Starlight on the Snow - Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven

Ashley was his legal name.

The name he’d hated since birth. The name that he’d complained about being given for years and years and years. The name that had gotten him bullied mercilessly in elementary school before he started to grow so tall that everyone was scared of him.

It was why he had a fucking nickname.

“There must have been a mix-up,” said Quinn.

“Maybe the person reading the applications assumed...?”

“Oh, Hell no.” Tayshia shook her head, still holding the box. Her kinky curls, which fell out of the top of her head like a waterfall to her shoulders, fanned out around her head when she shook it. “Absolutely not. Absolutely not.”

“Well, we can just go talk to them,” Quinn said, breathing an awkward laugh. “I’m sure they can get you into a new apartment, I mean—it’s a Christian school. And this complex is not co-ed.”

Tayshia set the box onto the ground, standing up with a hand over her chest as she caught her breath. Her hazel eyes cut through to the core of him. Within them, Ash saw all the things he knew he deserved.

Mistrust.

Fear.

Hatred.

“I’ll go down to the leasing office right now,” she said. “There’s no way they’re allowing this.”

Ash said nothing, watching her walk out the door, leaving he and Quinn alone. They stood there in silence for a moment before Ash resumed putting the dishes away. Tayshia could move if she wanted—he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d signed the lease.

“This is so weird,” Quinn said. “I mean, it’s not like we know each other, but it’s like, really weird.”

Ash bit his lip. He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d known that he was bound to encounter negativity—it would be naïve for him to think otherwise. He and his father had held an ice cream parlor full of people at gunpoint. There was a slim-to-none chance that anyone in school was going to welcome him with open arms, religious and forgiving or not.

“Except that it’s like, horrifying,” Quinn said.

Ash raised one eyebrow.

“Not that you’re like...a horrifying person, or anything.” She laughed again, pulling all of her hair to one side of her head and relaxing one hip. Her dress was extremely tight. “But it’s like, a horrifying situation. I mean, for Tayshia. Not for me.” More laughter. “I’m sure you’re like, super nice and everything.”

Ash grabbed three large, stacked pots with one hand, his gaze remaining trained on her as he opened the cupboard beside the oven and slid them inside.

She tittered, clearly flustered.

“But like, she’s kinda freaked out by you. You know what I mean?” Quinn’s gaze flickered up and down the parts of him that she could see. “Which she has like, every right to be, or whatever. Because you know you...” She grimaced again. “You know?”

Ash narrowed his eyes. “I know what?”

“You like...” Another grimace, and she took her left hand—which didn’t have her purse and keys—and made a gun with her fingers. “You know?”

Ash placed his hands on the counter, leaning over it and hanging his head for a second. Something about Quinn’s personality had rubbed him the wrong way long ago, in spite of the fact that she was a smoke show. But right here—right now—she was pissing him off.

“I’m not scared of you,” Quinn went on, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure you’re like, super nice and super, you know—whatever. But Tayshia, she had these nightmares for a while that she’d like, text me about and it was really hard. Like, it was really hard for a while there. Which is understandable, because... Well, you know.”

Ash gritted his teeth.

Quinn paced towards the couch, taking in the sight of all the furniture.

“I’m glad you’re out, though.” Her tone was sickly-sweet. “I mean, you were in jail. That’s super, super...well, it’s not cool. But it’s something. Something to tell people, that’s for sure. Did you get into like, fights and stuff?”

Ash just stared at the counter.

“I mean, if Tayshia can suck it up and stay, it might still be cool. You guys could make up and be friends. She needs to relax. She’s been so uptight since her trip to Paris this summer. Seriously, she’s so—you know.”

You know, you know, you know.

“Can you like, shut the fuck up?” Ash said, lifting his head to glare at her. “I don’t give a fuck what you think or what your friend is doing.”

Quinn’s head pulled back on her shoulders. The keys jangled as she crossed her arms over her chest, pursed her glossy lips, and lifted her chin. Her expression turned cold and judgmental.

“I’m surprised they let someone like you have his own place. Don’t they have to check your record?”

“Okay,” Ash said, standing up tall. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but this is my fucking house. And you’re not gonna talk to me like that. If you have opinions, you can take them outside.”

“You’re lucky I’m not in the program,” she said. “Because I can tell we would not get along.”

“Good, because I already can’t wait until you leave.”

He gave her a false twist upward of the lips and then went back to putting the new dishes away.

The front door swung open again.

Tayshia stormed inside, a sour expression on her face. She marched up to the box of her things she’d left, seemingly unaware of the negative atmosphere in the apartment. As she lifted it up, she cast Ash a scathing glance.

“They said since we signed the lease, we’d have to pay the early termination fee to break it.”

“Seriously?” he asked, eyebrows up.

She nodded, frowning. Then, she looked at Quinn.

“Can you help me get the rest of my stuff out of your car?”

“Yes,” Quinn said, sounding relieved. She dropped the keys onto the counter, glowering at Ash, and then she left.

Alone, Tayshia and Ash stared at one another.

Tayshia’s gaze washed over his body—his neck, his arms coming out of the sleeves of his short-sleeved grey button-up, his hands. He knew what she was looking at.

