Dust to Dust

20

Another day flew by, quickly as always, and the adherents were taking care of everything at the moment. They explained that Asher had sustained a rough blow to the back of his head and suffered a lot of bleeding. However, stitches weren't needed, he just needed to lay low for a while until it stopped completely. It was super unlucky that he happened to land on a rock. Just a few inches away and he would have been completely fine, aside from the punch. I knew Jasper, I knew how considerate and truly protective he was. But this was a whole other level. I didn't think I would ever see him get violent like that, especially not towards someone who was so respected among the rest of the people here. Jasper was obviously being scolded by the adherents for being so careless, but he wasn't punished or anything. They weren't exactly in charge. He was failing miserably to come up with an apology, and knowing him, it would probably come off half-assed, and he would just make things worse. I spent most of my day with him, trying to figure things out, but he really didn't seem up for thinking of how to make things right. He just seemed tired after being so stubborn to both me and Asher. Though he was more willing to admit that to me, and he didn't even want to talk about Asher. So after what seemed like forever of trying to get him to think of something, I figured he just needed time to himself. Maybe leaving him to think things over would help, it was worth a try since nothing else seemed to be working. I knew he regretted what he did, but hadn't really expressed it much yet, we were working on it, and making... very little progress. He was constantly trying to change the subject or make Asher seem like the issue again, but none of that was going to work on me, he had to confront this himself. 

"Okay. If you're not going to cooperate, then I'll leave you be for a bit. You look like you could use some time to think things over." I had been sitting across from him on one of the other beds, and he was all sprawled out in the most dramatic way possible. 

He whined when I said I was going to leave. "Jen, come on. I'm trying here." he said with all the fakeness that could come out of his mouth. I raised an eyebrow at him. "You're really not. But that's fine, there's still progress that can be made. You just need to put in the effort." I insisted, getting up to walk towards the door. He sighed, thinking that would change anything. "Fine. Tell him I'm sorry... I guess," he muttered the last part under his breath, but I caught it anyway, he wasn't hiding that snarkiness from me so easily.

I threw my hands in the air and proceeded away. "Yep. You're hopeless." This was going to take more work than I thought. I pushed the door out, and walked into the open air. It was a lot emptier than usual, probably because everyone was helping the adherents with chores and responsibilities, since Asher wasn't around to set expectations. I wanted to go talk to him, and see how he was holding up after the injury, although I had a feeling I was just going to be pushed away by one of the adherents. Any time Asher was vulnerable, or deep in thought, their strict tendencies were much more visible. It wouldn't hurt to try, though. I needed to get in further depth about what he might have said to set off Jasper, because it must have been bad to drive him that far. It made sense that Asher might have said the wrong thing, considering he wasn't afraid to talk when in the right mood. All I knew now was that Jasper was jealous and confused about what we had been up to over the past few weeks. While he had every right to be worried, possessiveness wasn't the right way to approach it. 

 Asher did scare me, that hadn't gone away. That night when I talked to him about Delilah was still burned into my memory. I was still clueless how I was planning on starting a conversation when the last time we had spoken was so agonizing. The way he stared at me was absolutely excruciating, I was getting really panicked just thinking about going back into his cabin. Regardless, if Jasper didn't have the guts to speak up to him without resorting to getting physical, then I would have to take that step. Not exactly for him, but for me too.