I Love You, Always (5 page)

Hands touch me as they clean the blood from my skin. I wonder if she will ever touch me again. I wonder if I will ever touch her again. A heavy weight finds its way in to my chest at the idea that my fingers will never touch her skin, that my lips will never kiss hers.

Someone touches my chest, her tattoo, and I flinch away. She was the last person to do that to me and I need to hang on to that.

Don’t touch it; it’s for her.

“Shhh, Luke, it’s okay.” Another shirt is pulled down over my face, scratching my skin.

I give up now as I bury my face in my hands again and wait, beg.

Asha, please, please come back to me.

You walked into my life

And it struck me so hard

Like a bolt from the blue

I never even realised I’d been waiting for you

∞

“Luke,” someone says to me in a way that demands my attention.

My head snaps up and I see a doctor walking towards me. He’s wearing scrubs, a cap on his head, and a face that I can’t read. I force myself to stand up. I’m shaking, but somebody grabs my hand and squeezes it, hard.

“Luke Taylor?” the man says to me.

“Yes.” My voice shakes like the rest of me. My hand is squeezed again and I glance down and see
it’s
Mia.

“Asha, she lost a lot of blood tonight. And then, as you know, her heart stopped while we were in the ER.”

I feel myself falter at his words.

Heart stopped.

“We got her back and she stayed with us this time, but the bullet was lodged in her spleen, which we’ve had to remove.”

“Is she alive?” I hear myself ask.

“Yes, but…”

I don’t hear what else he says as I find myself sitting in the chair again. My face is once more buried in my hands. My body feels like it’s collapsing, weighed down with the relief that’s suddenly surging through me. I can feel Mia holding me, whispering something to me, but I’m not listening to her.

She is alive. Alive.

Alive.

ALIVE.

My head snaps up. “Can I see her?”

This guy smiles at me now, and a tiny bit of that weight lifts. “She’s in recovery at the moment, but in about an hour I’ll have someone take you up to see her. She lost a lot of blood and the bullet only just missed her liver, but she’s going to be okay, Luke.”

I can only nod as I’m forced to sit through the longest hour of my life.

Eventually someone comes to get me. As I stand, I feel Mia wrap her arms around me in a tight hug. “We’ll come back in a couple of hours, okay?”

I nod, my head buried against my sister’s shoulder as she comforts me, reminding me of what it was like when we were younger. “Luke?” Mia says, pushing me back. “You okay?” I nod again, not trusting myself to speak right now. “Say something, please.”

I blink at her, trying to work out what she wants to hear, what she expects me to say. How can I possibly be okay right now, how can I possibly be anything except hurting? Mia is still looking at me and I can tell she wants me to say something, anything. She used to get like this when we were kids, always talking to fill the empty silence, wanting me to reassure her I was okay. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything; maybe because I knew most of what I would have to say were lies. I never wanted to lie to her. And we weren’t
ever okay
back then, putting up with all of the shit our father forced us to put up with. And I’m not okay now, not even close.

“Luke, she’s going to be okay,” she finally says. “Ash is going to be okay.”

I clear my throat, knowing none of this is her fault. “Yeah.”

“Are you alright?”

I nod, not wanting to speak, especially when it’s a complete and utter lie.

“Really?”

“I just need to see her,” I finally admit, knowing this is what I need more than anything, to see her, hold her, maybe even kiss her. I just need to be close to her. “I just want to see her.”

Mia pulls me in for another hug. “Go. Go be with her and we’ll come back later. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Thank you, Mia.”

She smiles at me and it’s full of both sympathy and understanding. “Anytime, Luke, you know that.”

I quickly nod and mumble my thanks to everyone before turning and following the nurse. She leads me down the corridor and just before we turn the corner, I look back at them. They are all standing there together, watching me.

Pete and Steve.

Ben and Sarah.

Mia and Jared.

I need to get her back. I need her.

