by Doyle, S.
Something I would never do.
“Did you think I would wait for you to grow up?” I whispered. “Is that the fantasy you had in your head? That I would wait like a good little virgin boy until Princess Ashleigh Landen was old enough for me to finally fuck her?”
I heard her gasp. Smelled the mint on her breath.
“I didn’t. I’ve fucked already. Made girls come. Made girls suck me off. I’m going to be eighteen in a few months, and then, of course, you officially become jailbait. But here’s the thing, Ash. And I want you to understand this clearly. Even if you were eighteen and as hot as Kaitlin, which you’re not, I still wouldn’t touch you. Because you’re nothing but a useless, spoiled princess who doesn’t know shit about anything bad that happens in life.”
I looked at her then. At her eyes that were too damn expressive.
There, I thought. That hurt her. That hurt her good. Not in a way that made her cry, but in a deep-down soul way that would stay with her for a long time.
I gave her credit, though, because when she walked away from me without saying a word, her spine was as straight as an iron rod.
I’d done that. It had taken five years, but I’d given her just enough of a backbone so she could walk away with her head held high.
Then I found Kaitlin and fooled around with her in the backseat of Arthur Landen’s Lexus.
And when she was pulling on my dick, jerking me off hard, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes and thought of Ash’s eyes. Her big, soulful eyes that saw the things I didn’t want her to see.
I thought about Ashleigh watching us. Staring at us from just outside the car, looking in the window and seeing everything. Kaitlin kneeling next to me on the backseat, her tits popped out of her strapless dress, working hard to make me come. It was only fair, since I’d made her come twice. I pictured Ash seeing me like this, wanting me despite how horrible I’d been to her.
Ash’s face. Ash’s eyes. Ash’s hand around my cock…and then I came with a low groan in the back of my throat.
Ash.
5
Same night
Marc
I’d dropped Kaitlin off and was driving to the estate, up the long driveway, when I saw the flashing lights near the house.
The cops? I snorted at that. Maybe it would turn out that Landen was a crook and he was getting arrested. Ash’s precious castle would come burning down around her. What would she do then?
I would have to save her of course.
I rubbed my hand over my face and thought about what I’d said to her earlier. I didn’t know what it was about her but sometimes…she made me lose control. I’d had my shit locked down for years. I barely ever lost my temper with anyone. Not coaches, not teachers, not George.
But sometimes with her, I got rattled.
It shouldn’t have bothered me she had a crush on me, but it did. I should have been able to see it as a logical conclusion. She was fifteen, probably just starting to think about boys sexually, and I was her closest contact. Her only contact really.
Only I didn’t see it that way. I saw it the way I always saw things with Ash. That she was too close. That she saw too much. That she made me feel impossible rage and hurt and anger…just because she cared about me.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I would have to apologize. All that stuff I’d said about fucking and making girls suck me off. Did she even know about shit like that? I knew from experience most girls I went to school with did, but Ash wasn’t like most girls. She’d been sheltered and protected. Her maturity was bound to be repressed.
The lights flashed again, catching my attention. As I got to the top of the driveway, I saw it wasn’t a cop car. It was an ambulance. I pulled the Lexus over by the garage. I didn’t bother turning off the engine before I was out the door and running over to where I could see George. He was walking behind the paramedics who were pushing a stretcher toward the open doors of the ambulance.
No. Fuck no. No, no, no.
I could see her hair, her fragile face underneath an oxygen mask.
“What did she do? What did she fucking do?” I shouted.
I stopped the stretcher and looked down at her, but her eyes were closed.
“Sir, you need to back off,” the paramedic told me.
George pulled me away, and I watched as they loaded her into the ambulance.
“What did she do? What did she do?” I shouted at George.
If she hurt herself. Because of what I said…
Oh my god, I was going to get sick.
“Marc, calm down,” George said, grabbing me by my shoulders. “It’s an asthma attack. A bad one. They’ve got her sedated but need to get her to the hospital so they can check her oxygen levels. I’ll go with her. You follow.”
“No. I’ll go with her. The keys are still in the ignition.”
I didn’t wait for George’s answer, I just hopped into the ambulance and sat on the bench seat as the paramedic closed the back doors. Then we were pulling away from the estate as I stared down at Ash’s pale face.
“Is she going to be okay?”
The one paramedic looked at me, and his expression was intense. “I think so. We almost lost her, but I think we got to her in time.”
We almost lost her.
I said those horrible and cruel things to her. Did she try to run home? Is that what caused it? She hadn’t had an attack in years, and yet tonight I’d said what I’d said, and, while I was getting my dick jacked off, she was at home almost…
Dying.
I dropped my head into my hands and focused on my breathing so that I wouldn’t vomit all over her. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of the shit I’d done to her over the years.
Reaching down, I took her hand in mine. It was cold, but I searched for and felt her pulse.
“I’m sorry, Ash.”
Maybe the paramedics wondered what was up. Maybe they didn’t care as long as she continued breathing.
