Page 37 of The Consequence of You (Heathley Academy #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

ASHER

A few weeks ago, Callie accused me of not thinking through my actions, and she was right.

That’s how I’ve always lived my life and it’s never been a problem.

But today, seeing that man’s hands on her, and the knife pressed to her throat.

Every awful possibility of what might happen next ran through my mind, and every one of them was unacceptable.

For the first time in my life, I care about someone.

I truly care. It’s exhilarating, but it’s also fucking terrifying.

As we lie facing each other, my head propped on my bent arm, I stroke her soft cheek with my other hand, marvelling at the way her eyes widen at my touch.

Her pupils dilate, making her dark orbs even darker, and I want to drown in them.

Drown in her . Except I already am. I have been since the moment I admitted to myself how I feel about her.

“Asher…”

“I feel it too.” She draws in a sharp breath.

“When I saw that fucker’s hands on you… I would have killed him if it meant protecting you.

” Her eyes gloss over, and she blinks. A single tear escapes from the corner of her eye and I catch it with my thumb.

“It fucking scared me, and I need to tell you something,” my voice cracks and I close my eyes for a second, trying to regain my composure.

What is this woman doing to me? I’m Asher Pennington. I don’t get nervous.

Clearing my throat, I try again.

“When we first started doing this, I thought it was just something we needed to get out of our system, and then we’d move on. But I can’t get enough of you.”

She swallows,

“I can’t deny our chemistry is insane.”

I shake my head.

“It’s more than that. You’re in my head. You’re under my skin.” I take a breath. “I’m not just talking about sex, Callie. I want us to do this for real.”

She blinks rapidly, and rolls onto her back, refusing to look at me.

“We would never work,” she whispers, more to herself than me. I bark out a laugh because she’s wrong, and she’s saying it like she believes that nonsense. Fucking hilarious. Maybe she’ll need a little more help to admit it to herself than I thought.

I climb over her, resting on my arms, and boxing her in so she has no choice but to look at me.

“We work. There might be hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t, but for some unfathomable reason that’s an absolute mystery to me, we do . ”

She doesn’t argue with me but I can see in her eyes there’s so much she isn’t saying.

I take a deep breath.

“I’m falling in love with you.” I shake my head. “No. That’s not right. I’m already there. I love you.”

“You’re in love with me?” she whispers, disbelief dripping from her voice.

“Yes. I am one hundred per cent, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with you.”

She searches my face for a hint of a lie, but she’ll never find one. I can feel the strong and steady thrum of her heart just centimetres from mine, and I know it’s beating for me. She’s clearly not ready to admit her feelings to herself, let alone me, so I’ll have to do it for her.

“You’re falling in love with me, too.” I brace myself, waiting for her to deny it, but she doesn’t. In fact, what she says next isn’t what I’m expecting at all.

“We can’t. We can’t be in love, Asher. I can’t. I won’t.”

Callie rolls out from under me and is off the bed before I can process her words properly. She frantically pulls on a pair of panties and scrabbles round in her drawers for more clothes.

Rolling onto my side, I lean on my elbow, watching her dress silently. I was hoping she wouldn’t run again. But I’ll do this over and over, if that’s what it takes. Because there is something inevitable about the two of us.

It was there the first day I saw her, being introduced as the new girl in my class at Heathley Academy eight years ago. It was there in every barbed interaction between us. In every heated look exchanged. It grew between us in every-fucking-thing that’s happened since.

It’s taken a long while for me to see my obsession for what it is, so I can understand and accept if she needs a little longer to get there. But she will. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my entire life.

She continues to dress, and once she’s fully clothed, she rounds on me.

“I think you should leave now. Today has been all kinds of …fucked up. Maybe that’s why we’re all in our feelings.

It’s the shock or something.” She pulls on a pair of socks as I smile to myself.

She said we. I don’t point out she’s as good as confirmed her feelings are the same as mine in that one sentence; I have a feeling it won't help the situation.

Callie paces the room muttering to herself, and I sit up. She can have this little tantrum if that’s what it takes.