We walk in silence and I take the opportunity to wipe my face, trying to get rid of any tears before Ash sees them. I need to be okay for her. At the end of another long corridor I’m led into a darkened room. Ash is lying in a bed, her eyes still closed. A monitor is steadily beeping next to her and I follow the wires that are connected to her finger and somewhere else, inside her gown. A tube runs under her nose and if it weren’t for that, she’d just look like she was sleeping.

I turn to the nurse. “She’s still asleep?” I whisper.

She smiles at me, patting me on the arm as she
says,
“She’s going to be a little groggy for a while. She’s coming around. Just give her time, she’ll wake up.”

I nod as I step further into the room, quietly moving a chair alongside her bed. Her right hand is lying against the sheet, empty again, and I take it in both of mine as I sit down. It feels warmer now and when I brush my thumb over her wrist, I can feel the steady beat of her heart underneath it. It’s strong, constant and just feeling it lifts some more of that weight from my chest.

You came back to me, Asha.

I lift her hand to my lips and press a gentle kiss to her palm, resting my elbows on the bed, and holding her hand in mine. And then I sit and wait. Wait for her to wake up.

My head is resting on something soft
,
it must be my pillow
. Ash’s hand is in mine. I don’t remember falling sleep, but it must be morning because she is squeezing my hand. I open my eyes and wake up, not to the morning, not to being in bed with Ash, but to my worst fucking nightmare instead. The memories come at me hard and fast, punching me in the gut with each remembered moment.

Asha stepping in front of
me and getting shot
.

Blood everywhere as she collapsed in my arms.

Her heart stopping.

Surgery and her being taken away from me.

It makes me feel sick. It makes my chest ache with each remembered nightmare. But then I see that her eyes are open and she is smiling at me. Smiling at me like she always does when she first wakes up, even though we aren’t at home and we aren’t in bed and everything is far from okay. My eyes fill with tears at the nightmare of everything that happened last night and without even thinking, I stand up and wrap my arms around her, so fucking glad she came back to me.

“Asha, oh God, Asha, I love you, I love you so much.” They are my words and my voice but I have no control over what I’m saying right now.

I’m crying, I can feel tears on my face and on hers. I don’t care, because she is back, she is back with me. I feel her hand as she holds it against my cheek and when I pull back she is still smiling at me, tears on her cheeks that could belong to me, to her, or to both of us.

“Hey,” she whispers, her voice hoarse.

I smile now. “Hey, beautiful.” And then I lean in and kiss her. Finally.

I need to be closer to her. Our lips are still touching as I kick off my shoes and pull myself up on to her bed. She smiles at me as she tries to move over and make some room for me. I lie down beside her, on top of the covers. Her hand is still in mine as my other hand gently strokes her face, brushing her hair back.

“You came back,” I whisper, softly kissing her lips again.

“You’re still alive,” she whispers back to me.

I smile and kiss her once more, watch as she slowly closes her eyes and falls back to sleep. I lay here watching her, my fingers gently brushing her cheek. She looks beautiful, peaceful, and this time I know she really is just sleeping. She’s not dying and she’s not being taken away from me. I can’t resist kissing her hand, which is still in mine, just like it should be when she falls asleep. I can’t resist leaning closer and whispering, “I love you, Asha. Sweet dreams, my beautiful girl,” just like I always do, every night as she falls asleep beside me.

And this time I see her faint smile. This time she turns her face towards me, and my heart pounds in my chest. She really came back to me. I move closer to her and she buries her face in my neck and I can feel her soft breath against my skin. I gently kiss her cheek and this time I close my eyes and go to sleep too.

I wake up what feels like five minutes later to a nurse standing at the end of her bed. She’s looking at me in a way that tells me she’s not happy I’m here and she’s especially not happy that I’m lying in Ash’s bed. I’m about to say something when I hear Ash speak.

“He needs to be here,” she croaks out. “I need him to be here.”

The nurse turns to look at her. “I don’t like this, it’s not allowed.”

