Asher (Ashes & Embers Book 6)

by Carian Cole

“You don’t know her. You don’t know us.”

  “You’re right, but I do know a lot about brains, trauma, oxygen, and all the things you won’t listen to. I know how unfair this is. I know who you are, how talented and loved you both are. I took my sixteen-year-old son to one of your concerts. I wish I had better news. But—”

  “She’s going to wake up. Every thought of my future since I was fifteen years old includes her. If she were gone, I’d feel it. I’d know.” My voice cracks, and I slowly shake my head. “I don’t give a shit how crazy that might sound with all your medical knowledge. Love is stronger than all that.” I tug the edge of the faded, light-blue blanket up, almost to her shoulder, and slip her hand into mine again. Her palm feels warmer. I’m sure it does. “She needs rest. And quiet. Do you know how noisy this place is? She gets headaches…sometimes she has to sleep in a quiet room for a few days to feel better. I don’t have to be a brain surgeon to know that after hitting her head…” I swallow hard over the ever-present lump in my throat. “She might need a little extra rest. Right?”

  It turns out even her headaches weren’t regular headaches. A tiny benign tumor was found in her brain when she underwent surgery the night of the accident. Something the size of a marble had been causing the headaches, the dizziness, the noise intolerance, the sudden mood shifts. And most likely, the stumble and fall off the cliff.

  He nods skeptically. “Yes, I’m sure that’s all true, Mr. Valentine, but this isn’t a headache that’s going to go away. I truly wish it were. The damage is extensive. The tests show—”

  “Please.” I put my hand up to stop him. “I don’t want anymore negative talk around her. She’s here, right in front of us. She hears us—”

  “There is no indication she can hear us.”

  “There’s no indication she can’t, either. Enough with the doom and gloom comments. She needs love, rest, and positive energy. Ember’s a happy person. A light. Nothing—no one—brings her down. If you can’t get on board with that, then we want a new doctor.”

  His attention shifts to my hand clasping Ember’s. “I can get on board with that, Mr. Valentine.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s an entire waiting room full of your loved ones. Let one of them take you home. Ember’s not going to wake up while you’re gone. You need to take care of yourself. I understand your devotion. In fact, I admire it greatly, but if you don’t take care of yourself, I’ll have no choice but to restrict visitation.”

  I push my hair out of my face to level my gaze at him. “Did you just threaten to keep me away from my wife?”

  He leans back. “No. Simply stating the facts needed to take care of my patient in every way, which is currently extending to you. You haven’t left this room. Your family is worried. You’re about to drop, and we can’t risk you passing out in here and creating chaos.”

  I swore I wouldn’t leave her side until she woke up. But one day stretched to two. Then three. Almost four. I’m so exhausted, I feel delirious. I smell bad. Hunger and heartache are dueling it out in my gut. My hair is sticking to the back of my neck. The dried blood on my T-shirt is crunchy and scratching my skin.

  Ember would be horrified if she saw me like this.

  I slowly pull my hand from hers and rise from my plastic chair. “I’ll go home and clean up. But only if her sister can stay in here while I’m gone. Even after visiting hours. I don’t want her alone when she wakes up.”

  “You have my word, Mr. Valentine.”

  The need to crawl into that tiny bed with Ember, wrap my arms around her, and stay that way until this trap between life and death releases us is overpowering. Holding her is the only place I should be.

  I’m afraid to leave.

  I’m afraid if I don’t stay here touching her, whispering to her, she’ll slip further away...and I’ll lose her forever.

  The moment the thought of losing her ebbs into my mind, I’m almost paralyzed by the deep, heart-twisting pain that grows in my chest and spreads out to my limbs, searing into every molecule of my being, as if she’s being ripped out of me.

  I won’t let her go. Ever.

  Leaning down, I gently kiss her cheek.

  “I’ll be back soon, baby. I promise,” I whisper. “You rest. Dream of us. I love you.”

