If (33 page)

I couldn’t do it any longer; go through pleasantries like he hadn’t ripped my heart out and smashed it five years ago. I couldn’t let him ease into this.

I choked down the lump in my throat. “Why did you leave?”

Ash sighed and shook his head as he gripped the edge of the countertop. “I know you won’t believe this, but I did it because I loved you. More than any desire for my own happiness.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Bird, look at the life you’ve had. All you’ve been able to accomplish since I left. None of that would have happened if I was in the picture.”

“You don’t know that.” I hated that it sounded like I was begging for him. I wasn’t, but I was speaking as myself five years ago. There was a part of me that was stunted, never able to get an answer to that question, and I needed to go back to that part of me to give it closure.

“I do. You went on tour right after, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I followed your career, Bird. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do. The only thing that rivals it is burying my sister.”

“You know what was the hardest thing I ever had to do? Dance through tears on my first big night. I cried during that whole show. It was supposed to be the best night of my life and it was the most painful. You said you weren’t going anywhere and then you were gone!” I took a breath. I didn’t want Ash to see my tears. “You brought back joy to my dancing. And then you took it away. You stole it from me. The thing I loved most in the world hurt because it reminded me of you. I cried through every set. Every single one. I kept looking for you to appear in your seat because I refused to believe you could just abandon me. For a year after that, every time I danced, my heart ached. It was empty. And the worst part was not knowing why or where you had gone. You owed me that much. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I couldn’t . . .”

“Why, why couldn’t you? Because you walk away when things get hard? Because you can’t face the pain you cause?” Knowing his issues, it was a low blow, but he had earned it.

“Because I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I saw you cry. And I needed you to hate me. I needed you to forget me.”

“Well, that worked, didn’t it?” I sneered. “I would have done anything for you, Ash. Anything.”

“That’s my point.”

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” I said, contemplating forfeiting my pants to the washing machine and escaping right away.

“You know why you’re here.”

“Oh, don’t you dare, Ash. I have a great life. I have a great boyfriend. I’m not here to rekindle puppy love.” His face sank, and instead of enjoying the pain like I hoped I could, I felt sympathy. I had imagined seeing him one day and throwing my wonderful life and hot boyfriend in his face, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying in real life as it was in my fantasies. Maybe it’s because those were the things he wanted for me all along.

“If it’s all so perfect, what are you doing here?”

“You came to me, Ash.”

“You came to me, too.”

I balled my fists up and pressed them against the counter as if, like anchors, they could keep me from being drawn into Ash’s spell.

“Bird. I promise you that the past five years, I have wished I could be by your side. It’s all I ever do. I tried to put you out of my mind and tell myself I did the right thing. And I believe I did. But I didn’t want to do it. I never wanted to do it. I did it because I promised to do what was best for you. I would’ve done anything for you too. And I did. We were young and you would have made bad decisions. And I needed to learn how to live life on my own. How to cope with my illness. I’m not perfect, not even close, but I have a good handle on things.”

I softened my voice. “I’m happy for you.” The mask of resentment couldn’t be held up any longer. “Ash, I worried about you all these years. If you were back out on the streets, if you had had a relapse. I worried so much.”

As the emotion poured out, I felt Ash’s arms wrap around me. He whispered in my ear “we needed to grow on our own. I needed to let you go so you could
fly Bird . . . fly.
”

I let out a snotty laugh through the tears. “I can’t believe that. I can’t believe all that pain was for something good. You hurt me so much.”

“I know.”

It just wasn’t the same when Javier held me. He and I had been together for months, but I couldn’t have a conversation as raw as I was having with the man whom I hadn’t seen in five years. We saw each other inside out. We didn’t have to dig.

“I’m sorry, Bird. I did the only thing I thought I could do. I knew you were strong. I always knew you would succeed, and I refused to be the one to hold you back,” Ash whispered into my ear.

And I didn’t want to believe Ash. I didn’t want to make it so easy on him, but I felt his sincerity. He was right. I would have not gone on tour, seen the world, become one of the faces of one of the most successful dance franchises of all time, become the woman who so many girls looked up to for strength in the face of obstacles. Ash leaving made me stronger. I could hate him for it, or I could just accept what was.

“Bird, you still shine brighter than anyone else. You still smell like lavender and you have an aura around you that radiates. Your laughter is still a buttery gold and your voice still looks like the clearest teal waves of the ocean. I still paint you all the time from memory. And I would wish that somehow it would bring you back to me. So many times I painted and played a record and it ached because I just hoped I would peek over the easel and see you dancing.”

I felt myself slipping back to that girl who was foolishly in love with a tortured destitute artist.

“And you’re here. And I can’t help feeling like somehow it all brought you back. My pain, splattered all over hundreds of canvases. Bird . . . please. You don’t have to invite me back into your life, I just want you to understand that I did what I did out of love. A love so pure I have never been able to find it again. We’re all just trying to do the best we can, right?”

I sulked back tears, stubbornly trying to hold on to my bitterness. “I guess.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that ever since I came into your life all I have done is complicate it. If I could go back and make it so you had never seen me—“

“I never said I wished I hadn’t met you. That time, despite being poor and struggling, they were some of the best months of my life. That’s why I had such a hard time. It wasn’t that I wished I never met you, it was that I wished you had never gone away.”

Ash wiped away a single tear with the pad of his thumb, and goose bumps raised along my arms and chest. My breathing skipped and he felt it. I could tell by the way the dark lashes around his green eyes fluttered. He cupped the back of my neck softly and hugged me. I chose to stop resisting and just allowed myself to let go of the bitterness I felt. It was only weighing me down.

