Moonlight upon the Sea - Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

“Well, that didn’t tell us anything.”

Ash said nothing. He felt so terrible over bringing up the memory earlier that day that he’d barely spoken a word the entire car ride to Moonbeams & Things. He knew better than to do it, but he wanted to talk about it so badly that he kept forgetting she didn’t want to.

It wasn’t his place. He needed to remind himself of that every day until it sunk in.

In the store, which was covered wall-to-wall in all sorts of interesting things, Tayshia hadn’t found anything that could be of use. The store clerk had directed them to an author who had written a book entirely on amethysts that could be found at any major bookstore or online. Tayshia liked hard copies of books, so she decided they’d go to the bookstore another time.

They’d left the store empty-handed and were now driving down the road, trying to figure out where to eat. Ash had suggested every fast food place known to mankind, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. His patience had already disintegrated.

“Let’s just get something to cook,” she eventually said. “Because I’m not like, craving fast food, you know?”

“Are you sure? It’d be easier—”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “Let’s just go to the store.”

“All right. If you want.”

They pulled into the store parking lot and got out. It wasn’t raining, but the smell of the past rainfall lingered in the air as they strolled to the doors. Tayshia fell behind several times, the rapid clicking of her heels as she continued to run to try and catch up nearly sending him careening into space with how hilarious it was.

“Maybe if you weren’t a fucking tree,” she grumbled as they entered the store. She was breathless from exertion. “And here you are, laughing.”

“My bad,” he said, still grinning. “It’s just funny.”

“My height is not humorous.”

“You’re not even short.” He took the red basket from her and held it, giving her a once-over. She looked cute, still wearing his windbreaker with the sleeves covering her fingers and the hem of her skirt peeking out from beneath it. “You’re five-foot-eight.”

“Then why are you laughing at me?”

“Because it’s cute watching you try to keep up just because you chose to wear heels.”

She rolled her eyes and looked at some of the things on the clothing racks. He could tell she was embarrassed by the way she was trying to breathe heavily through her nose so she didn’t pant. Ash didn’t know why she had such a hard time keeping up, but he wasn’t going to make fun of her for it anymore. He knew his legs were long and he did walk sort-of fast. At six-foot-four, he was bound to outpace everyone.

“Here,” he said, holding his hand out. “So you don’t fall behind.”

“I’mma smack that hand out the air,” she said, glaring at him.

“Your funeral.”

When he pulled ahead a third time, she seemed to give up on her stubbornness. With a loud scowl, she slipped her hand into his, lightly intertwining their fingers as though she didn’t want to. But when he tried to pull away, she curled her fingers tight until they touched the back of his palm to stop him.

He raised one eyebrow in her direction.

“Cry about it,” she said in a mocking tone. “Can we just get the food and go?”

“Yes, my queen,” he said in an equally mocking tone. Before she could retort—or smack him—he dragged her down the aisle.

They held hands while they made their way to the grocery section. Ash found he rather liked the way he could tug her this way and that, and that if he did it with just a tiny bit more force, her heels caused her to bump into his side. It was entirely selfish. Hearing the occasional Ash, knock it the Hell off was worth it.

After gathering up some chicken and other things to cook, they made their way down the center aisle to get to the registers. The store was crowded but Tayshia didn’t seem to mind the fact that they were holding hands where anyone in town could see them. Sometimes, he wondered if she realized how much he was hated in Crystal Springs. Did she not realize how it looked, the fact that he’d gone to jail for holding up the ice cream store where her father had gotten shot?

Ash almost let go of her but when they got into their chosen line, she reached to hold the other side of his hand. With it cradled between both of hers, he didn’t dare ruin the moment. An emotion danced across her face, one that filled him with curiosity.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” Tayshia stepped closer before glancing around at all of the people. “I just got a lot of anxiety. I don’t like crowds. Like, I’m fine at school because I know most everyone or I’ve seen them around. But crowds in town just freak me out.”

“Well, it’s almost our turn. Just two people to go.”

“I know,” she said, glancing around one more time before she stared at the ground.

“You’ll be all right. I got you.”

