Chapter 95 Part 95
Asher
He got ready for the day, showering and dressing. Emerson had gone to her own room and Asher hadn’t missed the redness around her throat. He was in the kitchen first and he got breakfast started.
She joined him a few minutes later, the redness starting to form a bruise. He didn’t know how she was even in the same room with him. He shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if he hadn’t snapped out of it.
“It’s hard to talk about everything he did to me. Most of it I didn’t even tell the cops about,” she said.
Their food was ready, but Asher didn’t want to eat. He wanted to talk to her, get her to open up to him. He needed to prove to himself that she wasn’t afraid of him. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if she was.
Instead, he set the table, and they ate their food. This time, the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and they cleaned the kitchen together. Asher was suddenly glad for the rain. Neither of them could escape the other, and that was probably what they needed.
“How do you feel about watching a movie?” she asked him.
“Okay.”
They settled in the living room, and Emerson kicked her shoes off. She sat cross-legged, and Asher fetched a fleece blanket from the foyer closet. He draped it over her and she smiled.
“Can I tell you something before we watch this movie?”
She turned to look at him. “Sure.”
“I get not wanting to talk about things from your past. Sometimes we feel ashamed of what we allowed or what we did, but you shouldn’t. The past is there for us to reflect on so we can grow. Talking actually helps, Emerson. It helped me. When I got home after I was released, I didn’t talk to anyone, and I realized later that I was merely existing. I wasn’t alive.”
“You suffer from PTSD?”
“Yeah, my PTSD is bad, not because of what I did over there; I killed terrible men, terrorists. My PTSD is from the two months I was tortured and held in a dark cell.”
Emerson’s mouth opened and her gaze lowered to his now covered torso. “Those marks on your stomach…that’s from torture?”
Asher shifted, and pulled his T-shirt off. He turned on the couch, and Emerson gasped. Her hands trailed down to his lower back, and her fingers trailed over the branding they’d burned into his flesh.
“Asher…this is…” Her voice trailed off, and Asher pulled his T-shirt on again.
“The only people that have seen that branding are the doctors who I saw when I was rescued. My family doesn’t even know about it. I reached a point where I couldn’t pretend to be okay anymore, and I wanted to end it all.”
Emerson blinked, and the tears that had formed rolled down her cheeks. “Knowing what I know now, I can’t imagine a world where you’re not in it.”
“What do you know now?”
“You’re kind, Asher. You’re really good and kind. Sometimes you’re serious, but you always, somehow, know what I need.”
“You’re kind, too,” he said.
“How do you do it? How do you get up every day, smile, and help everyone around you?”
“You do it, too. You use humor like a shield but you do it, too, Emerson. You smile and you get through each day.”
“He liked to tie me up. He always gagged me so I couldn’t scream. He’d always tell me how much he loved me afterward. He never asked if it was something I wanted to do, and I couldn’t say no. His favorite scenario meant I couldn’t leave the apartment for weeks. I was almost always in pain, but he called it love, and even though deep down I knew better, I didn’t really know better. He was the first and only one.”
“Survivors are a different breed of humans,” Asher said.
“How do you figure that?”
“Survivors know what it's like to exist and to live. Survivors know what it feels like to be left alone in the dark. That’s why you’re afraid of it. The dark makes you feel vulnerable, exposed, and the fear of going back to that dark place is what drives us to survive another day.”
“I am afraid of the dark.” Emerson looked down and fidgeted with the blanket.
“You don’t have to be afraid here. What happened this morning…when you need to wake me, call my name from the door. You touched my arm, and my body acted on instinct.”
“I understand, Asher,” she said, and took another breath. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Since we’re being open and honest, why not?”
“Has this happened before? Did you choke Lorelei like this?”
Asher blinked a few times, his expression not giving anything away. “I haven’t shared a bed with a woman since I came home.”
“Sorry…I just…you…nevermind.”
“What?” Asher smiled as he looked at her. “I don’t make it a habit to choke women.”
Emerson laughed. “No, I wasn’t even thinking that. You just don’t strike me as the type to be single for long.”
“I’ve been in one serious relationship my entire life. I think being single for a while might be a good thing,” he said.
“I’ve always wondered how people meet and fall in love, how they know that the other person is the right one.”
“I think people should take their time, get to know the other person. The sad reality is, most people wear a mask. You don’t see their true colors until it’s too late.”
“I don’t think you wear a mask. I think you’re open and honest. You admit when you’re wrong, and you’re quick to apologize when you are. I think any woman would be lucky to have you,” she said.
Asher chuckled. “Emerson Reid, are you flirting with me?”
She smiled. “I don’t flirt with men that reject my advances.”
“You’re talking about that almost kiss when the lights went off,” he said. Emerson didn’t look at him, clearly embarrassed that she’d said anything. “It’s not that I didn’t want to, but the situation made me feel like I’d be taking advantage of you, and I won’t do that.”