Fragments of Ash

by Katy Regnery

  “Let it go, Noelle,” I say, a sharp edge in my voice warning her that I’m not kidding around. “This conversation is closed.”

  My sister returns to her original tack, mellowing her voice. “She’s pretty. And nice. And the way you two look at each other? Like you want to eat each other sideways with a spoon? God, Jules—”

  “We do not—”

  “Parker never looked at me like that,” she continues. “I don’t understand why you won’t, I don’t know, let yourself like her, Jules.”

  I place my palms on the table and push away. Standing up, I’m looking down at her instead of the other way around.

  “I just can’t.”

  “Then you’re stupid.”

  “And you’re a brat.”

  She hops down from the table, looking up at me with narrowed eyes. “You know what? You don’t have a right to call out anyone else on keeping secrets. You’re hiding out here. Your whole life is one big secret.”

  Then she huffs softly and heads into the house, leaving me alone.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to yell “Fuck you!” at my sister’s back, but while I’ve used that sort of coarse language around her, I’ve never said it to her. Hell, my father would have smacked my mouth off my face if I ever had.

  But damn it, I’m frustrated by our conversation.

  She’s right. I’m attracted to Ashley like I’ve never been attracted to anyone in my entire life. She’s been here for a week, and it’s turned my whole life upside down. I’m aware of her in a way I’ve never experienced before. I want to know more about her. I want to know everything about her, in fact. And until I do, there can be nothing more between us than sharing this house and occasionally offering one another pleasantries when we happen to cross paths.

  That I want our paths to cross as often as possible is my problem, not hers.

  But I will fight whatever force draws me to her until she’s gone.

  ***

  Ashley

  Morning sun streams into my windows, and I wake up slowly, breathing deeply and smiling as I recall dinner with the Ducharmes siblings last night. Since losing Tig, I haven’t spoken of her like that—with both affection and exasperation, but it felt good to remember her with laughter instead of pain. It felt . . . new.

  To be frank, I don’t know the last time I thought about Tig without a deep and terrible ache, which is weird because her diary entries are so furious, so desperate, they should make me sad. And on one level, they do. They make me angry too. But at least twice, she says that she stayed alive for me. That counts for something, doesn’t it? It makes me wonder if maybe—just maybe, despite her efforts to reject and conceal it—she loved me just a little.

  Anders and Gus, in their own ways, have both insisted that she did.

  My mind slips from Anders to Mosier, who still believes I am at school.

  When Gus visited on Wednesday, he told me that he called Father Joseph from a pay phone, introduced himself, and asked the priest if he had reached out to Mosier yet. Yes, he had. But Mosier and his sons were on a business trip in Las Vegas when he called, so Father Joseph had asked that I remain up here a little longer, until he could get in touch with them. Gus said I was welcome for as long as I wanted to stay.

  “You don’t think Mosier would do anything to Father Joseph, do you?” I asked Gus.

  Something dark flickered behind Gus’s eyes, but his smile was brave. “Ain’t no man alive wants to tangle with a priest, precious.”

  I, however, don’t share Gus’s certainty, and still fear for Father Joseph when I imagine him sitting down with Mosier to discuss my future. Mosier doesn’t have the type of temper that can be easily controlled. Not as far as I’ve seen, anyway.

  And if anything happens to Father Joseph, Gus, or Jock—or Julian, for that matter—I would never forgive myself. These people, in various degrees of welcome, have embraced me in my time of terrible need, and I will always be grateful to them.

  Julian.

  Julian.

  I close my eyes and sigh, remembering his chiseled face in the candlelight last night. Watching him with his sister—so effortlessly affectionate and loving—was a revelation to me. Now that I know how Julian’s face looks when he loves someone, I won’t ever be able to unknow it.

  And how does it look?

  Still rugged. Still masculine. Still beautiful. But softer, in a way that is tender, not doughy. Maybe even a little vulnerable—something I haven’t seen on Julian’s hard face at all until last night. I didn’t even know he was capable of it.