“Oh, stop,” she said. “Everything you do is so dramatic and extra.”

“You look pretty under this lighting,” he said through a mischievous grin.

“Stop. Good God. Stop playing.”

Ash’s gaze slid toward the front of the store, across from their aisle. He did a double-take, his heart skipping a beat and his nerves causing his stomach to do a little drop.

At first, he’d thought they just looked familiar. Upon the second glance, he realized who it was that was standing in the aisle diagonal from theirs, waiting in line to check out.

Kieran and Quinn.

Quinn spotted them first, her jaw dropping and eyes popping. Her ebony hair shifted over her shoulders as she turned to nudge Kieran, who looked over at Ash.

And then they were staring right at them.

Ash remembered the lie Tayshia had texted to Kieran to try and make him jealous. And even though he thought it was juvenile, it was difficult to remember that when he saw Kieran’s reaction. The dark look that shadowed his face was enough to urge Ash into petty territory.

“Hey,” Ash murmured so no one but Tayshia could hear.

She was looking at the candy, still gripping his hand in a double vice. “What?”

“Come here, sweet girl.”

Art by Meialoue

Gaze locked with Kieran’s glowering one, Ash reached for Tayshia with his free hand. His fingers brushed her jawline, causing her to startle. He lifted her face upward.

Eyelids fluttering shut, Ash leaned down, tilted his head a bit, and pressed a searing kiss to her lips. Her shock was palpable, present in the way her body went stiff at first. But then she relaxed, her hands tightening to squeeze his hand between both of hers as she applied the same amount of pressure, kissing him back.

His heart sang.

As he pulled back and looked into her eyes, into those shimmering hazel irises, he wasn’t sure it was false or fake or feigned. He didn’t care about the fact that she had at one point wanted to pretend to be dating just to make her ex envious. Ash really didn’t need an excuse to kiss her.

He wanted to.

Ash kissed her again, lips lingering against hers with the hope that she understood that it was real. When they broke apart, a smirk played about his lips.

“What were those for?” she asked, breathless.

He thought about telling her he’d seen Kieran. He contemplated telling her it was because of Quinn.

But he was selfish.

“Because I wanted to.”

Kieran and Quinn were gone before they reached their register. Ash paid for everything, having to let go of Tayshia’s hand so he could take his wallet out of his back pocket and swipe. She grabbed his hand again the second she could and held it all the way back to the car. And on the drive home, her hand snaked onto the center console to hold his again.

After working together to cook the chicken, vegetables, and garlic bread they’d gotten, Tayshia sat down beside him on the couch.

Ash tensed. She didn’t often sit next to him. The sectional was huge. Typically, he sat on the side that faced the TV; she sat on the side that faced the sliding glass door. This was the first time they’d not only sat down to eat in the living room, but had also made food together.

They ate in silence while watching the TV, Tayshia getting up to go to the bathroom afterward. When she came back, she curled up on the couch beside him, her feet facing him and her head on a couch pillow in the corner of the sectional.

She fell asleep within seconds.

Ash didn’t know what to make of this. Except for Halloween, she always sat far away from him. The fact that she was sitting—no, lying—beside him on the couch? It was so domestic.

He wished she were sleeping with her head on his chest.

Later, when night fell, Ash grew too sleepy to keep watching shows. He got up, taking their empty plates to the kitchen sink and deciding to do the dishes the following day. Then, he went back to the couch to wake Tayshia.

“Hey.” He started to shake her, then thought better of it. Instead, he touched her face, pushing a stray curl out of the way. She jolted awake, just as he expected she would, looking around in terror. “It’s just me.”

She stared at him.

“You should get to bed,” he murmured. “We got school tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said, sitting up. Her curls had flattened on the side she’d been asleep on, tangling and squishing together from the pressure. She looked half-asleep. “What time is it?”

“Time for sleep,” he said, absentmindedly reaching over to tug on the ends of her curls until they spiraled down again.

