Abandon

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Four Years Ago

Thirteen months ago, I walked into Mrs. Langley’s art class and my eyes settled on a skinny girl with dark hair sitting in the corner of the class. I knew from the moment I saw Ashley that she was the girl from my last day at Elaine’s house. What I couldn’t see just by looking at her slumped shoulders and round brown eyes was that she, like me, had never spoken to anyone about what happened that day. She told me later that the reason she was removed from her aunt’s home was because her aunt died in a freak car accident the week after Ashley and I met. It turned out her aunt was the woman sitting in the corner of the bedroom that day. When I asked Ashley why she hadn’t told anyone, she replied, “Because she’s dead now. She can’t hurt me any more.”

But she was wrong. Dead or not, the memory of what happened in that back bedroom on that day and in the days after I left Elaine’s were like pieces of glass in Ashley’s skin. If she kept still, didn’t talk to anyone or do anything, she could just ignore them. But just the slightest movement, the littlest reminder, and the pain would come rushing back. Just a few months ago, she broke down in the middle of the mall when she saw a toddler in a stroller with her hair styled in pigtails.

Sometimes, she goes catatonic for hours at a time. Her adoptive parents have done everything to get her the help she needs, but she’s refused to talk to anyone about what happened. Until I walked into that art classroom.

She was silent for four years until we found each other. Now, after thirteen months of sharing our secrets and learning to trust, it’s all over with a single sentence.

“He makes me happier than you do.”

“Because he doesn’t know you. I’m the only one who knows you.”

Her face has a blank quality; her eyes a remoteness that tells me she’s bluffing. She doesn’t want to do this.

I knew when Ashley moved into the dorms at Duke a month ago that things would be difficult for us. I thought we’d have a rough nine months, then everything would go back to normal once I graduate from high school next year. I’ve been making the thirty-minute drive out to see her three times a week. I guess it wasn’t enough.

“I can’t be with you any more. He’s better for me. We’re in the same classes and we like the same music and—”

“Music?”

The only music Ashley ever listens to are my band’s songs, some of which I wrote for her, and the stuff I add to her iPod. She’s told me repeatedly that my music is the only music she feels safe listening to. Apparently, the day I met Ashley at Elaine’s was a trial run to see how Ashley would perform, and she passed the test. After I left Elaine’s, her aunt was disappointed, but she insisted that Ashley could still entertain the johns with stripteases. Ashley effectively blocked out the memory of the music she was forced to strip to, but she was left with a crippling fear of one day encountering one of those songs.

“You’re lying to yourself or you’re lying to me. I can’t figure out which one it is.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “No, I’m not. I don’t love you. I … I love him. He’s better for me.”

“Stop saying that.”

“He is!” Her hand trembles as she jams it into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out the necklace I gave her three months ago when she graduated. She holds her palm out and the gold heart glints in the mottled September sunlight. “I don’t want this.”

“I don’t want it either. It’s yours.”

“Take it or I’ll throw it away.”

“Then fucking throw it away.”

She stares at the necklace for a moment and her cool composure is beginning to evaporate. “I don’t want it. Why can’t you understand? I don’t want anything from you.”

That’s when I realize she doesn’t want the necklace because she wants to leave every trace of her past behind her. Not because she doesn’t love me. If she didn’t love me, she’d throw it away.

I turn around to walk away and she calls out to me. “Tristan! Please take it!” I continue down the concrete path in the campus courtyard. “Tristan!”

When I turn around, she seizes the opportunity to hurl the necklace at my face, then she spins around and runs off in the direction of the dorms. I pluck the necklace off the concrete and tuck it into my pocket. I think I always knew this would happen. Though I certainly did try, I knew nothing and no one could fill the hole in Ashley’s soul. And I may never forgive myself for that.