  I let my brother, Storm, take me home. He pushes me into the shower, forces me to eat cinnamon toast and drink tea, then convinces me to try to take a nap. He promises to park himself on my couch until I’m ready to go back to the hospital.

  Once alone in the bedroom, I ease myself onto our bed. The mattress feels foreign. No longer comforting, but somehow untrustworthy. Like it might swallow me up in a sinkhole of blankets, sheets, and memories. The absence of my wife is deafening, screaming from every corner of the room. Her scent embedded in the pillows both intoxicates and mocks me. So much of her is here...but she’s not.

  I’ve never felt so utterly alone. Three days without her touch, her voice, her smile, and my world feels as if it’s crumbled into ruins. We’ve been apart many times before, chasing our careers. But not like this. Never, in fifteen years, has she been unreachable to me.

  I grab my cell phone from the nightstand, open my voice messages, and press play on one she sent me last week. My hand shakes as I grip the phone. Her cheerful voice drifts from the small speaker.

  “Hey, sweetheart. You must be in the studio. I really wanted to hear your voice. It’s been a long day. I’m on my way home. I got our favorite S’mores ice cream for our snuggly movie-in-bed date tonight after Kenzi goes to bed. I picked up some new candles too, and I may have stopped by the lingerie store for something extra special. Okay, I’ll see you when I get home. I love you and can’t wait to see you. Lots of smooches. Bye, love.”

  I suck in a deep breath that feels like it could be my last. A tear falls down my cheek and lands on the phone screen with a tiny splash.

  She sounded so happy. So sweet. So hopeful. So mine. So alive.

  I play the message again.

  And again.

  My heart wrenches at the realization we never had our ice cream date that night. I got caught up at the studio, and she fell asleep. We promised we’d do it the following week.

  The day she fell.

  My fingers curl around my phone in raging regret.

  Everything she said the day of the accident pummels through my veins.

  She was right. So fucking right. As much as we love each other, our life—our “us”—had been slowly slipping away. Just as I realized it and decided to stop it, I let her slip away from me.

  I let her slip out of my grasp.

  I bury my face in her pillow, suffocating the screaming sobs I can’t swallow back anymore. I play her message once again, needing to hear her voice, and beg the universe to give us more time.

  “Ash…can you hear me?” she whispers.

  I blink and rub my eyes, but I can’t see her through the thick, blue fog surrounding me.

  “Ember? Where are you?” I reach for her, following the sound of her voice, but I can’t find her.

  “I’m not sure… I’m tired. There’s a pink light… I have to sleep in it.”

  “No. Come closer to me. Don’t go…”

  “I have to. I’m almost there.”

  “I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave…”

  A warm breeze passes over me.

  My lips tingle.

  My breath catches.

  “It’s not your fault. I’ll come back someday. I promise. We’ll be together again. I love you.”

  “Em!”

  My body convulses. The fog disappears. I’m staring at the ceiling fan in our bedroom.

  Spinning. Spinning.

  The scent of Ember’s calming lavender bed spray tickles my nose.

  I sit up and stare at the empty side of the bed. The small purple glass bottle isn’t on her nightstand where it always sits.

  But I smell it, all over me, all over the sheets.

  My chest shud
ders as I inhale the familiar scent.

  She was here.

  I can feel her, taste her on my lips, hear the echo of her words lingering in the air.

  “I’ll wait for you,” I whisper to the dark room. “I love you.”

  Chapter One

  Seven Years Later

  “Good morning, beautiful.” I place the vase of purple, yellow, and white flowers on the nightstand and move the flowers I brought here yesterday to the table near the door. Later, when I leave, I’ll drop them off at the nurses’ station, and they’ll be given to a patient who never receives gifts.

  I shrug off my leather jacket and throw it onto the chair in the corner before I go to the window and pull back the blinds. Sunlight floods into the room.

  “It’s nice out today. It would’ve been a great day to go up to Wolfeboro and visit some of those little stores you love so much, grab some lunch.” I unlock the window and push it open about two inches. “Finally, some fresh air in this place, huh?”