  “Lord,” I pray, “help my terrible lust.”

  But my heart is already racing, and that deep and throbbing ache is growing between my legs. Reaching for the hem of my modest nightgown, I pull it up, over my hips, to my waist, baring my sex under the covers.

  Tentatively I trail my trembling fingers over the skin of my belly, landing on the triangle of curls at the apex of my thighs. I flatten my palm over the soft hair, as my breath grows choppy and shallow.

  My fingers are the first to reach between my legs and slide into the hot valley of slickened skin, gasping when the pad of my finger inadvertently brushes over a nub of firmer flesh. I arch my back against the mattress, running my finger back and forth, a mewling sound rising from my throat as I pass over the little button.

  I rub faster now, pushing my head back into my pillow and raising my knees to open my thighs wider. I moan loudly, then bite my lip to stifle the sound, my eyes rolling back in my head as my body explodes in wave after wave of almost painful pleasure, of intense contractions, like fireworks bursting inside my body. I pant and giggle at the same time, riding out this newfound bliss until I open my eyes and release my lip, which tastes slightly metallic. I think I’ve split it with my teeth, but I don’t care. I’ve never experienced anything remotely as earth-shattering on a physical level, and it’s left me feeling sated and spent.

  I open my eyes and sigh softly. At some point during my orgasm, a warm heat rushed from between my legs, and the area I was rubbing is now soaked and slick from it. I fondle myself lazily for an extra minute before skimming my hand back to the hem of my nightgown to pull it down.

  I’ve never touched myself like this before. Never dared, either at school or at Mosier’s house. I know the mechanics of sex, of course, and that having desire for one’s husband will lead to the kind of sex that will be pleasurable for both married partners, and, hopefully, fruitful.

  But hearing a sanitary version of “how sex works” from Sister Agnes, who had no firsthand knowledge of the act, and experiencing my first orgasm, are two different things entirely.

  Remembering Julian’s face across the table last night—his green eyes softer because of his sister’s presence—makes me feel confused and tired. Now that I know how he looks when he loves someone, I can’t help the impossible, ridiculous yearning that suddenly skyrockets to the very pinnacle of my longing:

  For Julian Ducharmes to love me someday too.

  ***

  Julian

  I was wrong about last night.

  Noelle didn’t grill me when I went back to my room to go to sleep.

  She didn’t grill me, because she refused to speak to me at all.

  Even when I put on Princes et Princesses, her favorite movie of all time, she wouldn’t speak to me.

  Since waking up this morning, she’s been reading on the front porch swing, ignoring me completely and looking disdainfully at the sandwich I placed on the table beside her at lunchtime.

  When I returned an hour later, she hadn’t touched it.

  My little sister is freezing me out.

  After making my delivery in town—Noelle refused to come along for the ride—I return home and stand at the foot of the porch steps.

  “Enough is enough, Noelle.”

  “You’re right,” she answers, turning the page of her book, but not looking up.

  Phew. “So come for a walk with me and Bruno.”

 
“No, thanks.”

  “But I thought you just agreed that enough is—”

  “Enough of you shutting me out,” she snaps, closing her book and marching into the house.

  And of course, who is standing there in the doorway watching the drama unfold? Ashley.

  Great.

  She stares at me through the screen, her expression unreadable.

  “She’s a fucki—she’s a brat!” I yell, loud enough for Noelle to hear. A door slams shut in the back of the house in response.

  “She loves you,” says Ashley softly, pushing open the door and stepping onto the porch with me. “And you love her.”

  “I guess you know something about difficult siblings, huh?”

  She offers me a small smile, but I feel it everywhere. “Tig? Oh, she was . . . terrible. Yes.”

  “But you loved her?” I ask, feeling strangely invested in her answer.

  She averts her eyes as her smile fades. “I did. I think I did. It was . . . hard to know Tig.”

