he’d forgotten he was talking to Tayshia.

It felt like he was flirting.

“Not on purpose!” she cried. “It was an accident.”

“An accident.”

“Yes,” she said. It sounded like she was bordering on a whine. “It’s hard not to look, Ash. Er—I mean, it’s not like I’m looking because I want to. It’s because it’s right there in front of me. You know?”

“Don’t pout,” he said, glancing at her. “You’ll get frown lines.”

“I’m only twenty. I’m not gonna get frown lines.” Another scowl from her. “Well, that’s the last time I ever compliment your bitch-ass.”

“Which is your top favorite?” he asked, forcing himself to sound nonchalant.

“What?”

“Which tattoo do you like the best?” He looked down at her, both of them coming to a silent mutual decision to stop watching the movie.

“The ones on your neck,” she said, her gaze falling to his throat, where he knew both the neck tattoos and parts of his chest piece were visible. “The chains and the little roses. They’re very...well, the art is really beautiful. What does it represent?”

Ash took a moment to respond, finding that he’d accidentally been staring at the way her eyes seemed to look a rich umber in color from the growing storm outside. He had to think about his answer. He didn’t want her to know what they represented, given that the tattoo was his emotional response to coping with his failure at the ice cream shop.

But the fact that it was her favorite tattoo of all the ones he had? Hearing her say that made it feel more satisfying to have all the tattoos adorning his body, decorating it like ornaments on a Christmas tree. He sort of felt like they were...worth it.

“The chains represent feeling strangled,” he said, choosing his words as carefully as though he were plucking amethysts out of a cavern wall. “And trapped; like I’m choking and can’t move.”

“And the roses?”

You. You. You.

“Just...the aesthetic,” he lied, feeling heat rushing to his cheeks.

“Oh, okay,” she said. “That’s...well, that’s also really beautiful.”

“Do you have any?”

“Any what? Any tattoos?” She let out a small laugh. “No. Not yet.”

“Yet?” He perked up. “So you’re not against them?”

“No, I’d get one or two. I have some in mind that I’d do, actually.”

“Seriously? Are you being serious right now?”

“I mean, yeah,” she said, appearing bemused. She shifted in her spot and it brought her a bit closer to him. He could feel the heat of her body underneath the blanket. “I would get one on my shoulder, and then I want one on my forearm.”

“Yeah, okay. Maybe one day, we could go to...”

He trailed off into a silence that ensued for a solid ten seconds. What was he thinking? He and Tayshia going to get tattoos? It was absurd.

But then again, everything regarding her was absurd now.

“I mean, we could,” Tayshia said. “We could...yeah, we could go.”

He stared at her.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”

Ash merely nodded, glancing down at the half-empty candy bowl and wondering what else the night had in store for them.