Talon (Ashes & Embers Book 4) (33 page)

That's it? He's sorry?

I shake my head, tears falling onto my lap as I furiously type another message.

I'm so upset I'm shaking again, my teeth actually chattering against each other. I don't understand any of this. It's like he fell asleep as one person and woke up as someone else. I wonder if the disease causes brain damage or multiple-personality disorder. Something is very wrong.

I
sleep on the couch
, sobbing uncontrollably until I exhaust myself, every day for seven days. I only get up to take care of Pixie, take small sips of juice, and eat crackers. I ignore all the calls and texts I receive from Kat and Kimberly. Every time my phone makes a sound, I jump, hoping it is Talon—but it never is.

On the eighth day, the front door beeps and flies open and I bolt up from the couch, hoping—wishing—it's him.

"Kat… What are you doing here?"

She stands over me, shaking her head back and forth, hands on her thin hips. "You refuse to answer my calls. Obviously, I know what happened and I tried to give you space, but I can't let you do this. As your appointed guardian angel, I am obligated to make sure you don't fall into a deeper depression or wither away to nothing." She grabs my arm and pulls me up. "Look at you. Don't do this, Asia."

I sigh, devoid of any more tears. I've reached the point where I simply cannot cry anymore. The pain has gone full circle from absolutely horrible to totally numbing.

"He won't talk to me. At all. I don't know what I did wrong, Kat."

"Asia, I think the dude is fucked up right now. And you're not too far behind him. I want you to go upstairs right now and take a shower while I go find you something to eat. I am not going to let you do this to yourself. Been there, done that, remember?"

"I don't want anything."

"That does not matter to me. I have a list here of five town houses that are beautiful not far from here. We're going to look at them tomorrow. You need to get out of this house."

I stare at her blankly. I don't want to eat or shower or leave our home. Or breathe or live.

All I want is him.

T
his is just a pause
.

I'll be okay.

Not today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

But I will be.

Someday.

It won't always be this bad. This pain isn't my forever.

This is just a pause.

There's more waiting for me, somewhere, down the road of my life.

L
ukas's number
is flashing across my screen. I turned the ringer off on my phone because the sound annoys me. Now, it just flashes and vibrates, which is also annoying.

I pick it up, swipe the screen, and hold it against the ear I can still hear out of.

"Yeah?"

"I got a text from Asia."

My heart hurts just hearing her name. "And?"

"She moved out." I close my eyes for a moment and let it sink in. My wife is gone. Sometimes, my mind is so confused that I think she left me. It’s like I mentally blocked the fact that somehow the crazy switch flipped inside me and I left her. Every time I listen to her voice mails and text messages, my heart seizes. I’ve spent hours at the punching bag, beating out my aggressions, pretending I’m punching myself. What the fuck did I do? Why didn’t that nitwit Dr. Hollister smack some sense into me? Couldn’t she see that I was batshit insane? Why didn’t I just sit Asia down and force her to talk?

"Good. Living in Gram's guesthouse is making me fat. She's feeding me way too much." I can't tell Gram, but her cupcakes don't compare to Asia's. Neither does any soap I use. Or any lotion. Or any smoothie. And I can't even look at another woman. Or cats. I hate cats now.

"Do you need a ride home, or are you able to drive? How's the vertigo been?"

"I think I can do it. Did she say where she went?" I ask casually. I can’t stand not knowing where she is. Where she’s sleeping. Where Pixie is. I wish I could close my eyes, open them, and have them here with me again.

"She said she found a town house."

"Did she say where?"

"Tal? If you care, why don't you call her and let her tell you?"

I chew my lip. "No. She's better off this way."

"You know my feelings on this. And she doesn't seem better off. She asked me if you were okay."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her you're a fucked-up, stubborn mess."

"If you did, I'll kick your ass."

"I told her you were fine. Happy now?"

"No, but I don't want her dwelling on me."

"Dude, I think dwelling on someone and being in love with someone are two different things."

I go into the bedroom and grab my bag so I can start packing my stuff to go back home today. "I don't want to talk about it, Lukas. Thanks for letting me know. I'll see you in a few days for my appointment."

I
t takes
me triple the amount of time to drive from the White Mountains back to my town. The drive up the day I left Asia was a horror show, but the drive back down the winding roads is even worse. The pressure in my ear is incredible, and the vertigo has broken through the meds I took. Three times I have to pull over on the side of the road to get sick.

