Starlight on the Snow - Chapter Six

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Chapter Six

May 30th, 2018

Eleven months passed by at a crawl so agonizing that Ash thought he might die im jail.

Sure, it was dramatic to think that way, but everything Ash did was dramatic. He saw the serious, deeper undercurrents that ran beneath the surface of the way everyone lived their lives. After everything that had happened with his father, he saw pointlessness in pleasantries and knew that there was no amount of treading water that could keep him from drowning.

Because his mother was dead and it was all his fault.

He’d spent so many nights in his cell, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes as he beat himself up inside. His father was a piece of shit, but Bertha could have helped. Bertha could have done something to save her if Ash would have just told her—or anyone else, even Elijah—that his mother was sick.

Ash could still remember the day he’d gotten the news. Could still remember the way his heart had torn itself to shreds with every word that came out of Elijah’s mouth. Could still remember slamming the phone down on the tabletop, telling Elijah to fuck off, and asking the officer to take him back.

Lizette had experienced a heart attack, right there in the courtroom. She’d collapsed into unconsciousness and the paramedics had been able to resuscitate her long enough to get her onto the gurney. But her heart was weak and she flatlined several times.

She’d died before the ambulance made it to the hospital.

“Why didn’t you come tell me right when it fucking happened?” Ash had snarled through the window at Elijah, tears trickling down his cheeks as his rage overpowered his despair. “Why would you let me have hope?”

“Because things were already so hard for you! I didn’t want you to have something else to worry about! I was helping my mom and your neighbor take care of everything.”

“For three days?” He’d slammed his palm flat against the bulletproof glass, earning himself a scolding word from the officer who’d walked him there. “Three days go by, and you can’t even stop to fucking call?”

“I was busy handling your mom’s fucking funeral, Ash!” Elijah had yelled back.

Ash had stared at him in horror, his eyelids fluttering. When he’d spoken, his voice cracking on a slight whine.

“What? You already held her funeral?”

“No. We couldn’t afford it and you guys don’t have any family.”

“We have family friends. The neighbor—Bertha. Or the neighbors on the other side, the Sunamuras. Didn’t you ask them?”

“No! We just did what the coroners said. We couldn’t afford a funeral, so we had to go with the less expensive option. Ash, this came out of my mom’s pocket and you know how hard shit is for us.”

Ash had closed his eyes against the pain. “You had her cremated?”

“I’m so sorry, man.” Elijah’s voice had faltered. “You’re in jail. It’s not like you could make the arrangements from here.”

Ash had been unable to look at him for a second longer after that. Elijah was one of his best friends and had been since they were kids, but this was too much. He’d gone too far.

He hadn’t accepted any phone calls from him until Christmas.

The days hadn’t blurred together as fast as he’d hoped. Between trying to keep up on his schoolwork, fending off the inmates who didn’t like him, and managing the jobs the warden assigned, his days were long and full.

He’d managed to make friends with one person in the yard—the guy who did everyone’s tattoos, Diego. He was a tattoo artist who’d gotten into a bad bar fight and was serving out the remainder of his sentence. Once he had befriended Diego, the amount of fights Ash got into tapered off until the energy in the jail shifted.

The more Ash hung around Diego, the more people started to give him a chance. And since Diego did everyone’s tattoos—including some of the more lenient officers—he did Ash’s, too. He just charged everyone else for them.

Ash had never had the highest pain tolerance, but the longer he sat under the needle, the more he found he liked it. Perhaps it was the vibration. Perhaps it was the pain itself. Perhaps tattoos were the only way he felt like he had control over his life.

He wanted more.

Ash had started his sentence with less than ten tattoos. Now everything, from his upper body to his neck to his chest, to his abdomen to his back, to his arms to the backs of both hands, were all covered in whatever Diego wanted. As long as Ash let him have creative freedom, he didn’t charge him anything. Ash got to keep his commissary, and Diego got to flex his artistic abilities.

When he stepped off of the curb that hot May day in 2018, onto the parking lot of the jail, his best friends were there waiting for him.