Ash had gotten a few more tattoos that summer.

Diego was out of jail and working out of Portland, so driving to see him was no big deal. Especially with the use of Gabriel’s second car, which had still been sitting in the driveway the one time Ash went by his family home.

He hadn’t gone inside, of course, choosing instead to send Elijah in to grab the keys from his bedroom.

Diego had insisted on adding more to the dragon on his back, as well as finishing up his right arm to fill in any empty space on his sleeve. He’d also added a bit to Ash’s chest piece and added some color to the roses and chains tattooed around his neck.

After that, Ash had stopped spending so much money. He’d gotten quite a bit from the life insurance, and he knew better than to be the type of person who blew it all on stupid shit when he had the rest of his life ahead of him and no idea what he wanted to do for a career.

Tayshia cleared her throat.

“They told me that even though the school owns the apartment complex, they still have to follow the law when it comes to leasing,” she said, voice monotone. “We signed a one year lease, so we have to stay for the entire duration.”

Ash tilted his head to the side. “How much is the fee?”

“It’s literally over two thousand dollars,” she said. “But I think it goes down every month.”

He knew he could afford that. With how much money he had right now, it was akin to spare change. But something inside of him didn’t want to pay the fee on principle. While he felt guilty for participating in the situation with his father and the ice cream shop, he didn’t feel like he should have to pay a fee just because she wanted to leave.

“You got two thousand dollars?” he asked.

“Obviously not.”

“I thought your parents were rich.”

“Not anymore.” She turned, shifting the box to a better position in her arms. “Which room is mine?”

Ash watched her, not saying anything.

“Which room is mine?” she asked again, raising her voice in annoyance.

“The smaller one,” he said. He’d picked the master because he was an asshole, but now he felt like he deserved it. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t they rich anymore?”

She gave him a disgusted look. “Because my dad got shot and was in the hospital for two months. That’s why. I’m lucky they saved my college fund. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

Tayshia disappeared into the hall, leaving him alone with the music and his guilt. He felt his stomach churning with remorse and embarrassment.

As she walked back out, Tayshia turned to face him. He saw that she wore an oversized white sweater with a wide neckline that made her brown skin look velvety and rich in color, and black leggings that caused her legs to look long and lean. Before he had a chance to find it odd that she was wearing a sweater at the end of the summer, his gaze fell upon something he recognized.

Her half of the amethyst.

It was hanging on a silver chain from a tiny hole that he assumed was drilled into it. Yes, it could have been any crystal, but he felt it. He just knew it was the same one from that night in the cavern. His own crystal hung around his neck on the black leather cord, hidden beneath his shirt with the rock warm against the bare skin of his chest.

He wondered if she dreamed of him, too.

After he’d gotten out of jail, he’d gotten so drunk at the party Andre threw him that he’d passed out fully-clothed. He hadn’t taken his necklace off and after eleven months without them, he had dreamed. He’d dreamed of Tayshia, just like he had the night of his birthday. He knew it was ridiculous—that there was no such thing as magic or legends—but he did know that the dreams had stopped when he was arrested. The first night after he’d been released, he dreamed of her again.

And he dreamed of her every night that he wore the necklace after that.

The dreams were so vivid that he often woke on Andre’s couch, gasping for air. They were always arbitrary, smidgeons and flashes of memories from a life that belonged to her. Drops of her spirit from a distance splattered across the canvas of his mind. He saw them like a movie.

Tayshia talking with her friends. Tayshia with her family. Tayshia with Kieran.

He wasn’t sure if they were dreams or memories. Ash had gone days with only a few hours of sleep that even weed couldn’t rectify. Days without any answers.

And here she was, standing before him with the crystal hanging around her neck.

Why would she keep it?

“We can make this work.” Tayshia said. “We’ll just have to set rules and stick to them.”

“Oh, yeah?” The silverware was loud, clattering as he sorted it into the plastic divider he’d bought.

“Yes. There’s nothing we can do, so we may as well take the loss and make the best of it.”

“As long as you keep your fucking friend away from me, then we’re good.”

“Quinn?” Tayshia looked puzzled. “But—”

Quinn came back inside, carrying a box. Tayshia took it from her so she could go back out and grab more. She didn’t come back out of her room, so Ash assumed she was unpacking.

It took the girls fifteen minutes to get all five boxes and the one large suitcase that Tayshia had brought into the house. When they were done, it was time for Quinn to go.

“My parents are coming up on my birthday to bring my furniture,” Tayshia said to Quinn at the door. “Can you come up with them?”

“I’m not sure if I can,” Quinn said. “Because I might have a lot of homework or like, projects. I mean, it’s university, so...”

“No, I get it,” Tayshia said. They started walking towards the door. “Are you sure you have to go right now, though?”

“Yeah, I have to get on the road. It takes two-and-a-half hours to get back to Medford,” Quinn said. She gave Ash a curl of her lips that felt as fake as plastic, and then she pulled Tayshia into a hug. “Plus, school starts for me next week and I wanna spend as much time with my family as I can before I have to like, drive back and forth to Ashland every day. Ew, right?”