Tayshia watched him, her gaze dancing up and down his face as he fixed her hair. The tension increased, wrapping around Ash’s lungs until it grew difficult for him to catch his breath. He remembered what it felt like to kiss her in the store, right in front of everyone. Right in front of Kieran and Quinn. How soft her lips felt, how soft they always were. How it felt like dancing with one foot in the flames, playing with the way the fire burned.

“Well, good night,” Tayshia said.

Ash sat there for a moment after she left, his heart still pounding.

---

A knock at his door fifteen minutes later brought Ash out of bed.

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and shouldered the door frame. A smirk graced his features as he gazed down at Tayshia. She wore an oversized shirt and baggy pajama pants and her curls were pulled up into a satin bonnet. He was happy to see her crystal on its silver chain, clasped around her neck where it belonged.

“Well, well. Can’t sleep without me?”

“Put a damn shirt on,” she said with a scowl, shoving past him into his dorm room.

Ash looked down at himself, at the tattoos that littered his skin like a series of intricate paintings and the crystal hanging onto his chest. Dragging his hand backward through his hair, he turned to face her while kicking the door shut behind him. He wandered over to his dresser, where he rummaged for a clean shirt.

Tayshia sat down on the edge of his bed, dropping her head into her hands. Ash paused on his way back to the bed, feeling a tiny nagging in the back of his mind.

“Too bad today wasn’t successful,” he said in a nonchalant tone, sinking down onto the side of the bed he always slept on. He felt like the right half of his body was prickling, the hairs standing at attention and reaching toward her. “When did you wanna go to the bookstore?”

“Tomorrow. After school.”

“Okay. And what about earlier—you falling over? Are you feeling any better?”

“Just—” Her voice sounded thick. Beleaguered. Exhausted. “Just drop it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then at least tell me what’s going on with you. Because you’re not usually like this.”

“And you’re the expert on all things Tayshia?” she cried, lifting her head from her hands. Ash glanced at them, the opalescent moonlight casting him enough light to see that they were trembling. “Shit, Ash! Just leave me alone!”

His hackles rose. “You’re in my fucking room, and you want me to leave you alone?”

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, her voice echoing. “Please, okay? I just want you to leave me alone.”

In the thick, tense silence, Ash felt calm settling over him, pulling him forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. He laced his fingers and stared at the floor, contemplating what to do. He didn’t like being angry with her. There was clearly something wrong.

“I’m just so sick of this,” Tayshia said.

“Sick of what?” he replied, sitting up straight. “Sick of me?”

“I’m sick of the pressure. It feels like everyone wants me to be a certain way or act a certain way. And then when I do, I’m annoying and nobody likes me. No one likes me, my parents are mad at me, and my—” Tayshia let out an incredulous, mirthless laugh. “It’s unreal. My life is unreal. I just hate my...”

She trailed off.

“Your life?” He turned to look at her but her back was to him. He didn’t know what she was talking about. It seemed like something had happened.

“Myself.”

Her voice was a whisper, cracking like it was choked off in her throat. His heart skipped a beat. He recognized that tone.

Tayshia was going to cry.

Ash stood up and walked around the bed. He knelt down beside her, positioning himself into a crouch. He placed his right hand on the mattress beside her and his other hand on his thigh, giving her enough distance so she wouldn’t feel like he was crowding her.

She looked forlorn. Lips curling down into a pout, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped with dejection. In that giant shirt, she seemed frail.

“Why?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Try.”

“I don’t want to, Ash,” she whined, her voice trembling. “Please? I just want to sleep. I’m...I’m tired, and I can’t even sleep for twenty minutes without...ever since having to relive it, I just can’t stop dreaming about it. It was in the past. I had put it somewhere else inside me. Somewhere else where I could forget it happened and I—I—I just—”

She was hyperventilating now, taking in more breaths than she was letting out. He could see her legs shaking, one of them bouncing in agitation.

Ash felt his heart and stomach twisting together into one mass. In the next two seconds, he was sitting beside her on the bed. He placed his hand on her back.

“Hey. It’s okay. We can sleep.”

One more inhalation and then he saw her close her eyes. Tayshia took a deep breath and let it out. A tear escaped her lashes. Her chin and mouth quivered.

