“It sounds like you were trying to find the most perfect place,” I say, and then dare to go further. “Or maybe, you just weren’t ready to let him go.”
Asher slowly shakes his head but doesn’t answer. He walks over to the back of the boat and opens the door to the small diving port and takes a step down closer to the water. Kneeling down, he balances the box on his knee and opens the plastic bag inside containing the ashes.
I walk over to where he is and take a knee down beside him. “You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”
He swings his body toward mine and those molten caramel eyes look so soft. “I didn’t know where to put him because my contempt is so deep I didn’t care where he went. Then yesterday, you spoke about how magical this place is. You said you could live here forever, and I just knew. This is where I should put him.”
Last night I made a comment about an island and he decided he was going to scatter the ashes here and I had to come along for the ride. Hell, he even invited my sister.
“Have you always been this impulsive?”
Asher’s lips widens in a closed-mouth smile. “Every second of every damn day.”
I know I should be alarmed by his actions but I totally get them. I understand what it’s like to put your emotions on hold. Avoidance has been my companion for the last six months. Asher’s been dating the emotional devil for a year.
Actually, something tells me they’ve been together for years.
He takes the box with its opened plastic bag inside and holds it upside down over the water. Gray ashes drift out of the box, hitting the water and drifting off with the breeze. Either his grandfather was a small man or there aren’t as many ashes from a cremated body as I assumed there would be.
When the box is empty, he gives the bottom a final pat before setting it down on the floor beside him. Our legs are getting wet with the current that splashes up.
The two of us sit here for a while, watching the ashes drift away from us. A pile seems to stay close to the boat, not wanting to leave but after a while as the boat drifts away, the ashes gain some distance.
I won’t tell him that I’ve already said about fifty prayers in my head. I say most of them for the man the ashes belong to. I say a few more for Luke. He would have been twenty-one years old today. I bite back my tears and let out a breath to control the feelings falling from my eyes. Hopefully Asher just thinks I’m emotional because of the experience he is sharing with me.
“What would you have done if Leah came?”
“This wasn’t as monumental a moment as you think. I didn’t care who was here. I just wanted you.”
He has to stop saying things like that. It makes my heart beat twice as fast and my head spin in twenty different directions of anxiety.
“Why would you want me here?” I ask and then sidestep my words a bit. “I mean, I’m not weirded out or anything.”
Asher doesn’t miss a beat before looking straight into my eyes and explaining with deep conviction, “I’m drawn to you. When I want something, I take it. You already caught on how impulsive I am. It’s just the way I operate.”
I envy him. Everything about my life had been planned out. Now I don’t know what to do. I want to be impulsive and free too. Maybe losing control is the only way to really gain it.
I look at the surroundings. Asher didn’t drop anchor so we are drifting out, the ashes now far in the distance. We are surrounded by nothing but the open ocean with the mainland in the distance.
My hands rub along the top of my thighs, and I catch Asher’s eyes as they follow the action. He rises on his knees, those intense eyes bearing down on me. I know he is going to kiss me and for a second I think about leaning forward. But, instead, out of sheer loss of control of my own nature, I spring up on my toes and dive into the water.