“Ew.” Tayshia hugged her back. “Well, if you change your mind, girl, let me know. We can do a sleepover.”

They said their goodbyes. Every second felt like Ash was walking to the guillotine. The front door clicked shut and then Tayshia turned around.

“Rules?”

“What?” he said, in the process of putting the last of the dishes away.

“For the apartment. Do you have any rules?”

Ash was silent for a moment. He’d never had control over anything in his life like this. His father had always been the one in control of everything in the house. With his mother, her issues with food had controlled them both. In jail, Ash hadn’t had control over anything at all. Now, Tayshia was giving him a modicum of agency that was new to him.

“I guess...just pay bills on time and keep shit clean,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning his hips back against the counter. He studied her through the pieces of hair that kept falling into his eyes. “Can you do that?”

She blinked as though taken aback, her brow still furrowed.

“Verbal confirmation would be grand,” he said, wrapping his words in sarcasm.

“Okay. Damn. My parents are paying for the bills here,” she said, appearing annoyed. “From my college money. And yes, I can keep shit clean.”

Now that he was looking at her—really looking at her—Ash could see that she had changed quite a bit in the year since he’d seen her. She didn’t carry herself the same. Where once there had been a flame of ferocity in her disposition, now there only existed a hollow anger. There was an emptiness in her eyes, something there that he couldn’t explain.

Something that he could only describe as what he thought depression might look like.

He felt the guilt once again weaving its way through him like poison in his veins. Quinn had said Tayshia had nightmares after the ice cream shop. Could it be that she was still affected by it? By that fear—the fear of seeing her father’s blood spreading on the floor as she pressed on the wound? Of knowing she held her father’s life in her hands while he, Ash, just watched?

Why did it feel like it was something worse?

“I guess my rules for you would be...no parties. No drugs. Don’t drink. Typical stuff.”

“Aw,” he drawled without mirth. “That’s all the fun stuff.”

“You’re not twenty-one. You can’t drink.”

“I’ve been drinking since I was in high school. I’d say that means I can. You just don’t want me to.”

“How old are you?!” She looked irritated.

“Twenty,” he said, “but I literally will do whatever the fuck I want. I cannot stress that enough to you.”

“Clearly,” she spat out. “Whatever. You’ve said your rules, and I’ve said mine. It’s up to you whether you follow them.”

“Same to you.”

She turned to go, then stopped. When she looked back at him, her lips downturned and eyes glittering, he thought she might truly hate him.

“If you don’t get on my bad side, Ash, I won’t get on yours. The only way this is going to work for this lease is if you recognize and understand that we don’t have to be anything—enemies or friends. You’re nothing to me and as long as you don’t piss me off, I won’t become something to you. Do you understand?”

She stomped off to her bedroom. He heard the door slam shut moments later.

Ash sighed. Things didn’t have to be this complicated. He had the money to easily pay the early termination fee and get her out of the lease.

He just didn’t think he wanted to.

---

In his room, Ash still had some things to arrange.

The clothes he’d collected while living with Andre were piled on the floor and needed to be hung up. He’d bought hangers earlier that day, too, so he had plenty in the closet to be able to do it.

As he worked on hanging his jackets up, he glanced over at the dresser. He’d had his mail forwarded to Andre’s house and hadn’t had the chance to open that day’s mail. There were spam envelopes, ads for grocery stores, and one letter.

From his father.

Gabriel had been sending letters from prison to Ash at the county jail once a week since Lizette died. Ash had refused to read them, finding that it was easier to blame the person who had failed him than it was to blame himself for making poor choices. Because if he blamed himself, then that would mean facing the fact that he was a bad person. Bad people didn’t deserve good things.

But his father?

His father had made it clear who he was from the moment he first got high. From the moment he first raised his fist against Ash. From the moment he grabbed that gun out of the glove compartment, Gabriel had been honest about who he was.

He had failed at the one job that should have come the easiest to him: being a father.

Gabriel had turned Ash into a haunted shadow of his once outgoing self, causing him to find solace in things that made him forget the world around him. Gabriel’s neglect had given Lizette the perfect environment within which her problems could fester.

Now that he knew better, Ash just wanted to finish school and get on with his life.

He knew there were going to be people at Christ Rising who expected or hoped for some form of apology from him, whether on his own behalf or Gabriel’s. But he felt like there was no point in apologizing when what he’d done was unforgivable. Not when Mr. Cole’s shooting could be blamed on him. Not when he’d taken part in collecting those wallets and terrorizing those people.

And then there was Tayshia. Tayshia, the person he’d probably hurt more than anyone else.

He couldn’t even say her name aloud.

Ash wasn’t going to read his father’s letters. He never read any of them. In jail, he'd just stashed them underneath his pillow in his cell and brought them all to Andre’s with him. Now, they were stuffed in a small wooden jewelry box that Andre’s mother had left behind before her death. He’d given it to Ash as a form of letting go, but Ash had accepted it knowing how important it was to him. And inside of it, he’d put all of his father’s unread, unopened letters.

He couldn’t look at the envelope anymore.

After hanging the leather jacket in his hands up, he snatched the stained envelope up and stuffed it into the wooden chest with all of the others.