“I love you, Callie.” I say it out loud. She stills in my peripheral vision.

“No.”

“No?” I pull my boxers on and find my shirt hanging on the back of her chair, still damp from the rain. “You don’t get to tell me who I love, Callie. It’s just a fact.” I dress in the rest of my clothes, shuddering as I pull on the sodden fabric.

She pivots in front of me, fists clenched tightly, indignation written all over her face.

“I meant no, as in no to this. No more of this .” She waves her hands between us. “We can’t see each other anymore. And while I might not be able to stop you from saying those words, you can’t make me see you again. We’re done.”

I rest my arse on the edge of her desk and cross my legs at the ankles, as she continues to pace her bedroom floor.

“Dahlia and Grayson are going to California in a few weeks, and I’m going to look for somewhere else to volunteer.

I don’t think I can go back to the nursing home after today.

It’s going to be difficult.” She’s lost in her ramblings, and I don’t interrupt her, but she suddenly stops short in front of me.

“The point I’m making is, we won’t see as much of each other, and whatever this madness is between us, can be forgotten about. ”

Her voice subtly changes at the end. A tiny chink in the armour she puts up. She’s saying the words, but they’re completely at odds with what her heart wants. I know her. There’s a hell of a lot more going on in her head than she’s saying.

I stand and gently take her hands in mine, rubbing my thumb over the backs of her knuckles until her breathing slows down. I turn them over and trace the faint lines on her palms before I speak softly,

“You can’t run from this forever. We’re written in the stars, you and I.”

Moving my thumb to her wrist, I trace the Latin inscription she has tattooed there.

Momento Mori.

“The first time I saw this, I thought it meant remember the dead . I assumed you got it in memory of your mother.”

She flinches and pulls her hands away.

Picking up the silver bracelet from her desk, where she’d put it earlier, I hold it up between us.

“But I noticed earlier, the same thing is engraved on your mother’s bracelet, and it got me thinking about it again.

Because it doesn’t mean remember the dead, does it?

It translates as remember you must die. ”

She snatches the bracelet from me.

“I did get the tattoo to remember my mother. Momento Mori. It’s something she’d always say. She lived by that motto.”

She’s deliberately ignoring my point .

“ Remember you must die . It means seize the day . It means don’t forget to live .”

“I know what it fucking means, Asher,” she snaps.

“Surely, she’d want you to honour her memory and ‘ live ’? Surely, she’d want you to do what makes you happy? And I know you’re happy when we’re together. In fact, I have never seen you happier than when you and I are together.”

“You know nothing about what my mother would have wanted for me,” her voice falters on the last word, and on the one hand, I feel guilty for pushing her, but on the other, I’m glad she’s finally communicating with me on some level.

“Did she love you?”

“Yes,” she murmurs.

“Then she’d want you to live.”

“I am living .” There’s a lack of conviction in her words.

“By denying yourself the things that make you happy, you’re just existing.”

“Stop judging me, Asher!” She spins away from me.

Fuck.

That’s the last thing I meant to do. This conversation is not going the way I’d hoped at all.

“What exactly do you think I should do? Live like you do? Not caring about the results of your actions? Just wanting to have a good time? Not caring if people get hurt or worse even?”

She yanks at the sleeves of her sweater, her breathing quickening. She’s right, of course. I’ve been living a half-life, too. I’d no idea what I’d been missing out on until Callie.

I’m a hypocrite, but before I can tell her, she walks to the bedroom door and opens it .

“Please go. Please leave and forget about us. Go back to doing what you do best. We both need to forget about this and pretend it never happened.”

“You’re making a mistake, Callie.” I don’t make an immediate move to the door, but I will, because I would never intentionally hurt her, and me being here right now, is doing exactly that.

“Please just go, I don’t want to see you again.” Her words hang between us, and while I know she loves me, I also know she means it when she says she doesn’t want to see me.

Striding to the door, I pause for a few seconds on my way out.

“I heard everything you said, and I’m leaving, but this is not over between us. Not by a long shot.”