The first person he saw was Andre Gonzales, one of his best friends. Then Ji Hyun, bouncing on her heels, holding Andre’s hand until the very last minute. Elijah was leaning against the side of Andre’s car with his arms crossed and a grin on his face.

When Ji Hyun saw Ash, she burst out into happy tears and took off towards him. He felt what was left of his heart bursting with joy in his chest, causing him to bend at the knees so he could catch her around the waist and lift her into the air.

He spun her, marveling at how good it felt to be in someone’s arms again.

The next thing he knew, Elijah and Andre joined into the hug, and then they were all talking at once.

Everyone missed him. There was a welcome home party at Andre’s apartment that night. They couldn’t believe how many tattoos Ash had now. Ji Hyun complained about how long his black roots were getting at the crown of his head. The teachers couldn’t stop remarking how peaceful classes and the hallways were without him wandering the halls. Ji Hyun, Andre, and Elijah were all happy that he was back.

And they were taking him to his mother’s grave.

---

“You like, nervous and shit?” Andre asked as the group traipsed across the lush, green grass of the immaculately-tended church graveyard. The sunlight made the lustrous bronze of his skin seem to glow. It glinted on the heights of his sharp cheekbones. His curly hair was tucked beneath a backward snapback hat, a couple tufts peeking out.

Ji Hyun and Elijah were walking ahead of them, leading the way. Andre and Ash had fallen behind, talking amongst themselves in quiet voices. Andre had a blunt in his right hand, the smoke reaching lazy tendrils towards the clear sky.

“Nah,” Ash said. He wore the same skinny jeans with the rips in the knees and the V-neck that he’d been arrested in. His crystal once again hung around his neck, its weight familiar in a comforting way. His hair was so grown-out by now that it hung shaggy around his chin and his skin was glad to finally be kissed by the sun. “I’ve been waiting for this day, you know? I never got to say good-bye.”

Andre placed a hand on his shoulder as he took a drag off of the blunt. His brows pulled together beneath his hat as he looked over at Ash. “I’m so sorry, bro. You never should have had to know what it feels like.”

Ash looked at him. “How’d you get past it?”

“I didn’t.” Andre let out a laugh that seemed as mirthless as it was telling. “You never will. But you’ll get to a point where it’s bearable.”

“Can I get some of that?” Ash asked as they crested the top of a hill between a row of headstones. “I haven’t had any in so long.”

“For sure."

Ash accepted the blunt from him and took a drag, feeling the burn as it swelled in his lungs. The effect was instantaneous. Calm, settling over him and into the depths of his bones until it turned him weightless. He felt like he floated down to the bottom of that hill, the same way he’d been floating through life ever since he lost his mother.

“Here it is,” Ji Hyun announced as Ash and Andre approached. She slipped her arms around Andre’s waist, giving Ash a sad look. “It’s right over there. It’s exactly the one you told us to get.”

“White marble, favorite Bible verse engraved, and gardenias every two weeks,” Elijah added.

Ash nodded, gazing forward.

His mother’s grave lay almost within a plot of its own. The other graves were spread apart from it. Much like she had in life, it existed separate from everyone else’s. In its own world. The headstone looked gorgeous, having been paid for by the life insurance money her death had brought him. But Ash knew.

No amount of money would ever bring her back.

He sat down in the grass, hugged his knees to his chest, and started planning how to get his shit together again.

Ash was on probation for the next three years. He had plenty of money thanks to his mother’s life insurance but would need to get a lawyer to help him arrange to pay his fines. He had plans to get a job of some sort so he could have something to do when he wasn’t in school, given that Christ Rising had allowed him to remain a student as long as he did his assignments in jail and mailed them in.

The house was essentially his. It was paid for, having been given to their family in the will of his grandparents and even though it was technically in his father’s name, it was Ash’s. He knew everything was still there, painted prone on a canvas of the past. Stepping into it would be like diving into the oldest, darkest parts of the ocean. He might never come back up.

He wasn’t sure he could do it.

As he gazed upon his mother’s grave, he felt relieved. At least he was free of a cell. He was home.

The bars that caged him in were a different kind now.

---

September 1st, 2018

Ash stood in the center of his new living room, hands on his hips as he glanced around at the new furniture he’d purchased.