“I had a routine,” she said in a high-pitched voice, tears continuing to roll unchecked down her cheeks. “I had a routine where any time I felt those feelings come back up—those reminders—I could get rid of them quickly. But now, I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I can’t forget it again. I want to go back to that day and do it all over. I wish I would have kept my mouth shut. I just wish I wouldn’t have stood up for myself with Kieran. Maybe he wouldn’t have taken my phone.”

Ash’s brow furrowed and his heart raced, hovering between hatred for the man and anguish for her.

“It’s not your—”

“I just want to sleep,” she said, cutting him off. “I just want to sleep."

She broke apart like a fallen porcelain doll, her pieces lying shattered on the floor. Sobs ripped through her, gut-wrenching in the way they made her entire body shake with violence. It was the same sort of weeping that he’d heard in her memory, when she was on the floor at the foot of the bed in Paris, desperate for reprieve.

Ash didn’t think about it. He didn’t think about their past, or whether or not he was going to scare her or make things awkward. He thought about nothing.

Nothing except her.

He wrapped his arms around her, one hand curving around the silk of her bonnet at the back of her head. The other arm curled fully from shoulder to shoulder, pressing her against his side until she turned her face into his chest and wailed into his shirt.

“Come here,” he murmured. “Come here, to me.”

She curled her legs up and across his lap. Her hands wrapped themselves in the fabric of his fresh shirt, pulling until he thought she might tear it if he tried to put any space between them. She clung to him as though they were in that blue hotel room and she just needed someone to hold her.

“Try to breathe,” he said when her weeping began to sound somewhat strangled.

“I c-can’t,” she gasped between sobs. “I c-can’t b-b-breathe. I d-d-don’t w-want to.”

Ash tightened his hold on her, remembering Halloween night and how she’d asked him to hold her tighter. She felt so damn frail in his arms and he didn’t know if it was because she was so broken and he was the only thing holding her pieces together, or if it was because she really was that fragile.

Tayshia Cole wasn’t supposed to be fragile, but he supposed that type of thinking was what had caused her so much stress.

Slowly, her breathing began to return to normal as she inhaled and exhaled through her continued weeping.

“You’re doing it, see?” he crooned, his fingers stroking down the nape of her neck to try and calm her. Anything to make her feel better. He didn’t want her to faint. “You’re breathing. It’s okay.”

He held her while she cried for the next few minutes, ignorant of how tired he’d been when she’d first came to his bedroom. Eventually, her sobs quieted to catatonia and the occasional sniffle. Even then, he continued to hold her.

“Do you wanna maybe lay down?” he suggested, keeping his voice low. “We can get some sleep.”

She nodded, her eyes closed.

Ash thought for a moment about the best way to move them both, settling upon hooking one arm beneath her knees. He lifted her and turned to set her down. Once she was lying down, he cast one more glance at her face. Her eyes were open now, half-lidded and puffy. Tears kept falling, rolling slow and sporadic from her eyes to her jaw. She looked somehow more beautiful to him than he’d ever thought anyone could be.

That disturbed him.

He went back to his side of the bed and climbed in, pulling the coverlet up over the both of them. Lying down, he had just started to roll to face the room when she surprised him by moving until she was pressed to his side.

“Did you want me to—”

“Yes,” she whispered, and then her fingers twisted in his shirt by his abdomen.

Swallowing against his sudden urge to blush, he faced her and slung his arm over her. He curved it around her back.

“More.”

After some hesitation, he slid his other arm between her body and the mattress and gathered her up against him. It felt nice, having her so close, and he imagined it felt nice for her to be embraced.

“Your head’s not even on the pillow,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

He felt her burrowing closer, her nose brushing his neck.

“Fine,” he said. “Now, we sleep.”

She didn’t reply, so he let his eyelids flutter shut. Ash didn’t think he’d ever felt more at peace, which was strange given that it was Tayshia he was full-on cuddling in his bed. And for a moment, his life flashed before his mind’s eyes. A life where he went to sleep in his bed with Tayshia in his arms every night, safe from anything and anyone who could hurt her.

Neither of them would be alone.