But sometimes with her, I got rattled.
It shouldn’t have bothered me she had a crush on me, but it did. I should have been able to see it as a logical conclusion. She was fifteen, probably just starting to think about boys sexually, and I was her closest contact. Her only contact really.
Only I didn’t see it that way. I saw it the way I always saw things with Ash. That she was too close. That she saw too much. That she made me feel impossible rage and hurt and anger…just because she cared about me.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I would have to apologize. All that stuff I’d said about fucking and making girls suck me off. Did she even know about shit like that? I knew from experience most girls I went to school with did, but Ash wasn’t like most girls. She’d been sheltered and protected. Her maturity was bound to be repressed.
The lights flashed again, catching my attention. As I got to the top of the driveway, I saw it wasn’t a cop car. It was an ambulance. I pulled the Lexus over by the garage. I didn’t bother turning off the engine before I was out the door and running over to where I could see George. He was walking behind the paramedics who were pushing a stretcher toward the open doors of the ambulance.
No. Fuck no. No, no, no.
I could see her hair, her fragile face underneath an oxygen mask.
“What did she do? What did she fucking do?” I shouted.
I stopped the stretcher and looked down at her, but her eyes were closed.
“Sir, you need to back off,” the paramedic told me.
George pulled me away, and I watched as they loaded her into the ambulance.
“What did she do? What did she do?” I shouted at George.
If she hurt herself. Because of what I said…
Oh my god, I was going to get sick.
“Marc, calm down,” George said, grabbing me by my shoulders. “It’s an asthma attack. A bad one. They’ve got her sedated but need to get her to the hospital so they can check her oxygen levels. I’ll go with her. You follow.”
“No. I’ll go with her. The keys are still in the ignition.”
I didn’t wait for George’s answer, I just hopped into the ambulance and sat on the bench seat as the paramedic closed the back doors. Then we were pulling away from the estate as I stared down at Ash’s pale face.
“Is she going to be okay?”
The one paramedic looked at me, and his expression was intense. “I think so. We almost lost her, but I think we got to her in time.”
We almost lost her.
I said those horrible and cruel things to her. Did she try to run home? Is that what caused it? She hadn’t had an attack in years, and yet tonight I’d said what I’d said, and, while I was getting my dick jacked off, she was at home almost…
Dying.
I dropped my head into my hands and focused on my breathing so that I wouldn’t vomit all over her. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of the shit I’d done to her over the years.
Reaching down, I took her hand in mine. It was cold, but I searched for and felt her pulse.
“I’m sorry, Ash.”
Maybe the paramedics wondered what was up. Maybe they didn’t care as long as she continued breathing.
All I knew was, I had done this. And I was going to have to fix it.
Ashleigh
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
It was early morning, and I’d gotten Marc out of bed. But with a good reason. When I’d woken up this morning, I saw it had snowed last night. I’d already checked that his school was closed for the day, which meant we had the whole day to sled. But even while I was holding the large round disk in front of me, Marc was eying me skeptically.
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.
“Hello? It’s a snow day. We’ve got the hill at the back of the property. You loved this last year.”
“Last year. When we were kids.”
I rolled my eyes. He was only fourteen. That was too cool for sledding? “We’re still kids, and you’re a dork. Fine, I’ll go by myself.”
Which I knew would totally work to convince him. Marc wouldn’t let me sled alone.
“Ugh. You’re such a freak. Wait here. I need to get my stuff.”
Leaving the disk outside, I stood inside the carriage house, which, sometimes for me felt more like home than the big house. This was where I ate dinner when my father was away on business. This was where I hung out with Marc when he said it was okay to hang out with him. This was where I came to see if George had baked some cookies for me.
Sometimes I wished things could be easier. Like, if we could all just live here together and I just visited my father whenever he wanted, which I doubted would be very often.
A few minutes later, a grumpy Marc stomped toward me in his boots and winter coat. He took both sled strings from me and pulled the disks behind us. I took a deep breath and coughed a little.
The cold air hurt my lungs, but I didn’t want Marc to be able to use that as an excuse to bail. I knew we were going to have fun, even if he was grumpy.
“Your father probably wouldn’t want you outside in the cold air,” he said, but he was still walking toward the part of the property where we could sled.
“He’s at work. He won’t know.”
“That’s not the point. If you have an attack or something, I’ll be blamed. I’m not supposed to be hanging around you.”
“You tell me all the time I’m too coddled and need to do more. This is me doing more.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked me. “The asthma? Like, when you’re sucking on your inhaler, does that hurt?”
I shook my head. “Not really. My chest gets tight is all. I have to really focus on my breathing, otherwise it can get away from me.”
“George said you’ve been hospitalized before.”
A few times. It was after the last time that Daddy pulled me out of school. “It’s been a few years now. I think I’m better.”
“Do you get scared, though? When it happens?”
I looked at him and nodded. It was the truth. I got real scared. When it felt like I didn’t know how to breathe.
“If your chest starts to get tight, let me know. We’ll take it easy.”
I felt a warmth fill my chest then. In the quiet morning, with newly fallen snow, Marc wasn’t being sullen or grumpy. Instead he was being thoughtful. These moments happened between us, but they were pretty rare.
After a few hours, lots of fun and laughs, and a missing mitten that left my hand exposed—which Marc replaced with his glove—we made our way to the carriage house. George made us hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.
It was the best day ever.
At the hospital
Ashleigh
When I woke up, I realized immediately what had happened. I hadn’t been in the hospital for an attack in years, but I remembered how hospital rooms smelled. My chest hurt with each breath, but I forced myself to breathe through the pain.
Because breathing felt better than not breathing.
I turned my head, expecting to see George. When it had gotten so bad, when my inhaler stopped working, I’d called him. I could barely say anything I’d been so out of breath, but he’d known immediately what was happening and called 911.