  When I turn around, she’s staring across the room at the television.

  “Em, I—”

  “Wow, those flowers are beautiful. So vibrant.” Sherry, my favorite nurse, rolls her cart of medications and diagnostic apparatuses into the room. I always avoid looking at it. “You’re here bright and early this morning, Mr. Valentine.”

  “I couldn’t wait to see my girl. The sun’s out, think I heard birds chirping. All that happy stuff. It felt like a good day.”

  She flashes me a warm smile as she tends to my wife. “You’re a lucky gal, Mrs. Valentine. My husband would spend a day like this cleaning out the garage for the umpteenth time.”

  I wait at the window, out of the way, while Sherry does her morning tasks and taps notes on her iPad. Eyes watch me from the framed photos on the wall, their smiles suspended in time. Me, Ember, and Kenzi over the years, smiling and loving life. Until the photos change to only Kenzi and me...changing and aging, our smiles not as bright. I swear in each of those photos I see a gaping empty spot, as if someone came along and cut Ember out.

  My mind envisions her there in the photos, though.

  “You two enjoy your time together,” Sherry finally says. “Be sure to close that window before you leave, handsome.”

  I grin. “Will do, Sherry.”

  When she’s gone, I push myself off the windowsill and approach the end of Ember’s bed. I touch her foot, squeeze it gently through the thin, white sock. She’s incredibly ticklish. The slightest touch on her foot used to send her into adorable, sexy giggles.

  She continues to stare toward the television.

  Reaching down beneath the bed, I unlock the wheels and turn it so she’s facing the window. “Look how blue the sky is, babe. It’s almost as pretty as you.” I sit on the bed beside her hip and bend down to press a soft kiss to her forehead. “I know you hate mornings, but I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to come see you.”

  I grab her hand and squeeze it between mine. “This weekend, the doctor’s going to start the new medication I told you about. I know it’s taken fuckin’ forever, but you know how this stuff goes. Approvals and paperwork and yadda yadda yadda.” I retrieve a tube of lotion from the drawer in the nightstand. “It’s still considered experimental, but I’ve got a good feeling about this, Em.” I squirt the cream onto my palm and gently massage it onto her hand then up her arm to her shoulder.

  She blinks once.

  “It’s helped a few people.” I work the lotion into her other arm. “They woke up, and they’re getting better and better every day. I saw videos of them—talking and walking. It’s crazy. It can work for us too. Think about it, Em.” I stroke her cheek, aching for her to look at me. “In a couple weeks or months, we could be together again. Like we used to be. You could come home, sleep in your own bed, eat all your favorite things. Like ice cream.”

  I dip down and brush my lips against her ear. “We could go on a second honeymoon and ravish each other,” I whisper teasingly before sitting back up.

  Her green eyes close slowly, stay that way for a few moments, then open again.

  Fuck, I miss her so much I want to punch the wall. Her smile, her laugh, her scent, her touch. Her love.

  This new treatment has to work.

  “I know you can hear me, baby. I’d climb right into your head with you if I could. I swear, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t, so it’s time for you to come out. If you start to wake up, don’t be trying to hit the snooze button, okay? Just let yourself wake up, and I’ll be right here. Kenzi too.”

  I take a deep breath and scan her face for any sign of understanding or awareness.

  Nothing.

  “I love you, Em,” I say softly. “I miss you so damn much. I need you to come back to me. Kenzi needs you. I’ve tried so hard to be a good dad for her. But I think she really still needs her mom. So much has happened...”

  I can’t tell her everything that’s happened with our daughter. Not like this.

  She continues to stare right through me, toward the window and the bright blue sky.

  With a sigh, I stretch out on the bed and carefully put my arm around her. Resting my head next to hers, I follow her vacant gaze.

  “Let’s look for cloud formations,” I whisper. “Remember, we used to do that? You always saw the coolest shapes.”

  Two clouds float by before I drift off to sleep.

