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Before: Come With Me


Ashley

I don't know why I didn't tell Chris about my parents, but I didn't.

It took him an hour to talk me into coming out of the bathroom. He hadn't given up trying, though (unlike Nick), and I eventually unlocked the bathroom door and let him come in and try to comfort me. Which he had a deal of doing considering I refused to talk about what was wrong with me. Chris' brow contracted with concern. "Nick didn't...hurt you... somehow, did he?"

"No of course not, don't be stupid," I replied.

"I'm just checking," Chris answered. He paused. "What was he doing here anyways?"

I didn't want to explain about my parents or anything at all, so I said, "I called him."

Something shifted in Chris' expression. "Oh," he said. "You called him."

"Yeah..." I raised an eyebrow, "So what?"

"I was just curious, that's all," Chris answered.

"Did he leave?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Did he eat before he left? He was hungry."

Chris shook his head, "Nope. He just had to go that's all." He shrugged.

I sighed. I'd probably scared him off by holloring at him to go away. Or by crying. Nick had never done well with women when they cried. He was awkward as sin when they cried.

Chris and I reheated the pizza and sat down in front of the TV, watching Planet Earth on DVD. It was one of our shared geek-outs. In all honesty, though, I liked it a lot better when I watched it with Nick because he muted the BBC guy's voice and did his own commentary. You haven't lived 'til you've sat with Nick while he makes voices for mating birds in the rain forrest.

It was several hours later, after Chris had fallen asleep, that Nick texted me.

I know where he is.

I stared at the text. I looked over at Chris, and I snuck off the couch and walked barefoot to the sliding glass door, stepping out onto our balcony. I leaned against the rail and dialed Nick's number.

When he picked up, I didn't bother with a greeting, I just said, "What?"

"I talked to Jason," Nick explained, "Earlier, when you were in the bathroom, and he had me fax over the police report about your parents, and he did some quick research for me and.. well, we found the prison he's at."

I stared down at the street as a car with dying muffler coasted by. "And?"

Nick was quiet. "I thought you might want to go see him."

I rubbed my arm. A part of me wanted to say no, that I didn't ever want to see the bastard. But another part of me was deeply curious. Would seeing him tell me where I'd got my nose? My eyes? My flaming red hair? I looked down at my shoes.

"Ashley?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to. I just thought you might like the option."

"I know."

"I'm sorry if I made it worse," he said.

"No... thank you for looking for me..." I looked back in the apartment. Chris was stretching on the couch. "Let me think about it, okay?"

"Okay."

I started to hang up, then I caught myself. "Nick?" I asked.

He took a second - obviously he'd been about to hang up, too. "Yeah?"

"You'll come with me, right?"

He was quiet a long moment. "Yeah. I will."

"Okay."

That time we hung up for real and I went back inside and crawled back onto the couch with Chris, who was just starting to wake up. "Where'd you go?" he asked through a huge yawn.

"Bathroom," I lied.

He smiled sleepily and tucked his arms around me as I rejoined him. He kissed the side of my face and snuggled his nose against my head. "You'd think you'd have spent enough time in there earlier," he joked.

"You'd think," I answered.

Chris's breathing started to steady. He was falling back asleep. I stared up at the ceiling, absently rubbing Chris's arm.

Did I want to meet my father?

I wondered what he would be like and I pictured a huge guy, like Brutus from Popeye, pulling against grimey chains in the depths of a dungeon, growling and spitting like a tormented monster.

I took a deep breath.

I wished Nick was there so we could talk about it. At that moment, I probably even would've told Chris if he was still awake. Part of me was tempted to wake him up just so I had someone to talk to about it.

But I didn't.




Nick

It took Ashley a week to decide that she wanted to go to see her father. I was both excited to get the time on the trip alone with her - and hopefully find a way to tell her how I felt while we were gone - yet also fucking terrified to death. The trip involved flying to Kansas.

I'd tried Google mapping the trip several times, but it was like multiple days worth of driving verses a few hours. I sat on the airline's website, staring at the "purchase tickets" button, picturing myself on another plane.

Every time I imagined the cabin of a plane, I imagined it at a slight angle. I imagined the smell of smoke and the feeling of my skin literally melting off my face to the window. I pictured the little Iranian woman whose screams were one of the last things I heard before I died for a few minutes.

My mouse hovered over the button.

I clicked.

This, I thought, if nothing else that I'd ever done, should prove how much I love Ashley.

On the day we were scheduled to go, Ashley called and said she would meet me at the airport. Chris, she said, was going to give her a ride over. I packed imagining them having goodbye sex which made me profoundly moody as well as scared to death of the prospect of returning to an airplane for the first time since the crash. I shoved all my shit into my bag feeling like I was preparing for a death sentence.

I just hoped I didn't end up bawling like a baby.

That would be embarassing.

I drove to the airport and left my car in the parking lot, taking a shuttle to the door. I got out and walked inside, waiting by the airline's check point for Ashley to show up. She wandered in the doors about twenty minutes later than she said to meet her originally, dragging her purple suitcase along behind her.

"Hey," she said. She looked about the same as I felt: a blend somewhere between sick and scared.

"Hey."

We stood there awkwardly, both of us reluctant but for different reasons. Finally, she said, "Okay let's go."

"Okay."

We got in line and checked in. The nice ladies at the counter weighed our bags and handed us our boarding passes and we moved on to the escalators and through security, which I always hate taking my shoes off cos they don't smell pleasant, and through the metal detector. After putting our shoes back on, we walked across the airport to our terminal, which of course had to be at the extreme opposite end of the thing. We walked slowly, silently.

About halfway there, Ashley broke the silence. "I told Chris I was going to visit one of my foster parents in Tampa."

I looked over at her.

"I didn't tell him you were coming."

"Why?" I asked.

Ashley shrugged. "It just feels like something just between you and me, I guess."

I nodded slowly. I wasn't sure how to take that.

"I mean, we grew up together, you were there for everything I went through then, you did most of the world and thought and research of this whole thing... and I didn't really wanna tell him about... you know. Everything." Ashley shrugged again. "It feels too private to tell him."

I wondered if it was really too private for me to know about it. But I didn't ask. I relished in the idea that Ashley and I still had secrets, that we still had "things" that didn't involve Chris. It gave me hope. If there were things she and I could share that she and Chris couldn't...well, then. That was a good thing for me.

Not so much for Chris.

"I like sharing things with you," I said outloud as an extension of my thoughts.

Ashley smiled. "It's nice sharing things with you," she said back.

My palms were sweaty. I dunno if it was because Ashley's fucking awesome or because we were just walking up to the gate, but either way they were like tiny oceans. We stood at the edge of the carpeting that indicated our waiting area. I stared at what we could see of the plane outside the window.

"Jesus," I whispered.

Ashley looked up at me, her face dawning with understanding. "This is the first time you've --"

"Yeah," I said.

Ashley licked her lips, then softly reached up and threaded her hand through mine. "It's gonna be okay, Nick," she said.

I wasn't sure if I was comforted by her or freaked out because she could now feel all the sweat in my palm.

"I'm here," she said.