His lips grazed the shell of my ear and caressed my cheek. I thought to pull away, to leave him like he left me. But it was not what my heart or body wanted. It’s not what they needed.

I needed that one last time. Just one more time. I had begged for that on the many nights I had cried myself to sleep.

I tilted my lips up to meet his and the kiss quickly grew from soft to something carnal. Like two people who knew the key to ending the never-ending emptiness was somewhere inside the other, and we had to consume each other to find it.

Ash boosted me onto the counter, nearly ripping my tights as he pulled them off of me.

Panting, grabbing, moaning, thrusting, sweating, tears.

We tried to make up for everything we had missed. We tried to hurt each other. We tried to heal each other’s pain.

This was wrong. This what not going as I had planned. But when it came to Ash, nothing ever did.

ASH

I had her in my arms again. Holding Bird was like holding the universe in your arms, with all its infinite brightness and possibility rolled into one person.

As I thrust into her, I was flooded with all the overlapping sensations in a way that only she could trigger. A transparent streaming rainbow of light swept us in its racing color. I was engulfed in a soft warmness, like being wrapped in a pelt of fur on a cold winter night. I tasted the sweet mix of her mouth and nectar combined with the saltiness of her tears. She was ambrosia.

I clung to Bird like if I let her go, the stream of light would sweep her away and reclaim her, and I would never see her again. I couldn’t let her go again. And I understood the pain I had put her through because I feared going through it myself now that I had her back in my arms.

Afterward, we lay on my couch, sprawled limbs under a disheveled blanket. Like those nights when we made our art together, it felt like time would just stop existing and we could be here forever.

“I want to show you something,” I told her as I ran my finger down her silky skin.

“Oh?”

“Just wrap yourself in the blanket,” I said, sliding on some jeans. I led her to the other end of my loft, to a spiral staircase that led to my private rooftop deck.

“Walls,” she muttered knowingly.

“Walls,” I called back.

“Do you sleep up here?”

“Sometimes. There’s winter here, you know?” I smirked.

I went around and turned on the outdoor heaters. It was early fall, still warm, but there was a chill in the air after the rain.

“That’s nice,” she whispered.

“Those were some of my favorite times. The fact that you understood me enough to just let me be up there. That you would sleep up there with me.” I plopped some dry cushions onto one of the sofa frames.

“It always felt like we were just camping under the smog,” Bird chided. “We were just urban pioneers.”

I kissed her shoulder. I kept finding ways to touch her, to reassure myself this wasn’t a hallucination. I couldn’t believe she was here, that this was real.

We sat in silence, her between my legs just like we used to do on her roof, watching different lights turn on and off in the buildings around us and the flashing lights of planes flying overhead.

“You know, I thought I was pregnant for a while just after you left.”

Her words flashed like a sword in the night.

“Bird . . . if I ever had thought that was a possibility, I would never—”

“I know. At least I think I do. I don’t even know why I am telling you this. Maybe it’s petty of me to pile on the guilt. I just—I was so scared at the time—and you would have been the person I would have leaned on. I didn’t tell Jordan because he was my boss and I’m glad I didn’t because I wasn’t. It was amenorrhea from the tough schedule and the stress.”

My body felt like a weight sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I didn’t know what to say. I had left her so carelessly and caused so much pain all the while convincing myself it was the best thing. But there was no such thing, every option I had was a terrible one.

“Bird . . .”

“There’s nothing to say. It was a nonevent, and I don’t blame you. You would have had no way of knowing that I could be. We were pretty responsible. But it’s so easy to confide in you. Even after all these years. And this was one I had to hold in for a long time.”

Even though it didn’t happen, the possibility of a pregnancy hit me hard. It triggered a fear I was forced to think about more as I reached my mid-twenties, the idea that I could pass down the gift or the curse, likely both.

“You’re the only woman in the world I could ever imagine having a child with, but it was for the better. Not just because I was gone, but because it could be like me.”

I felt her stiffen in my arms. “No . . . Ash you are not a mistake.
You are rare.
”

The words I had said to her long ago when she cried, when I decided to stop fearing how I felt about her and let those feelings take hold.

“And I would have been blessed to have a child like you, but that’s not how it turned out.”

“It’s like no matter what I would have done back then, it would have been the wrong choice. It’s always the wrong choice.”

“Why are you so hard on yourself?”

I never saw it that way. I just saw it as honesty. Most people didn’t have the balls to be honest with themselves.

“Because I deserve it.”

“Sarah wasn’t your fault.”

She went right to the nucleus of the issue, and I wanted to believe it, but even Bird didn’t know the truth.

“It was.”

“It was an accident. A truck rear-ended you. It could have happened to anyone.”

“No . . . it couldn’t have.” I knew I had to finally tell Bird everything if we were to have a second chance. “I told Sarah I wanted to go for a drive when our parents were out of town and Miller was in law school. I took my dad’s car when I wasn’t supposed to. I was responsible for her. But I felt like I was on top of the world, and I was speeding, swerving, acting wild. She was having fun, she was only 15 and she just wanted to be with her big brother. I thought I saw something come out onto the road, a fox or whatever, and I slammed the brakes—”

A geyser of regret poured out of me. I had never said the words to anyone. I never admitted to anyone I was manic when it happened. I had lived with the secret for so long. The loss overwhelmed me: Sarah, Bird, my parents.