I literally want to kiss the ground when I finally pull into my own driveway and park in front of the garage. But as I walk down the walkway to the front door, I'm not sure why I wanted to come back here.

The inside of the house is dark, with only the foyer light on, and it's eerily quiet. Even with being half deaf and having that constant whoosh in my ear, the silence follows me like a ghost.

I throw my bag on the floor and slowly walk through the house, memories of us flashing through my mind as I stare into each room. Every corner, every piece of furniture, every damn thing reminds me of her. I can hear the little teasing fights we had echo through my mind. I can still see her sitting at the breakfast nook with her goofy purple glasses on, looking adorably fuckable with Pixie perched on the table next to her.

Fuck. I miss them. I ruined our family. I let the disease win.

I walk into her craft room, and it's completely empty. This was her favorite room, and we spent so much time in here, designing clothes and fucking on the table. And on the floor. And against the shelves. Even next to that creepy fit mannequin I hated.

I open the refrigerator and feel like I've been punched when I see she's stocked it with all my favorite foods, even the things she used to bake for me, and labeled all the Tupperware containers with names and dates in her tiny, perfect writing. And of course, there are cupcakes.

Shit, jelly bean. Why did you do this?

I go upstairs so I can complete the emotional assault of not having her here all in one fell swoop.

Our wedding picture is gone from where it hung on the wall in our bedroom. It was actually my favorite picture—from when I tickled her to make her laugh and kissed her before she could turn away. Honestly, I don't deserve to have it, and I don't need it. That image is burned in the photo album of my mind forever.

Everything is clean and in its place. All my laundry is put away, her side of our shared walk-in closet empty. She vacuumed before she left, all traces of Pixie fur gone.

Next, I wander into the bathroom and there's a small box of all my favorite soaps and lotions she used to make for me. It all smells like her, which is why I loved it. I don't know if she left this stuff here to haunt me, or if she left them here to give me the things she knows I love just to make me happy. I know her, though, and I'm pretty sure she did this in an attempt to welcome me home with the things she knew would make me the happiest.
Because she loves me.

Or, she used to. She must hate me now, for the things I did and said.

I didn't think she would put up such a fight the day I left. I thought she would be relieved to get rid of me. I thought the first few messages and texts were just out of shock and anger over the abrupt ending of our relationship. But four weeks and over two hundred messages later, it's become pretty clear to me that she didn't jump onto Danny like I assumed she would. My brain was so clouded with anger that day, I honestly believed she wanted him. Now, I don’t know what happened. I fucked up bad, and it hurts like hell.

I sit on the bed, suddenly feeling dizzy and tired, and that's when I see the T-shirt I left for her to sleep in when I was on tour folded up neatly, with her wedding band on top of it.

Fucking ouch.

I pick it up and twirl the tiny band between my fingers, then unclasp the necklace around my neck and slip the ring onto the chain, watching as it slides down, stopping when it hits my own wedding band, her ring fitting perfectly inside mine. I reach behind my neck and reclasp the chain. At least our rings are together.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and debate for a few moments before bringing up her number and typing a message.

I changed my number when I couldn't stand to see the texts from her anymore, or hear her voice mails that alternated between crying and begging, to telling me to go fuck myself up the ass. I regretted it immediately afterward because I missed getting new messages from her, knowing she was still thinking about me, even if it was in a bad way.

"
H
ey
! He's back!" Everyone yells when I step onto the tour bus. I take my usual seat and pop a few of the new pills the doctor gave me, and pull out my e-reader to read a book.

A few hours into the trip, I feel tired and cranky, my ear still muffled and ringing. I wish I had stayed home.

"You doing okay?" Asher's slid into the seat next to me. "You're a little bit green."

"It's my normal color now."

He nods and grins. "I see. I wanted to have a little chat."

"Okay, chat then."

"I want you to finally tell me what happened."

"What happened to what?"

He tilts his head at me. "Your wife."

Sighing, I kick my feet up on top of my suitcase in front of me. "I still don't want to talk about her, Ash. Really."

"I didn't ask if you wanted to."

"It's hard to explain." How can I explain what I don’t even understand myself?

"I think I have the capacity to understand quite a bit. So try me."

