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After: A Line Changes Everything


Nick

I parked in front of the hotel and cut the engine. The sun was just up, painting the sky a pale orangey-pink. The car hummed itself to sleep, and Ashley and I sat there in the same silence that we'd driven back to Los Angeles in from the Nevada stateline. I could hear her breathing over there in the passenger seat. I let my hands slide off the steering wheel.

There was something very final about the moment.

I wanted to say something wonderful, something that would cancel out whatever Chris had told her on the text. I wanded to spout poetry. But I couldn't think of anything to say, and even if i had, my mouth felt like sandpaper and I probably couldn't have spoken anyway.

Ashley didn't say anything either.

Probably twenty minutes passed, us just sitting there in silence in the car. Then she turned and grabbed the dress off the garment hook in the back seat, pulled it up front, hugging it to her chest, and she slid her wrist through the strap on her make-up bag.

"Wait," I said as her hand hovered over the handle of the door.

She hesitated, then lowered her hand from the door.

"Five years from now," I said quietly, "Are you going to regret getting out of this car?"

Ashley let the words sink in. She squeezed her eyes shut. "I'll regret it five minutes from now," she said.

"Then don't get out," I answered.

"I have to," she replied.

My throat felt raw. "Why?"

"Because I do," she answered. "Because it's the right thing to do, because there's things I want that you don't."

"I want you, Ashley," I said, "And anything you want...I meant it when I said if it was in my grasp I'd give it to you. You name it."

She shook her head, "You can't give me what I want."

"But Chris can?" I snorted.

Ashley took a deep breath, "Chris is the only one who can."

"I can give you anything he can give you," I said.

She shook her head. "Someday you'll understand." She grabbed the handle of the door and pushed it open.

I looked away. I couldn't stand to watch her go. "Good bye, Ashley," I said quietly.

She paused, "Don't say it like that... like we'll never see each other again..."

"I don't know if I can take it," I said, "Seeing you married to him."

Ashley's eyes filled with tears. "Don't make me lose you, please, Nick."

"Ashley, you can't have us both."

She stared at me, her eyes threatening to overflow, her lower lip trembling. "Nick, you're my best friend, please don't unlove me."

"You unloved me first," I said.

The tears fell across Ashley's cheeks, staining them, smearing the make up she'd applied. "I'm sorry," she climbed out of the car and ran across the parking lot, clutching her dress and her make-up bag.

I stayed in the car.

And eventually I drove away.




Ashley

I couldn't breathe. I swear to God I couldn't. I got into my hotel room and dropped my dress and make up and I choked and gasped for air. I slammed into the bathroom sink and turned on the faucet and splashed my face with the coldest water the pipes would produce, and I was still hyperventilating, my hands shaking, my throat making these horrible seal-like noises.

I felt like I'd hit every emotion on the roller coaster in the past few hours. I'd ben shocked to find out that Nick loved me, then granted that time to be with him, hit the high of running to Vegas, only to be crashed and burning hours later, choking and crying in the hotel bathroom.

This must've been what it was like for Nick to crash in that airplane, I thought.

There was a knock on my hotel room door, so I struggled to upright myself, and walked carefully to the front door, gingerly stepping over my gown and make up bag where they'd landed on the floor. I peeked through the peephole. Chris's mother, Karen, was outside, smiling up at the door. I took a couple steps back, drew a deep breath, and swiped my eyes, and opened the door, "Hey," I said.

Karen looked surprised to see me looking so crappy. "Ashley, are you okay?" she asked.

I nodded, "It's been a long night, that's all."

She swept into the room, saw my gown and bag on the floor, eyed me, then scooped them up and put them on the bed. She walked further into the room, then turned to look back at me. "You slept in your dress?"

I looked down. I was in the purple dress from the dinner party, the one I'd worn on Nick's date. "Yeah, I guess I did," I said.

"What happened last night? You two disappeared."

It took me a moment to realize she meant me and Chris had disappeared from the dinner, not that Nick and I had disappeared from the hotel. It occurred to me suddenly that nobody was aware we'd even left. Somehow, the entire night was a secret between Nick and I.

I mean that's what I'd intended originally, but... somehow, now that I was back, given everything that had happened in the last few hours... that seemed a tragic loss.

"We just...had some...things to do..." I answered.

Karen nodded as though she knew what I meant. I wasn't even sure what I meant. It occured to me she probably thought I was speaking code for sex.

"Anyways..." I mumbled, feeling stupid.

Karen sat on the desk chair across the room. "Are you going to the church like that or are you going to at least shower?" she asked pointedly.

"Oh. Right, yeah, I'll be right out."

I went into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning against it and sliding to the floor. I closed my eyes.

Then I remembered Chris's text, and I got up and opened the suitcase I had rolled into the bathroom the day before. I unzipped it and pulled out the Walgreens bag I'd shoved to the very bottom, under all the clothes and everything - the bag that I'd also shoved out of my mind quite successfully. Until Chris had mentioned it.

I don't know how he knew it was there anyway.

I made a mental note to ask him how he knew.

I opened the bag, pulled out the pink box, and stared down at it. I took a deep breath because even without using it, I knew what the results would be. I ripped open the box top and pulled out the stick and the instructions. I peed on it, left it on the sink, and climbed into the shower, praying that by the time I got out the answer would be different than I was expecting, there would be one line instead of two, and I could call Nick and tell him to come back for me, tell him what had changed my mind, pray he understood, and then we could get back in the car and go to Vegas for real.

It's funny how one line changes everything.