“You okay?” Asher asks, wrapping his arms around me.
I look around the room at people who came to see my work before focusing my gaze on my handsome husband who made it happen.
“Yeah, I really am.”
The rest of the evening passes in a blur. It's everything I ever dreamed of and so much more. With a final goodbye, I grip Asher’s hand and let him pull me outside into the cool night air. He leads me across the now quiet street to the car where Davis is standing with a large smile on his face.
Pushing me against the car, Asher kisses me again, making me laugh against his lips.
“There is an excellent chance I won't be able to stop touching you tonight, maybe ever. I thought I should warn you.” Dipping his head and placing his lips against my ear so Davis can’t hear he adds, “I’m a starving man, and you are fucking delicious.”
“Ever the charmer,” I tease.
“Only with you, Skittle. It's always only ever been you,” he admits, and I feel the truth of with every fiber of my soul—the same words I said to him earlier.
Asher pulls us aside so that Davis can open the door just as someone calls my name.
“Mrs. Sloan?” We both turn at the sound of a woman's voice and find Molly, the art coordinator, standing just outside the door of the gallery.
“Give me two minutes and I’ll be all yours,” I whisper before standing on tiptoes, brushing a kiss over Asher’s cheek.
“Hurry up, wife. I have plans for you,” he says, sliding into the back seat of the car as I quickly make my way back over to Molly.
“Sorry, Mrs. Sloan. I just wanted to let you know that we are so impressed with tonight's event we would like to arrange for another. Would six months be long enough for you to come up with ten to twenty pieces?” she asks excitedly.
“The muse can be a fickle creature, but I think I can work with that time frame. Thank you, and thank you for tonight. I was a wreck and you kept everything running smoothly without breaking a sweat.”
She laughs, holding out her hand for me to shake. “It's what I do, and it was my pleasure. Your work truly is exceptional. I’d better let you get back to your husband. Have a good evening, Mrs. Sloan.”
“Please, call me Linda.”
“Linda then,” she agrees with a smile.
I wave and turn, making my way back to Asher when the sound of a rapidly approaching car has me turning to find the source of the noise.
Everything after that moment plays out almost in slow motion. I hear a woman scream and Asher roar my name as the small red car hits me so hard I find myself up in the air looking down at the asphalt before hurtling into it.
It isn’t until Asher is by my side, stroking my face with tears in his eyes that everything speeds back up to real-time. Strangely enough, I don’t feel any pain. Maybe I’m not as badly hurt as I thought.
I can just see Davis at my left holding on to Molly as she talks into her cell phone. I can't see anything else as my head refuses to turn, so I move my eyes back to Asher who is calling my name.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, trying to reassure him as I hear sirens in the distance, but my voice sounds faint and not like my own.
Asher lifts his hand to swipe his face, leaving a streak of red on his cheek.
Blood.
It's my blood, I realize, that coats his hands and shirt.
“It doesn’t even hurt,” I promise. My words are meant to reassure him, but they just make him sob.
“Shh…don’t try to speak, Skittle. Just hold on for me, baby. Don’t let go,” he begs.
My eyelids start to feel heavy, drifting closed until hands on my cheeks make me snap them back open. “Eyes on me, Skittle, you keep your fucking eyes open,” he snaps, but it's not anger in his voice, it's fear.
Everything starts to dim around me as a sort of haze falls over us, but I just concentrate on Asher, keeping my eyes locked on his, letting him anchor me here.
“I love you,” I whisper, finally cluing in to what he must already know.
Something is wrong, really, really wrong. I can't feel anything beyond my tears running down my face.
And I can't move, why can’t I move? If this is the last chance I get, I want to hold him one last time.
But I can’t fucking move.
“I love you too, Skittle, so fucking much.” He places a tender kiss on my forehead, his tears dripping onto my skin and mixing with mine. “Hold on for me, okay, just a little longer, Skittle.”
“I’m tired, Asher,” I admit brokenly as the haziness continues to grow, forcing my vision down to a single point until all I can see is Asher.
I gaze up at the man I love, his handsome face lined with grief and despair as he looks down at me like a fallen angel illuminated by the city lights and I’m hit with a moment of clarity.
I’m not going to make it. This moment is all we have left.
I wish I had held him a little tighter, loved him a little harder, forgiven him a little faster, but it's too late now.
“I just got you back. This isn’t how our story ends, Skittle, I promise you. We will have a lifetime together filled with kids and grandkids. You’ll die old, and in your sleep, wrapped up in my arms, and I’ll follow right behind you,” he vows desperately.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp, feeling my tears spilling over because I would have sold my soul for our story to have played out like that.
“If I had the chance to do it all again, I would. I would trade a thousand lifetimes for the moments I spent with you,” I whisper. My eyes start to close, even as I fight my hardest to keep them open.
“Linda. Linda!” I hear Asher roar my name, but my lips refuse to move.
“No, Skittle, no. I refuse to let you go. Do you hear me? I refuse!”
I can hear struggling and feel myself being cradled against a hard chest, but the pull of the darkness is too great for me to fight.
Wrapping his words around me like a cloak, I draw comfort from them, giving in to the dark, knowing if anyone can tether me to this world, it's Asher.
Thirty-Six
Asher
I watch her like I have done every day for the last two weeks. I’m scared if I look away for even a second, she’ll be snatched away from me.
At this point, I think my refusal to let her go is the only thing keeping her alive.
The beeping of the machine beside me has been the soundtrack of my life for the last two weeks. The only reprieve I get is when I pass out, and then the beeping is replaced by the sound of Linda’s body hitting the hood of Dawn’s car before crumpling to the ground with a sickening thud.
The list of injuries she sustained is endless and after coding twice, I was told to prepare for the worst.
Now that she’s stabilized and breathing for herself, the doctors want me to prepare for the fact that she might never wake up, and if she does, she might not be the same woman she was.
I stopped listening to them after that. She beat the odds once, she can do it again. My Skittle is a fighter.
I turn at the sound of a knock and raise a surprised eyebrow at the man who walks through, but that’s all the attention I spare him, before turning back to my wife.