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Chapter Thirty Five
*****
Katie
It had only been three hours since Asher’s words had the effect of a nuclear bomb on our lives. Watching Mrs. King pacing around the kitchen was making me even more anxious. Asher’s face was completely void of any emotion as Bridget tried to offer him something to eat. My own mother and father were barely speaking, afraid the slightest drop of a syllable may crumble our house right down to the foundation.
Lifting myself from the couch, my body was walking but my soul had been left somewhere wandering around without me. It was an emptiness I hadn’t ever felt before in my entire life. All I could think about was when Nate had told me the feeling he had when he heard about my accident when I was little. The weight of your lungs feeling like they were filling with concrete, this felt so much worse than that. Making my way up the stairs I was waiting to wake up from this nightmare. That’s exactly what this was; a bad dream that we would all need to wake up from. It couldn’t be real.
Peering out my window as I entered my room, I noticed that the rain had slowed finally but that didn’t seem to halt the tornado of emotions ripping through us. I couldn’t bear to sit around while we all refused to break the silence. There were only two of us in the room that knew exactly what led us here and we would have to be insane to open our mouths about it. Asher’s last words still ringing in my ears, that Nate was dead to him. The look on both their faces from the deceit was etched into my mind. The entire scene was playing on repeat and nothing I did could push it out.
It was my fault they had fought. It was my fault that he had gone up in the plane to begin with. Had I known that’s where he was going, I would have stopped him. The guilt was rushing over me in waves. Taking a deep breath in the tears continued to stream down my face, burning my eyes as I tried to blink them away. Each time I thought I could catch my breath another thought came crashing down on me, filling my lungs with water making it impossible to breathe. After an hour I could hear the soft tone of my mother’s voice at the base of the steps. I couldn’t make out what she was saying but I didn’t care either.
There was a gentle rap on my door followed by creaking as it slowly opened. Not even someone entering my room could break my concentration. My eyes were glued on my window waiting for it to fade to black and I finally could snap out of this alternate reality I was stuck in.
“Katie?”
Asher stood in my doorframe. His voice was unusually quiet. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he hadn’t slept in a week. His face was pale and his body slumped as he stood motionless. There was nothing that needed to be said between us as far as I was concerned.
“Can I come in?”
My eyes shot up at him piercing through any ounce of confidence he had left.
“Already did, didn’t you?”
Rolling back over onto my side, my back facing him, I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye anymore.
“They’re going to find him. They have to find him.”
Jolting upright I turned to face him, my words lighting a fire around us.
“This is your fault.”
Gently pushing the door closed to avoid anyone hearing what he was going to say, he crossed my room, settling on my bed. Burying his face in his hands, the silence between us was deafening.
“You don’t think I know that? That I haven’t been sitting down there blaming myself for how I acted. I punched my fucking best friend, my brother, in the face. The last thing I told him was he’s dead to me. You don’t think I haven’t been replaying that in my head the last three hours? Get down off your high horse because you’re just as much to blame here. You’re the one who started that fight. We wouldn’t have even been fighting if it wasn’t for you.”
Somewhere in the middle of his words he began to storm around my room.
Stopping directly in front of me, his finger landed on my shoulder as he spoke.
“He was up there because of you too.”
Using the very last bit of strength I had within me I walked over to my door holding it open. I was not going to give my brother the satisfaction of knowing his words were nothing but the truth.
Clenching my jaw, I had to remind myself to take a breath in and let it out. Waiting until the door slammed behind him my legs gave way as I collapsed against the door sliding down onto the floor. My head hit my knees as I wrapped my arms around my legs, tears cascading down my face with no end in sight. He was right in so many ways he didn’t even know.
Had I not kissed him on my fourteenth birthday none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have fallen for him and kissed him again, lost my virginity to him, or put him in the position to ruin his relationship with his best friend. I was solely responsible for everything that led us to this moment. His mother’s pain right now wasn’t because of the plane he was in, it was because of my immature and selfish behavior and I could never forgive myself for that.
Three days had passed and despite my mother’s insistence, I hadn’t eaten anything, and showering had become a foreign concept. Every time my phone would buzz, I would jump out of my skin, praying as I held it in my hands, that it was him. That he was okay and coming home. To my dismay it was usually just Ryder or Paul checking up on me. Days and nights melted together. My entire body was completely fatigued from crying so much and I wasn’t sure how I had any tears let to shed.
“Katie, is it alright if I come in?”
Looking up, Mrs. King stood at my door. I nodded knowing that my voice wasn’t capable of much more than a hoarse whisper. As she sat down next to me on the edge of my bed, I looked over at her. Her eyes reminded me so much of Nate that I found myself pulling my lower lip between my teeth to keep myself from crying out. She wrapped her arms around me and just held me. There were no words that she needed to say. I could feel her trying to steady me with her own breathing. Pulling back, she brushed my hair behind my ear.
“Katie, I know that you and Nate were seeing each other. I also know that there were things he told me that he hadn’t told you. Why he kept it to himself I’m not sure but Katie you need to know that he loves you. I could see it the way he looked at you at your birthday. He has never looked at anyone the way he looks at you. He’s going to come back to us. This isn’t the end.”
Opening my mouth, the only sound that escaped was a sob. I loved him so much and I never told him. I was always too busy waiting for us to fail to ever let him love me fully. Now I may never get that chance. Standing up she smoothed out her shirt and wiped her fingers under her eyes.