  I wake an hour later.

  I’m not supposed to be on her bed, or asleep in her room. Even the open window is off-limits. But Sherry has a soft spot for us after seeing me here almost every day for the past seven years. She’s told me I’m one of the few who visit their loved ones in this place frequently. She also knows that the only time I ever truly sleep is when I’ve got my wife in my arms, when I can escape to that place where we’re together and none of this is real. Soon, Sherry will return with another nurse to turn Ember and take care of her other daily necessities. Sometimes I stay and help, but today I’d rather have just the memory of napping with her in my arms.

  Reluctantly, I get up to close the window, then turn the bed back toward the television, which drones on 24/7.

  Ember continues the maddening, lifeless stare. I fear it’s contagious and that I’m starting to look the same way.

  I feel invisible. A ghost trapped in the same solitary limbo as my wife, except fate has shoved a massive invisible wall between us.

  I fix the blankets—which are ours from home—kiss my wife softly on the lips, and grab yesterday’s flowers on my way out the door.

  Tomorrow, I’ll do it all over again.

  Chapter Two

  Most people think because I’m the lead singer of a popular rock band that I live a never-ending life of parties, exotic places, and women.

  They’re surprised to find out I don’t party at all. Not with substances and not with women. I travel with the band to other countries, but it’s not anything close to a vacation.

  I’m a homebody.

  All I’ve ever wanted to do when I’m not working is spend time with my family and friends and write new songs.

  And rest, because no matter what, I never seem to get enough sleep.

  Years ago, Ember and I started a tradition of inviting our friends and family over to our place every other Friday night during the warm months. We grilled food out on the back deck and sat around the bonfire eating and talking. Usually myself or someone else ended up singing and playing acoustic guitar.

  My best friend, Toren, always comes over with food and drinks, and my daughter, Kenzi, helps him set it all up.

  As I sit in a lawn chair in my backyard, watching this ritual taking place around me, I almost laugh at how things are so much the same and yet so incredibly different.

  Ember used to always be right with me at these get-togethers—holding my hand or sitting on my lap. We’d sing duets together around the fire, like we did on stage before she started her own band.

  My brothers, cousins, and friends were all single back
when we started these get-togethers, and they’d mostly come to drink and try to hook up with a friend that someone else brought with them. But over the past few years, they’ve each met someone and settled down.

  I wonder if they know how lucky they are.

  I hope they do.

  I remember sitting in this very chair I’m sitting in right now and seeing Kenzi perched at the edge of the pool with Tor, dangling their feet in the water and talking for hours.

  Watching them do that exact same thing right now, I can’t help but wonder if Ember had been here, would she have noticed that our best friend and our daughter were in their own little world where their cute, innocent friendship was slowly turning into something much, much more over the years?

  The scene right now is the same as it was when Kenzi was ten, twelve, fourteen, seventeen, and all the ages between.

  The relationship isn’t.

  A little over a year ago, I walked her down the aisle and put her hand in his.

  I watched my twenty-year-old daughter marry my thirty-five-year-old best friend.

  Yeah, it’s the stuff of every father’s nightmares. I went through all the stages of rage and blame. Twice. I sat at Ember’s bedside and cried for days, begging her to wake the hell up and help me do the right thing. Kenzi needed her mother, and I needed my wife. Then and now.

  When my meltdown didn’t wake her up, it was hard to hold on to the belief that anything else in this world ever could or would. That left me without my wife, facing the possibility of losing my daughter and my lifelong best friend forever if I couldn’t see past their ages, the disbelief, and betrayal.

  Living without two more of the people I love most in this world wasn’t something I could handle. There’s only so much loss and heartache a person can take. I’d reached my limit.

  After some major soul searching and talking for hours to my gram, I realized Tor and Kenzi had reached their limit too. Like me, they also lost Ember. They were just as lonely as I was, and they found comfort, love, and a crazy connection in each other that even I couldn’t deny was clear as day, right in front of me.