He hadn’t been able to go back home. He hadn’t wanted to, and he wasn’t sure he would for a long time. Letting everything continue to collect dust was preferable to walking through that door and seeing everything frozen in time like he wished he could be.

He’d chosen to live with Andre until it was time to move into the school-owned apartment complex. They’d saved his application from the previous year and were carrying it over to the current year, so until move-in day on September 1st, Ash crashed on Andre’s couch. He bought a suitcase and new clothes at the mall so he would have something to live out of, and spent his time getting any financial things that needed to be dealt with handled.

Ash had maintained fairly good grades while in jail. He wasn’t worried about settling into his classes, or understanding the course material of the pre-requisites. He’d never liked homework but that didn’t mean he was unintelligent. He was just worried about the way the students were going to treat him now.

Who would his roommate be?

The beige-and-brown complex was situated at the foot of the mountain road leading up to the school. For the students of the program who didn’t have cars, there was a shuttle bus that took them on the twenty-minute drive up. It was a large complex and thus, the apartments were large, too.

When he’d moved into the two-bedroom apartment a few days before the end of August, he’d realized that furniture was kinda important.

He’d called Andre and Elijah up, and the three of them had taken Andre’s truck out to Portland. They went to the furniture superstore so he could furnish the house. He’d chosen all black, grey, and purple, complete with a black suede sectional, galaxy-inspired art, a black area rug to go over the pale carpet, and modern floor lamps that made him think of space.

Ash figured the guy he’d be rooming with would be okay with it. The letter from the school had informed him that his roommate had checked off the box under not bringing furniture.

Now that everything had been dropped off and his friends were gone, Ash stood in the living room ensuring everything was arranged the way he wanted it. The deliverymen from the superstore had placed the dishes, cookware, and silverware on the counters, so that was next on his list. The roommate could be there soon and he might want to eat. It was after six, so it was a plausible conclusion to come to.

Changing the song on his phone, which was hooked up to the speaker he’d bought, the sounds of metalcore music began to play over the speakers. The heavy guitars, slamming screams, and pounding drums filled the apartment. He bobbed his head as he opened the box containing the different-sized plates he’d picked out.

It felt good to hear music again. He and Andre had spent the entire summer getting blazed and planning on going to shows but never actually getting out of the house to do it. The second he could go to a show again, Ash was going to.

He loved shows. The rush of energy in the room as everyone jumped up and down. The feeling of hands shoving him to the left and the right in the pit, people taking out the aggression that the bullshit in their lives caused. The music playing so loud that he couldn’t hear himself think, let alone hear himself screaming the words at the top of his lungs.

Rocking out in his kitchen would never compare.

Suddenly, the front door swung open.

“Maybe she’s not here—oh! There’s music playing.”

It was a girl’s voice. Ash didn’t recognize it but something about it inspired nostalgia. It was high-pitched, not nasally, almost melodic.

A girl with jet-black hair that fell in waves to her elbows entered the room, her blue-eyed gaze piercing across the living room and into the kitchen. Her brow furrowed in confusion, her purse swinging off of one arm and keys jangling in her hand. She wore a striped bodycon dress with short sleeves and her lips were shiny with gloss. Her heart-shaped face was pale and freckled.

He recognized her.

Standing in his living room was Quinn Baker, a girl who had gone to Christ Rising with him since ninth grade. She looked stunned to see him and she glanced around, obviously looking for something as she stepped out of the way of someone entering after her. That someone was taller than her, balancing a box in her arms, and in the middle of speaking in a strained voice.

“Can you check if she’s picked a bedroom yet? I need to figure out which one is mine. I need to put this shit down before I pass away.”

Ash nearly dropped the stack of black porcelain plates he held in his hands.

Now that voice he recognized. It was a voice that he hadn’t heard in eleven months, but that he couldn’t stop dreaming about since he’d gotten out of jail. Because the moment he got his crystal back was the moment the dreams started up again.

Tayshia.

The two girls stood there, staring at each other and then at him in turn.

“Ashley?!” Tayshia pulled a face that lingered somewhere between shock and revulsion. “Your name is Ashley?!”

“Well, fuck,” he said.