All I knew was, I had done this. And I was going to have to fix it.
* * *
Ashleigh
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
It was early morning, and I’d gotten Marc out of bed. But with a good reason. When I’d woken up this morning, I saw it had snowed last night. I’d already checked that his school was closed for the day, which meant we had the whole day to sled. But even while I was holding the large round disk in front of me, Marc was eying me skeptically.
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.
“Hello? It’s a snow day. We’ve got the hill at the back of the property. You loved this last year.”
“Last year. When we were kids.”
I rolled my eyes. He was only fourteen. That was too cool for sledding? “We’re still kids, and you’re a dork. Fine, I’ll go by myself.”
Which I knew would totally work to convince him. Marc wouldn’t let me sled alone.
“Ugh. You’re such a freak. Wait here. I need to get my stuff.”
Leaving the disk outside, I stood inside the carriage house, which, sometimes for me felt more like home than the big house. This was where I ate dinner when my father was away on business. This was where I hung out with Marc when he said it was okay to hang out with him. This was where I came to see if George had baked some cookies for me.
Sometimes I wished things could be easier. Like, if we could all just live here together and I just visited my father whenever he wanted, which I doubted would be very often.
A few minutes later, a grumpy Marc stomped toward me in his boots and winter coat. He took both sled strings from me and pulled the disks behind us. I took a deep breath and coughed a little.
The cold air hurt my lungs, but I didn’t want Marc to be able to use that as an excuse to bail. I knew we were going to have fun, even if he was grumpy.
“Your father probably wouldn’t want you outside in the cold air,” he said, but he was still walking toward the part of the property whe
re we could sled.
“He’s at work. He won’t know.”
“That’s not the point. If you have an attack or something, I’ll be blamed. I’m not supposed to be hanging around you.”
“You tell me all the time I’m too coddled and need to do more. This is me doing more.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked me. “The asthma? Like, when you’re sucking on your inhaler, does that hurt?”
I shook my head. “Not really. My chest gets tight is all. I have to really focus on my breathing, otherwise it can get away from me.”
“George said you’ve been hospitalized before.”
A few times. It was after the last time that Daddy pulled me out of school. “It’s been a few years now. I think I’m better.”
“Do you get scared, though? When it happens?”
I looked at him and nodded. It was the truth. I got real scared. When it felt like I didn’t know how to breathe.
“If your chest starts to get tight, let me know. We’ll take it easy.”
I felt a warmth fill my chest then. In the quiet morning, with newly fallen snow, Marc wasn’t being sullen or grumpy. Instead he was being thoughtful. These moments happened between us, but they were pretty rare.
After a few hours, lots of fun and laughs, and a missing mitten that left my hand exposed—which Marc replaced with his glove—we made our way to the carriage house. George made us hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.
It was the best day ever.
* * *
At the hospital
Ashleigh
When I woke up, I realized immediately what had happened. I hadn’t been in the hospital for an attack in years, but I remembered how hospital rooms smelled. My chest hurt with each breath, but I forced myself to breathe through the pain.
Because breathing felt better than not breathing.
I turned my head, expecting to see George. When it had gotten so bad, when my inhaler stopped working, I’d called him. I could barely say anything I’d been so out of breath, but he’d known immediately what was happening and called 911.
Instead, Marc was there. Still in his jacket and tie from earlier tonight, although his tie was askew.
He looked wrecked and I got it. He thought he’d done this. That he’d said those awful things to me and triggered my attack. It probably had. I’d been crying so hard it got in front of my breathing. I couldn’t catch up. No matter how hard I’d tried to calm myself down. Instead, all I could manage was short pants until even that became laborious.
I breathed in deep and felt my chest expand. I was going to be okay. Whatever medicine they’d given me was working. The attack was behind me.
Marc’s head lifted and he saw I was awake.
He got up and walked over to the bed and just looked down at me.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said it. I don’t. I just snapped.”
I nodded. It was strange, but in all the times he’d been mean to me, curt with me, had snapped at me, he’d never once said he was sorry. This was weird. But a good weird.
“It’s not your fault. It just happened,” I whispered. It felt weird to talk. Like I wasn’t ready to test if I had enough air to do it.
“It didn’t just happen. I was awful and I hurt you. I saw that I hurt. I wanted to hurt you. Why do I do that, Ash?”
He didn’t know, but I did. How ironic, I thought. That even though I was two years younger than him, I saw so clearly what he didn’t see.
Marc thought he hated me. But he didn’t. He didn’t hate me at all. I knew it, like a secret tucked deep inside my heart.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. You could have…shit, Ash, you could have…”
“I didn’t,” I said.
“Were you scared?”
I nodded and he nodded back but didn’t say anything else.
“Stay with me while I sleep?” I asked him.
“George is trying to get ahold of your father.”
“I don’t need him,” I whispered, feeling the influence of the drugs wash over me.