  “My sister won’t come for a walk with me and Bruno,” I say, ignoring the warning bells going helter-skelter in my head as my lips form the following words: “How about you?”

  Her eyes widen, and her lips part in surprise. “Me?” I’m about to yell, No! I take it back! when she nods emphatically. “Sure. I’d love to.”

  I whistle for Bruno, who’s sniffing for something at the white lattice under the porch. “Come on, boy.”

  I don’t know why I asked her. And I don’t know why I didn’t take back my invitation when I had the split-second chance. But I blame it all on Noelle. If she hadn’t harassed me about dating someone and opening up and being a big, fat liar last night, I never would’ve suggested this.

  Well, suck it up. You asked and she accepted. Besides, it’s just a walk.

  As we round the barn, Ashley moves into step beside me, and I take note of her little white tennis sneakers. No good for traipsing through the woods. We’ll have to stay on the path.

  “Have you seen the pond?”

  “No,” she says, her voice breathless as she tries to keep up with me. “I haven’t seen anything.”

  I slow my pace a little. “It’s not much, but if we follow the path, we’ll come to it.”

  “Sounds good,” she says.

  We walk in silence for a few minutes, Bruno’s happy baying breaking the quiet every few minutes.

  “Is he chasing raccoons?”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “Photographic,” she says.

  I glance at her. “Really?”

  “Mm-hm. With a few exceptions, I only have to hear or see something once.” She taps on the side of her head. “It’s in here forever.”

  “Huh. Interesting.”

  “Not always,” she says softly.

  I assume this is because there are some things she’d rather forget, and I am struck with a sudden sympathy.

  “Are there a lot of things you’d like to forget?”

  “Yes,” she answers without embellishment, explanation, or excuse. Her one-word answers are maddening when, more and more, I want to know everything about her.

  “Why didn’t you grow up with your parents?” I ask.

  “I did,” she says, “for a while.”

  “Then you moved to Hollywood. To be with your sister.”

  She stops abruptly, and I turn around to face her, shrugging sheepishly at the expression on her face. Just short of pissed, she appears unnerved. “How . . . ?”

  “The internet,” I say simply.

  After Noelle fell asleep last night, I spent a good hour surfing Tígin, born Teagan Ellis, in Anglesey, Wales. There was a lot of information about her career, her addiction, the many wild things she’d said and done, her whirlwind marriage, and her death. But aside from the fact that Ashley was born in Ohio, sixteen years after her sister, there wasn’t much else about my elusive housemate.

  When she says nothing, I add, “Tig has a Wikipedia page.”

  “I know.”

  Her blue eyes look so hurt, so betrayed, I almost want to comfort her. I remember Noelle enfolding Ashley in her arms last night and my own ache to do the same.

  “There’s not a whole lot about you, though.”

  “I’m not a celebrity,” she says, her tone accusatory.

  “I just don’t know a whole lot about you,” I say, being honest with her. “We live here together. I see you every day. I mean, we share a house, for Chrissakes, but I don’t know you at all. It’s weird. It’s disconcerting. It makes me edgy.”

  “Please don’t blaspheme.”

  “Sorry,” I say, exhaling softly, feeling frustrated with the situation.

  “You know . . . it’s hard to get to know someone when you ask them to stay away from you,” she says in a cool tone, but I’m relieved to note that she’s started walking again.

  “Yeah, well, I’m cagey,” I admit. “My sister gave me an earful about it last night.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but I see her lips twitch, and I know she’s holding back a grin.

  “It’s okay. You can smile about it.”

  “Noelle yelled at you?”

  “Mm-hm. And she won’t talk to me today.”

  “The silent treatment.”

  “She’s good at it,” I say, thinking that she learned from the master: our mother. “Are you surprised?”

  “A little. She’s younger.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s in charge.”

  “But she’s so small, and you’re so . . .” Her words have tumbled out, but now she lets them trail off.

