Chapter 176

I clung to Asher like he was my anchor in a storm, and he held me just as tightly. For a while, I was transported to a different time, where Asher and I hadn’t hurt each other and nothing between us had changed.

We held one another like we belonged to each other, like nothing else in the whole world mattered outside of the circle of our arms.

Slowly, the fear faded from within me, pushed back by Asher’s comfort. He would keep me safe. He promised.

And Asher always kept his promises.

He combed his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes to more fully focus on the gentle touch of his hand down the back of my neck and over my shoulder.

“I’ll shield you however I can,” he whispered. “But you have to be careful. You can’t make any projections, no matter the circumstance.”

He didn’t know about my accidental projections of him. I didn’t know how to tell him about them. Would he think me pathetic, for missing him so badly I had to create a version of him on my own just to find comfort?

Would he be disgusted?

I pressed myself harder into him, trying to chase the thoughts away. I wasn’t ready to come back to the present yet. I wanted to stay in this past, where Asher and I still meant something to one another.

“You can be reckless sometimes, Cyn.” He pressed another kiss into my hair. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” I mumbled, muffled by his shirt.

“Good girl,” he said, and my knees went weak.

In another time, another place, those words would have me begging in a much different way. I loved when he called me that, when he praised me, when he pressed his lips against my neck and –

I halted those thoughts. That was the past. This was the present.

Asher and I weren’t together. Asher didn’t love me. He was only offering me momentary comfort. He probably hated doing this.

The past was beautiful, but it was a fantasy. I couldn’t stay there anymore.

I had to let Asher go.

I forced my hands to release his shirt. Then, I dragged myself back a step, away from Asher and his warmth and comfort.

He released me at once, though stared down at me with the tiniest hint of sadness in his eyes. A blink, and it was gone.

“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” he said. “I’ll keep regular contact with Irene. If those investigators so much as twitch in your direction, I’ll find out about it.”

“Okay.” I felt cold without the warmth of Asher’s body. I wrapped my arms around myself but it wasn’t the same.

“I’ll keep you safe, Cynthia.”

“I believe you.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied.

With nothing left to say, the air between us turned awkward. I wanted another hug. With the way he glanced over my body, it kind of seemed like he wanted to give me one.

Neither of us could indulge.

“I should go,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I didn’t move.

“Cynthia…”

“I’m leaving,” I said.

He nodded.

I still didn’t go.

“You don’t have to,” he said, voice suddenly soft.

But I did. If I stayed, things could happen that we might both regret.

When I didn’t say anything more, he inched closer again. The movement was the push I needed. If he touched me, I’d never leave him.

I sidestepped him and headed for the door. Once there, I glanced back. He was still facing the spot where I had been.

“Thank you, Asher,” I said, and left.

With Asher’s promise that he would keep me safe, I was able to push the worries about the investigators to the back of my mind. Instead, I focused on studying.

For the rest of the week, I did nothing but sleep, eat, attend classes, and sit in the library. Aimee and Nicole were impressed by my dedication.

I avoided thinking about boys entirely, both Asher and Lamar. I still hadn’t untangled the mystery there, of Lamar’s black eye.

Asher said he hadn’t punched Lamar, and I believed him. But I struggled to understand why Lamar would lie about it? What had he hoped to gain by lying to me?

Or was it a misunderstanding? Had he simply not seen who actually attacked him and assumed it had been Asher?

No, that didn’t really make sense, since Lamar said he spoke to Asher.

I didn’t know the truth.

I tried not to think about it.

Yet come Friday night, I had a date planned with Lamar. I wasn’t able to avoid it anymore.

I’d thought maybe, since we hadn’t talked since our walk home from the hospital, that Lamar might forget about our date entirely. But at five o’clock, he showed up at the door to my room with a single tulip and a wide smile.

“I’m not late, am I?” he said, when I looked at him in surprise and confusion.

“No.” I accepted the tulip and let him into the room while I set it into a vase.

Lamar followed me. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” I lied.

He tilted his head. “Is it okay that I’m here? I know we haven’t talked much, but I thought we still –”

“I asked Asher about what happened.”

Lamar’s bruise was still ugly, purple and green, but healing.

His smile wavered. “Let me guess. He denied it.”

“He denied it,” I confirmed. “Why would you lie about him? You had to know I would talk to him.”

Lamar’s smile slipped away entirely. “Why do you assume I’m the one who is lying? Asher punched me, Cynthia. I said, ‘Cynthia’s mine,’ and he lost his damn mind.”

“He wouldn’t attack you just for that. Maybe you thought it was Asher, but it was someone else.”

“Are you serious with that? You think I don’t know what that asshole looks like?”

“In the heat of the moment, things could look different than –”

“I don’t believe this.” He tapped his hand against his chest. “I’m the victim here. And you… you are defending my attacker!”

“I just want the truth.”

“No, you don’t. You want me to tell you it wasn’t Asher, so you can keep deluding yourself into believing that he’s a good person.”

My own anger kicked in, hearing him talk that way about Asher.

“He is a good person,” I snapped.

“I wish you could hear yourself,” Lamar said. “Your feelings for him are blinding you, and it’s frankly, disgusting.” He paced across the length of my room. “I don’t know how to make this any simpler for you. Asher hit me. He sent me to the hospital.”

When I had seen Asher’s broken knuckles, I had doubted, but after he held me… After, everything… no, I wouldn’t doubt him again.

Asher said he wasn’t there, so he wasn’t there.

Lamar huffed a breath. “I can’t believe you would choose him over me. The attacker over the victim.” He stopped his pacing to approach me. “Cynthia, you have to make a choice.”

“You don’t want me to do that.”

“I do. I do, because you have to hear yourself say it. You have to know how ridiculous you sound, picking him. So say the words, Cynthia. Say, ‘I believe Asher over you Lamar,’ even though I was the one who ended up in the hospital.”

“Lamar…” I didn’t want to say it.

“Go on, Cynthia. I’ll wait all night if I have to. Say it. Say, ‘I believe your attacker, Lamar.’”

I worried my bottom lip.

“Do it,” he said. “Break my goddamn heart.”