"Well, for one thing, this shit with my ear had me fucked up. I was moody with her all the time, and to be honest, I treated her like shit. I was tired all the time. Having sex was hit or miss—sometimes great, sometimes I'd get dizzy and have to run to the bathroom to barf or cling to the side of the bed. It was embarrassing.”

He nods, listening intently. "Okay, I can understand that's hard for you. What else?"

"And then I read her journal, the day before we were supposed to make our decision."

"Tal…not a good move, little bro."

"I know, trust me. She wrote that she never would have married me, and I broke her heart like a million times, and how much I've changed since the MD started. Then she mentioned a guy—no name, just an initial—and being confused about him. I'm pretty sure it was her ex who was trying to get her back. And that same day, I saw her with another guy. She has no idea, but it set me off. I flew into a rage over the whole thing. I couldn’t get my head out of that bad place. I don't think it would have worked, man. I'm not what she wanted, that's all."

“That doesn’t sound like anything she would say or do, Tal.”

“I know. That’s why it fucked me up so bad.”

He stares out the window for a few minutes before he answers. "Ember's journal has been in her nightstand for the past five years. She wrote it in every day. She has several, actually, because she started writing when she was sixteen and I started making them for her every year for her birthday—with a real key to lock and unlock them. She loved them."

"Yeah, I remember that. It was cool. All that parchment paper."

"Yup. I've never once touched those journals, and believe me, Tal, I want to. You have no idea how fucking bad I want to. But I can't. You want to know why? Because there are things in there she probably wouldn't ever want me to read. Thoughts I wouldn't understand. Thoughts she may have felt when she wrote them but didn't feel later. If I read that last one, I'm going to have a lot of questions, and she's not here to give me the answers. I can't do that to myself. If she'd wanted me to know anything that's in there, she would have told me. So I have to leave it alone and hope someday she'll be able to tell me what happened. It's not fair for me to just assume what she was going through or steal her private thoughts away from her."

"Ash, I'm sorry. That's different, though…"

He shakes his head. "No, it's not. I think you made a decision based on a lot of fucked-up assumptions, and you acted out of anger, and you don’t ever act that way. This isn’t like you. I’m worried about you."

I shrug. I’m worried about me, too. "I don't know. I know what I fucking read, and what I saw, and I saw her with another guy who she met behind my back. I just couldn’t get past it."

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just ask her?"

"I guess I just didn't want to hear any lies, or hear that she wanted to leave me. I was so pissed at everything and so aggravated and confused that I just wanted to end it all and be alone."

“Maybe you should try to talk to her? Hear what she has to say? Work it out?"

I shake my head. “I think it’s beyond that now. I did way too much damage. I turned into her worst nightmare.” My chest starts to hurt again, like it always does when I think about her.

"Okay. Just a thought," he pats my back. "I think you’re making a big mistake. She really loves you. I have no doubts."

"It’s already done. I dug the hole way too deep."

He shakes his head at me again. "It’s never too late. And you better stay away from the edge of the stage. I'll put a leash on you if I see you meandering around on the edge, okay?”

"Whatever, man. I'm not falling again. I've got it under control."

T
he days
of the tour drag. I spend most of the day either sleeping on the bus or puking from feeling dizzy. I have constant headaches and I don't want to eat anything. Even though no one has said anything, my playing is off. Ash has moved me all over the stage trying to help me find a spot that doesn't fuck me up, but nothing makes it better. The guys are all being cool, but I can tell they're not exactly thrilled with my not being on point like I used to be. The groupies love it, of course. Word of my separation has already been leaked, and now they all seem to think they have the golden pussy that will magically make me feel better, if I would just give them a chance. And I don't. I have zero desire for any of these chicks, and I touch none of them.

On the last night of the tour, I fall off the steps of the bus and land headfirst in a puddle, spraining my ankle and giving myself another concussion. The last show of the tour is canceled, thousands of fans are pissed, a picture of me lying in muddy water goes viral all over the internet, and it's pretty clear my rock-star days are done.

Asher and Storm stay behind until I'm released from the hospital two days later, and they rent a van to drive us back home, taking turns driving, arguing, and singing TV sitcom songs, while I sit in the back and fight nausea for 500 miles, wondering what the hell I did to deserve landing in this tenth circle of hell.