  “I’m so . . . what?”

  “. . . much bigger,” she murmurs, a pink bloom coloring her cheek. “Why, um, why are you, uh, cagey?”

  I shrug. I know why, of course, but I’m not anxious to tell her the sad story of my destroyed career. I fall back on an easier story instead. “Our mom left us when we were young. It affected me, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry. She passed away?”

  “No. She physically left. Took off. She moved from Vermont to Florida, divorced my dad, married Greg fucking Kellerman, and started a new life.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Noelle was eight,” she figures out quickly. “That’s young.”

  “I think it fucks you up,” I say, articulating something I haven’t said aloud in a long time.

  She nods. “It’s hard to trust other people when the one who was supposed to love you most lets you down. It’s a betrayal. I don’t know if you ever get over it.”

  “Sounds like you have experience with this.”

  “My mother . . .” She pauses. “My mother let me down too.”

  “She pawned you off on your older sister,” I say.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” she answers, and I feel her closing up again. But then she surprises me. “Make up with Noelle. She’s your sister. She’s all you have. You never know when . . .”

  You might lose her.

  The unspoken words are heavy between us as the pond comes into view. Ashley moves toward it without me as I stand at the end of the path, watching her. For whatever reason, her own mother abandoned her too—left her with her junkie sister in LA and returned to Wales after that sister died. Why didn’t they take Ashley with them? Because she was enrolled in school here? Why didn’t her parents offer her a decent life with them instead of mayhem with her sister? And where are they now when she, arguably, needs them more than ever?

  I catch up with her at the pond.

  “I don’t know what happened to estrange you from your parents, but maybe you should take your own advice and reach out to them. Now that your sister’s gone, they’re all you have too, aren’t they?”

  When she looks up at me, her eyes are so heavy, so sad, I instantly regret my words and the heavy-handed way I’ve given her unsolicited advice on something I know nothing about.

  “I have no one,” she says softly, turning
back to the pond and ending our conversation.

  Day #17 of THE NEW YOU!

  It’s been a year.

  A year since I married Mosier, since I wrote in this diary, since I chose this fucking life.

  (Since I chose this slow and painful death.)

  I have learned the rules to this life.

  I have learned how to shut up.

  I have learned how to keep my head down.

  I have learned how far a human can bend without breaking.

  I have learned that bending can be another kind of breaking.

  I lost another baby today.

  Taking a shitload of vitamin C a day every day basically ensures that I’ll stay sterile, but this time I was scared. It took a couple of weeks, but finally, today, my period came. Big clots of red and black tissue falling to the toilet in loud plops while I cried tears of fucki thanks.

  Good-bye, baby.

  Thank fuck God.

  If I brought a child into this life, I would be damning my eternal soul to hell.

  It’s bad enough I brought Ashley here.

  When Mam and Tad visited in March, I begged them to move back to Anglesey with Ashley. She can be your daughter, I said. She can be beautiful and dutiful and good. She can be the me you never had.

  But Mam doesn’t want to raise my bastard kid. And Tad looked at me with disgust.

  “What do you think of us taking Ashley back to Wales with us, Mosier?” my mother asked my sadistic husband over dinner. “Teagan feels the change would be good for her . . . younger sister.”

  I froze in my seat, cold, hard dread seeping into my bones like a never-ending disease.

  My fingers curled into my napkin, and I bit the side of my cheek until I tasted blood.

  I don’t know if she knew the price I would pay for her words. Maybe she did. Maybe that’s why she said them.

  His eyes, so dark and furious when he looked at me, promised unimaginable pain in retaliation for my suggestion.

  “Ashley stays here,” he said lightly, “at school, near her family.”

  My mother shrugged when she looked back at me. “That’s that. Ashley stays here.”

  I died sitting in that chair that night. Everything about me is fucki dead now except my body, which can still feel pain. My body that was subjected to extreme horror when my parents left after dinner that night.