Chapter 133 Part 133
Asher
He had a lot to think about, as he drove back to the ranch. Emerson should’ve run the morning he nearly choked her to death. It was something he was so ashamed of that he hadn’t mentioned it to Mary. Maybe she wouldn’t be so quick to talk about love if she knew that.
Blair stood on his porch, his hat in his hands. Asher got out of his truck, and regarded his brother warily. He looked like a man on a mission. Asher took the steps one at a time, and went to stand next to his brother.
“Blair.”
“Just checking in, brother.”
Asher smiled and shook his head. “Why?”
“You love her, but you don’t want to love her. It’s going to mess with your head, and I won’t let you do anything stupid.”
“Like what, Blair? You think I’m going to ride off to the cliff and jump?”
“No. You won’t jump. There would be a chance of survival. You’d go out there, and shoot yourself, so we didn’t have to find your body or clean up your blood.”
Asher gripped the wooden railing tightly, and lowered his gaze to the wooden floor beneath him. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Blair cursed under his breath. “It’s your eyes, Asher. You can’t mask that dead look in your eyes. Ever since she came back, it’s like you’re looking for ways to punish yourself. I know what happened. I know what you did, and I’m telling you, as your brother, you had no choice! I wish you could believe me when I say that to you. Pops said the same thing. You’re not Asher anymore. Sure, those two boys coming to live with you brought some life back into your eyes, but that flame is dying—”
“I’m fine!”
“And when the flame dies out, that’s when you’re gonna do it. This isn’t about her reading your journal anymore, it hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe, it never was. You used that as an excuse, because the pain in your soul makes it easier when you relive all that shit.”
Blair was right. It scared Asher how right his younger brother was. Blair had the wisdom of ten men, he saw things nobody else did, he could see right through Asher.
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Asher. Don’t even say anything right now. I’ll be here, and I’ll be watching. When that flame goes out, I’ll tie you to a chair myself, and feed you if I have to. I’m not losing my brother.”
Blair put his hat back on his head, and walked down the steps. He didn’t turn to look at Asher as he kept walking. Asher clenched his jaw. Damn Blair and his intuition. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
In the kitchen, he took a frozen meal from the freezer, and left it on the counter to defrost. He headed upstairs to his bedroom, and pulled the dresser drawer open.
He took out the sketchbook and paged through it. He read Emerson’s words beneath each sketch and he lowered his head. He wasn’t the man she described in that book. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been that man.
He was tired of pretending. Each day, he woke up, and put a mask on for his family. He didn’t want them to know the extent of his broken mind, but with Emerson’s arrival, the fact that she didn’t hate him, it was too much.
He gritted his teeth when he heard a car door close. Blair was on thin ice with him. He didn’t have the energy to go another round with his brother, not tonight. His fists clenched tightly, as he walked to his front door.
He stopped short on the porch, all his anger forgotten. She smiled at him, and looked down. Her eyes glistened when she looked up again, and Asher engulfed her in a hug.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head, and tightened her arms around him. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You’re going to be fine.”
They stood on his porch for a long time, and Asher just let her cry. His anger had melted into protectiveness the moment he saw her. Cassidy Blake had crept into his heart, and the same force that drove him to protect Eden, drove him to protect her, too.
Later that night, after he’d taken her luggage to the guest room, they sat in the kitchen. It didn’t feel like a year had passed since the last time he’d seen her, but he could see it in her eyes. She was as broken as he was.
“I’m sorry I just showed up.”
“Don’t be. I told you to come if you ever needed to get away.”
“It feels like I can breathe here, Asher.”
He nodded his head. “What happened?”
“I’ve been going to therapy. I thought I was fine. Things were fine until they weren’t. I can’t explain it…I just knew I had to get away from everything before…before I…”
“Before you put that gun to your head and pulled the trigger,” Asher said softly.
“I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want to be a victim.” She shook her head and looked sadly at him.
Cassidy was staring out the kitchen window, her shoulders a little slumped. She’d been the only woman to survive that cell. Asher stood up, and walked up behind her. She turned to look at him. He didn’t say anything, he just hugged her again. “You’re going to be okay, Cassie.”
“How are you coping with everything?”
“I went through this right after I got home. Blair found me a few times. I’d go to bed at night, and wake up in the woods in a sniper’s nest with Blair trying to tell me that I was safe, that nobody was coming for me.”
“I don’t want them to win. In my head, it feels like somehow they’ll win if I break,” she said, and looked down again.
“We survived. They didn’t win, because we’re still here,” Asher said.