Page 15

5
Ashton
I woke on the worst day of the year without my lover beside me for the first time since we had moved in together. Heaviness sat on my chest like it always did, and I rolled to escape its weight, grabbing my cell phone from the bedside table.
Rhett had texted me. Thinking about you this morning. I love you more than life.
My eyes welled, but I smiled while typing out a good morning and assurance of my love for him as well. How’s your mom? I asked.
Rhett: No change. Any luck on ML?
My smile faded at his answer and his just as depressing question. I texted back a simple No.
Missing Link had matched us with a couple of women since Rhett had flown to Florida, but none of them had pinged my interest. Stubbornly, I held onto hope.
While Rhett would have made a plan to search through profiles, he was focused on his parents. His mother still lay in a coma, but other than facts about her health and his father’s refusal to discuss the situation, I couldn’t get a feel on Rhett. Even with FaceTime, I hadn’t been able to read how he fared.
Any inquiry I made about his emotions had him answering with his usual “I’m fine.”
I hated that I couldn’t break him out of his shell beyond his showing of affection for me. It had been enough in the past, but I found myself craving more from him. I might understand how he dealt with situations, but I longed to know the emotions behind them he never voiced or owned. The thoughts that helped make his decisions. I wanted the stirrings of his innermost being expressed so I could share in them too.
But he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t poke him to distract me from my grief.
I could feel the desire for sunshine for both of us in the deepest parts of my soul like a tangible well of need. Mine had been present since Archer had passed.
I spent a reflective morning walking on the beach behind our home, recalling the best memories of his and my childhood before leukemia took him from us not long after we had turned nine.
He’d been so happy all the time, smiling in the face of illness and even death. Laughter and bright grins regardless of his pain. Sunbeams of light to the darkness that had begun to overshadow me when I learned at too young of an age that my other half wouldn’t grow old with me.
I’d lived twenty-six years without Archer but only three truly alone.
Rhett had partially filled the chasm left by Archer’s death, and I couldn’t imagine living without him. We had accomplished so much together. Moved across the country, tossed our dating app into cyberspace with our fingers crossed—and greatly reaped the benefits when our baby took off and began fulfilling others’ dreams.
Overlooking the ocean and filling my lungs with the scent of saltwater, I reminded myself how good we had it, how grateful I ought to be.
But that need for more weighed heavily on my mind.
Hunger pangs turned my feet through warm sand, back toward our quiet, empty house. Silence rang in my ears, a reminder of loneliness, and the stinging eyes upon waking returned to haunt me.
Although I wasn’t hungry, I forced myself to eat a piece of toast. Travel mug refilled with sweetened black coffee, I curled up on the couch with my iPad, ready to FaceTime with Rhett.
My insides tightened over his appearance when he answered. His gorgeous face looked as haggard as I felt, eyes tired with dark shading beneath.
“You aren’t sleeping,” I stated instead of a hello, noting his AirPods and the fact he moved through a hospital corridor, his button-down shirt a bit rumpled compared to normal.
“Because you aren’t here,” he answered while entering what appeared to be a small waiting room. He settled into a chair and released a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging.
“I told you I’ll come to you if that’s what you need.”
“No.” Lips pursed, Rhett shook his head.
I knew why he preferred I stay at home rather than be by his side in a hushed, sterile environment that smelled like bleach and sickness, and I loved him all the more for it.
The thought of any hospital or doctor’s office stirred nausea to life in my stomach. Even going to my yearly physical proved beyond painful, and pre-visit stress always had me hugging the toilet for a few days prior.
“How is she?” I asked, pushing against the worst memories that weaseled into my head with the anniversary of my twin’s death.
“No change.” Rhett’s tone and the same short answer he’d been giving me since arriving in Florida didn’t reveal his feelings over learning his mother was brain-dead and breathing only because of life support.