Dust to Dust

16

The days passed so excruciatingly slowly, they felt more like weeks. The cabin was so uncomfortable, and empty without Delilah, Erin wasn't around very much either, they were always hanging out with Christine for support of sorts. Corey was the only one who stuck around, Jasper had been coming in pretty often too. I was given a break from regular chores since I got a close up view of the tragedy. That's what Asher called it, "the tragedy" and I couldn't help but feel like he was being sarcastic at times. Almost like he didn't care.

All I had been thinking about since the funeral was how it happened. Asher had called it a suicide, but why would Delilah have ripped her fucking guts out? If she wanted to kill herself, surely she would have done it some other way to avoid the pain. But then there was that piece of glass she was holding. Someone could have easily made it that way to look like a suicide. A simple move, but effective, and confusing. It just added more possibilities, so if that was the case, whoever killed Delilah was smarter than just pinning a fake suicide on her. But who did it? If anyone, I suspected Asher of course, specifically because of her behavior after she talked to him that day. And how quickly he said it was a suicide, it was too quick for me to ignore it. But he was smarter than that, he wouldn't have made it that obvious. It honestly scared me how much Asher confused me, he put all these thoughts in my head that I didn't want, and it just put more pressure onto how overwhelmed I already was, I had a headache from overthinking almost every night.

All this contemplating was exhausting me, and I just wanted to sleep it off, but ignoring it wouldn't solve the problem. The most important thing to me at the moment, was who killed Delilah, or why she killed herself. The only thing I could think of was getting Asher's input. He must be having the same thoughts, or similar ones anyway. He ran this place, so technically, he was responsible for parts of Delilah's death. How could he not be thinking about this every second he had a chance to breathe? Or maybe that was just me.

I needed to get out of this dark, dim cabin and find him. It was super late, but I knew he wasn't sleeping, the grey circles under his eyes were getting more obvious every day. How did he live like that? Only issue with getting out was the certain asshole sleeping next to me. He had talked himself into falling asleep, and I couldn't exactly move him. But if I got out of bed, he would notice and convince me to stay there, that's what he had been doing for the past few days. And he would get away with it, every single time. No matter how much I thought I stood a chance against Jasper, he was really good at talking people out of things. I couldn't argue with him, while he was a dumbass about certain things, he didn't want me walking around at night for no reason, especially because he had his suspicions about Asher too. He spent every second of every day with me after the funeral, and it was really sweet, though I'd never say that to his face. He was a really good guy, he got a close up of Delilah's guts too, but all he was doing was comforting me. He clung onto me at night if he sensed that I was feeling dazed, or when I objected, he took his side of the bed and left it at that. Thankfully he at least knew his boundaries.

I did my best not to bother him, and shuffled over to the edge of the bed as quietly as possible. I stopped, and winced when he stirred a little bit, feeling the opposite side of the bed was emptier than usual. Thankfully, he didn't wake up, and stayed put. Once I was standing up, and looking down on him, it was easy to slip out of the cabin, while it was dead quiet, and the door opening was a huge giveaway, nobody followed me out, so I moved along smoothly. I honestly felt bad leaving Jasper in there without telling him where I was going, he was really worried about me and just wanted what was best for my health, but nothing was going to change if I didn't confront Asher, and put all these rushing thoughts to rest.

I had never been inside Asher's cabin before, but he did say anyone was welcome if they needed to talk. The only people I had seen walk in and out of there aside from Asher were the adherents, but I didn't really consider them, since they had different business to attend to with Asher, most likely discussing how the camp was running, and if any changes needed to be made. While Asher was mysterious, he was still responsible, and managed to keep everything in order.