Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Now that he was here, Truman didn’t know what to say. He wished he could just yell at Ash the way he had at Rayanne.
He wished he could rant at Ash the way he’d ranted at Greta’s plants.
But what came out was a pathetic near-whisper.
“I don’t want to not see you anymore.”
Ash cringed. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is,” he said. His voice was rough, and he didn’t meet Truman’s eyes. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
Despair swept through Truman. “What is so wrong with me?” His voice was loud enough to startle Bruce. “Am I freaking cursed or something? Am I so unlovable that people can just throw me away?” His voice broke, and he sat down where he was, on Ash’s gray-blue rug.
That was how Ash was in his mind too. Up until now, he’d focused on the blue—the calm, free, expansive blue that made him want to close his eyes and drift off under a serene sky or wade into welcoming waters. But now all he saw was the gray. A gray so heavy it could pin you forever to the earth or hold you beneath the waves until you were obliterated.
“God, Truman, no. The opposite. It’s too easy to care about you. Too easy to fall—to feel like you’re a real part of my life. But you’re… You’re leaving, man, and I honest to god can’t take losing anything else right now.”
“What if I didn’t?”
The words came from somewhere deep in Truman, but he realized he meant them when he saw Ash’s eyes light up for a moment. Then the light went out of them.
“You mean like with that guy you were dating at the end of college? No. I don’t want to be one more person you do something for and then wake up in a year thinking how the hell did I end up on this island I don’t even like.”
“I do like it,” Truman said softly.
“You know what I mean.”
And Truman did. That if he stayed, he would be staying for Ash, just as he’d stayed in New Orleans for Tyler.
Only it didn’t feel the same. It didn’t feel the same at all. With Tyler, he’d stayed because he might as well have. He was happy to have the choice made for him. But this wasn’t about having a decision taken off his hands. This was because he wanted to be with Ash.
What do you mean you want to be with him? the voice in his head hissed. You’ve known him for three weeks. Normal people don’t pick up their whole lives for someone after three weeks! He’ll get sick of you soon enough, just like Manuel did. Or he’ll cheat on you, like Brian. Maybe he already has a whole secret family, like Guy.
Usually when the voice hissed at him, he listened. After all, it was his unconscious telling him things he didn’t want to acknowledge but needed to hear, right?
Then he remembered something Charlotte had told him once. That witnesses lied on the stand all the time without knowing they were doing it. They lied because we quest for stories so we fill in narratives automatically, without evidence, without proof, supplied from our assumptions and the stories we’ve been told. When asked how they knew that something had happened a certain way, they said things like It had to have happened that way because…and then revealed that they saw step one and step three and filled in the blanks to make up a step two.
Assumptions break down under questioning because they’re not made of substance but of assumptions.
Yeah, it was probably unusual for people to think of moving to be with someone after such a short time, but what did that matter? Why was he comparing himself with this idea of normal anyway? It didn’t matter where he lived. He worked from home, and most of his friendships were long distance.
Cheat on him? Ash didn’t really seem like a cheater. Get sick of him? Possible. But he could get sick of Ash too. Relationships didn’t always last forever, but that was a feature, not a bug.
As for a secret family, well…even Truman had to admit that was likely a once-in-a-lifetime reason for a breakup.
“Okay, but seriously, Ash. What if I could stay?”
“Please, don’t.” Ash’s voice was choked. “I know you can’t. Or if you did, I’d feel like you messed up your whole life for me, and it’s too much pressure.”
“It wouldn’t be messing it up. It’d be improving it, if I got to be with you.”
Ash looked at Truman with the eyes of a ghost. He didn’t look hopeful or excited at the prospect of Truman moving here. He looked haunted.
“You’ve done so much for me,” Ash said. “Helped me so much. I’ll never forget it, and I hope you know how much I appreciate it. But…it would never work. I barely have time to take care of myself, and…I’m no fun. With my mom, and the shop, and…”