“He’s not leaving,”
Ash
says, her voice firmer this time. I turn to look at her and see the fierce determination on her face, which almost makes me laugh. The nurse shakes her head before writing something in Ash’s chart, dumping it in the holder at the end of the bed, and leaving the room.

“Maybe I should have stayed in the chair,” I suggest quietly, even though it’s the last thing I want.

Ash turns to face me now,
smiling
as she says, “No, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

I lean in and kiss her. She tries to deepen the kiss and at first I can’t resist, but when she suddenly sucks in a quick breath, I pull back. “Are you okay?” I ask, my eyes roaming her face, her whole body.

“Yeah, just sore,” she answers, her hand resting on my cheek. “How are you doing?”

I try smiling at her but it’s fucking hard when she’s lying here in front of me and everything that happened last night is still flashing through my brain like a movie stuck on repeat. I can’t stop seeing that guy, laughing as he holds a gun to Ash. The sound of it going off is still ringing in my ears and the feeling of her being thrown backwards, into my arms, covered in blood, keeps hitting me over and over again. Like a punch in the gut that only gets harder, every time I relive it.

“Luke?”

“I’m okay, Ash, don’t worry about me.”

She looks at me in a way that says she totally isn’t buying it and I try smiling at her. It doesn’t work. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispers to me.

I let out a noise that’s half sob, half cough. “What are you sorry for, beautiful, what could you possibly be sorry for?”

“Putting you through that, ruining your night, everything.”

My heart breaks all over again because she of all people knows exactly what I’ve just gone through. She’s gone through it more times than anyone should ever have to in a lifetime. She’s gone through it and I’ve seen exactly what it did to her. But she’s survived it too and she’s stronger because of it. Stronger than she even realises. She is the strongest person I know.

“Asha,” I whisper. “You have nothing to be sorry about, nothing. But if you ever do anything like that to me again, you will be in big trouble, beautiful girl, big trouble.” I’m trying to lighten the mood, but it’s difficult when I’m in agony over what nearly happened and what I can’t stop seeing play out in my head.

“I had to,” she whispers, leaning in to kiss me this time. “I had to protect you, Luke. I had to. I had to do it because I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you, Luke.” Her words are a desperate rush, a plea to make me understand, to make me believe her. They wrap around my heart and try to pull the broken pieces of it back together. I can’t believe how much I love this woman, how much that love grows, every single day, every single second. I’d never even known this kind of thing could exist until I met Asha.

“Ash,” I say, my hand resting on her cheek. “I can’t lose you either, I can’t. So please, please don’t ever do that to me again.”

She smiles at me now as a tear falls from her eye. Instead of brushing it away, I lean in and kiss it, taste the saltiness of her tears against the sweet smell of her skin. There is a faint trace of hospital smell on her too, but underneath it, I can still smell her. Our foreheads rest together as we breathe each other in. Her hand is in mine and my other hand is cradling her face.

“Ah, so this is the one who’s made himself at home, huh?”

We both pull back and I quickly wipe my face as I turn to look at the new nurse who’s walked into the room. She’s smiling at both of us and I get the feeling she understands why I’m lying in Ash’s bed with her.

“He’s not leaving,”
Ash
says, her voice firm again.

The nurse laughs now as she says, “That’s okay, sweetie, I wasn’t going to ask him to. I get it.” She squeezes Ash’s leg as she grabs the chart from her bed and starts looking it over. She’s asking Ash a bunch of questions about how she’s feeling and how she’d rate her pain on a scale of one to ten when a guy in a white coat walks in. I recognise him as the one who came to tell me she was still alive last night and I can’t help but wonder if he’s gotten any sleep either.

He smiles at Ash and I do the right thing and sit up, hang my legs over the side of the bed. “How are you feeling this morning, Asha?” he asks her, standing on the opposite side of her bed to me. It’s so weird to hear someone call her that. Nobody ever calls her Asha, nobody except me. I stand up now, still holding on to her hand.