Loving Mr. Daniels (42 page)

I walked into the school building to see Ashlyn laughing at her locker with Jake and Hailey. Walking past it, I saw pictures of watermelons covering it from top to bottom. I laughed right along with her as I watched Jake and Hailey mocking her with the pictures they’d clearly put up. 

Ashlyn’s green eyes locked with mine and I felt my heart pound harder. She smiled and frowned all within two seconds before I looked away.

“That was the most romantic look I’ve ever seen in my life,” Hailey muttered to Ashlyn. I kept walking.

“No lie,” Jake muttered, “I think I just got a hard-on from watching you two.”

I laughed at that one, but I didn’t turn back. Because I knew if I looked back, I wouldn’t be able to let this happen. I would hold her against me and whisper, “Please don’t go.”

“Dan.” Henry walked over to me, a grim look on his face. “Can I see you in my office really fast?”

He was hurting knowing that Ashlyn was heading back to Chicago. It was bleeding out of his eyes. I knew the feeling.

We walked into his office and he closed the door behind me. Before I could sit down in the desk, I felt a hard fist connect with my eye. “Holy shit, Henry! What the hell was that?!”

“You fucking bastard! You used my daughter!” He swung again, slamming me in my gut. I whined in pain as the wind was knocked out of me. I bent over, trying to fight off the pain. “She’s my daughter!”

Another punch to the gut.

“My ex-wife called me, making sure everything was in place. Making sure Ashlyn was doing okay. But she was so worried.” He swung again, but this time I blocked it. “She was so worried about Ashlyn having to leave her boyfriend. And I thought to myself, ‘What boyfriend?’ Ashlyn didn’t have a fucking boyfriend.”

“Henry, let me explain—”

He didn’t. “And then Kim recalls his name. She tells me his band’s name. Guess what it was?”

The office door opened with me on the ground and I saw Ashlyn’s face. Her mouth hung open and she stepped in quickly, closing the door behind her. Her eyes shot to her father and she stood in front of me as I stood up.

“Henry, look at me,” she said, putting her hands up in the air.

“Ashlyn, he used you!” Henry screamed, tossing his arms in the air.

I wiped off the bit of blood dripping from my mouth.

“No. No he didn’t.”

“You’re confused. You’d been through so much,” Henry sighed, running his hands through his hair.

“Dad, look at me,” she whispered, taking his hands into hers. “He saved me. If you have ever loved me, you will let me explain. You will listen to me, and you will
not
get Daniel into any trouble.”

He stood still, thinking of his daughter’s words. Then he turned toward me. “I never want to see you near her again.”

“Henry—” I started.

Ashlyn cut me off. “I’m leaving! I’m leaving, I swear. It’s over.”

Those words cut into me, and I wiped my hand across my brow, agreeing with Ashlyn. “It’s over.”

No such thing as a second chance,

Only first chances that never end.

~ Romeo’s Quest

She was gone. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to feel.

Randy sat with me at the kitchen table and sipped on a beer. He hadn’t known what to say to make me feel better, and he didn’t try to make me feel better. “I’m sorry, man.” He lowered his head and shook it back and forth.

“Yeah. Me too.”

The back door to the house opened and Jace walked in. His eyes were bloodshot from tears as he slipped his hands into his jean pockets. There was a clear sign that he’d received a black eye from someone, and my gut twisted from looking at him. His lip was cut open, and he looked way too much like he had when I saw him the day Mom died.

“I asked Red to let me out.” His body shook with nerves and he laughed, shrugging his shoulders. “They were never going to tell me who killed Mom, were they?”

My head dropped and I studied my hands, which were resting against the table. “No. They weren’t.” I listened to his sobs and pushed myself up from my seat.

Walking out of the room, I came back with a cloth. Filling it with ice, I placed it against his darkening eye. He cringed when it made contact with his skin, but he didn’t verbally complain.

I didn’t want to scold him anymore. I didn’t want to tell him how much his choices affected his life and others’ lives. I just wanted my brother back. I’d witnessed too many people lose their siblings, and I was tired of fighting.

Wrapping my arms around my brother, I pulled him into a hug and he sobbed against my shoulder.

“I miss them so much, Danny.” His heart was shattering and he was finally allowing himself to feel sadness over our parents’ deaths as opposed to revenge. “I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know what to do…”

I didn’t have a reply for him. I hardly knew what I was doing with my life. I pulled out a chair at the table and Jace and I sat down next to Randy. The room filled with silence as the three of us remained still for the longest time.

“Well,” Randy smirked, moving over to the refrigerator and pulling out three beers. “We have an opening in Romeo’s Quest.”

Jace’s eyes widened and he shook his head in disbelief. “You would want me back? After everything I’ve done? Especially with Ashlyn—”

I flinched when I heard him say her name. “Jace…just say okay,” I said.

His blue eyes smiled when he looked up to find my stare. “Okay.”

This isn’t something that I want to fade.

Promise there will be sunshine after this rain.

~ Romeo’s Quest

After I left Edgewood, I went home and finished my senior year at my old school. My old friends tried to connect with me, but I wasn’t the girl they’d once known. Mom still struggled every day with dealing with Gabby’s death, but she promised me she was doing better with me being home.

She laughed a lot more, too.

Every night I sat on the couch with her—she watched television while I read. Our routine worked for us up until the day I went off to college to find myself. To start over. I made new friends. I grew comfortable being on my own, which was something I’d never been in my entire life. I’d gone from being a twin, always having someone near me, to being in a relationship with Daniel.

I didn’t regret either thing, for they’d both made me who I was today. They’d made me stronger.

My imagination used to pretend that we were together after we went our separate ways. I would roll over in my bed each morning and dream of his lips kissing mine, his arms wrapping me up as he pressed me against his warming body, his love breathing life into my entire being. I would imagine him making me a cup of tea while I made his eggs in his favorite fashion and his coffee extra dark.  Then we would make love before the sun fully awakened and smile because we would know that our bodies had been crafted for one another.

Our hearts would always beat for one another. Our souls were destined to burn together in a mystifying flame that lit the universe with hope and passion.

Most people didn’t understand. My friends encouraged me to move on, to find someone else. Yet how could I allow someone to give me their all when I knew I couldn’t return the same to them? It wouldn’t be fair.

I knew I would never fall in love again.  It wasn’t in my cards. I supposed it was because when I’d first fallen in love, I never stopped falling.

Anyone on this planet would be lucky if they had the chance to love Mr. Daniels.

Yet I was the luckiest. Because for a moment he loved me back.

I wrote each and every day whenever I wasn’t doing homework. I created a story I hadn’t even known lived inside of me. There wasn’t a word written that hadn’t been accompanied by his CD playing in my ears. It was as if he were right there with me, cheering me on.

By the end of my sophomore year, I finally wrote the words on the last page. “The End.”

I’d done it. I was officially an author.

After I finished my first ever novel, I self-published it. I sold a whopping seven copies.

Two of which were my own purchases.

And then I went back to Edgewood.

Two years early.

I couldn’t fight it anymore; I had to see if he was still thinking about me.

Because I’d never stopped for one second thinking of him.