He nodded and pulled the chair closer and sat. I went to sleep knowing he would be there when I woke in the morning.
6
One year later
Ashleigh
I stared at the carriage house and knew what was happening. George had to drive my father to Manhattan for a business meeting and they would be staying overnight. Which meant Marc had the house to himself. I could hear the music and the buzz of laughter and talking. He’d invited friends over.
It made sense. He was home for Thanksgiving break. Of course he would want to reunite with his friends from high school.
I shivered a little in the cold, and hitched the cooler of stuff I’d brought with me higher on my shoulder.
See, anyone might have thought after my horrible attack last year that things would have changed between me and Marc.
He’d be nicer to me. He’d break up with his girlfriend and start dating me instead. He’d acknowledge my existence at school and hang out with me at home.
None of those things had happened. Instead, things pretty much went back to normal.
He’d ignored me at school. Ignored me at home as much as he could.
He did break up with Kaitlin after Christmas and had decided he didn’t want another girlfriend since he was getting ready to graduate. Of course, he got into Princeton, because when Marc decided he wanted something, he almost always got it.
At least the things he could control.
There had been no word about his mother in years. I knew it affected him, even though he pretended it didn’t. Because I was the one who knew him best, so I saw it all. The hurt, the anger, all the stuff he kept bottled up so that no one else could see it.
What I was doing tonight was probably a mistake, I thought. He would most likely tell me to get lost. But this is what I did. I pushed.
I walked up to the carriage house door and knocked. The soft cooler was filled with soda and food I’d made. It was a gesture. For him and his friends. It was also an excuse to see him while he was home.
The door opened, but it wasn’t Marc on the other side. Instead it was Chris, one of the fullbacks from his soccer team. He was a senior this year, and the new captain of the team. He smiled at me in that way guys did that made a girl immediately get defensive.
Did they understand that wasn’t a good thing? To make a girl feel that way?
“And what have we here, a little present? For us?”
I didn’t roll my eyes. “Hi, Chris. I just came over because I thought you all might be hungry.”
His creepy smile widened. “I am. I’m very hungry.”
Oh, great. Lousy innuendo to go with a creepy smile.
“Is Marc here?”
“Oh, right. A prince for a princess. I get it. Oh, Marc, your girlfriend is here. Bearing gifts.”
Marc came up behind Chris and shoved him out of the way. “She’s not my girlfriend. What do you want, Ash?”
See, a near-death experience hadn’t made Marc any warmer or fuzzier. But I also knew something had changed that night. A realization between the two of us as to why he felt the need to hurt me, and why I accepted it. A realization he wasn’t ready to admit, though.
“I brought sodas, chips, sandwiches and stuff. Thought you might want something to eat.”
I lifted my chin and I could smell the pot someone was smoking inside.
“I’m guessing that a bag of chips might be popular right now.”
A smile played around his lips, until he frowned. “It’s all guys here, Ash. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Come on, Marc, let her in. Chips, chips, chips.” That was from Chris who announced to the crowd what I’d brought. Suddenly the chip chant was a real and very loud thing.
Marc looked me up and down. I wore jeans and a thick sweater, my hair loose around my shoulders. He seemed to be making some kind of assessment.
“Fine,” he said, pull
ing open the door to let me in. He took the cooler from my shoulder, and as I wandered into the living area, I could see there was a joint being passed around.
“Are you going to tell your father?” Marc asked me.
I gave him a glance that said he should know me better, and he conceded.
“Come sit by me, Ashleigh, and tell me how the high school is holding up since I left.”
That was from Greg. He’d been the soccer team’s goalie and knew me from all the games I’d attended. He was at Villanova now, and I heard they were having a good season.
I grabbed a soda from the cooler and went over to sit next to him. Immediately, he put his arm around me and hugged me into his side. But it was okay; Greg was one of the good guys.
I looked over and saw Marc scowling, but since he was usually scowling at me, I didn’t take offense.
“Forget about high school,” I said. “How is college?”
“It’s awesome. Freedom like you can’t even believe. The freshman girls are fucking hot. Like, all of them.”
I laughed, and Marc walked over and smacked Greg in the head. “Dude, not in front of Ash.”
“Please. She’s been around the team long enough to know how we roll. Do you still go to see the soccer games now that your boy’s not there?”
“Sure, I love soccer.” It was a lie. But it felt a little too obvious to say soccer didn’t matter to me now that Marc wasn’t playing it.
“What about boys? You got a boyfriend yet? Someone pushing you to get to second base? Who is it? I’ll kill him.”
“She doesn’t,” Marc announced. “And stop talking about that stuff.”
“How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?” I asked Marc.
“George,” he said as if that was enough of an answer.
Had he asked George? Had George simply volunteered that information? What else did George tell him about me?
“Marc,” Chris said, coming up behind him with his joint in hand. “Take a hit and chill out. We’re all cool. Ashleigh’s cool, too. Right, Ashleigh? Want to loosen up?”
