He'd gone beyond his player ways for her.
She'd grown beyond her traumatic past for him.
Together, their love was beyond.
Until one fatal accident.
__________
When she loses the love of her life in a car crash, Althea has nothing left in California...
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*ASHER'S POV*
November 13, 2023.
"Hey, I have a dinner delivery for Mr. Robot." The soft familiar voice jolted through my quiet room and through each of my nerves to make them stand on end like that night one month ago when Althea had first stepped between those four walls.
However, when I lifted my gaze, there was no shatter of glass and metal, only the jiggle of the door handle, and then, the cracks in her tone cutting me deeper than any shard of broken glass.
"Asher, I know you're in there. Open the door... please."
Oh yeah, that was the other difference with that night: I had locked the door, and even if I could feel her eyes piercing through me, the glistening brown shades appearing before me were only the same flashbacks that had been haunting me since last night.
Those tears... they'd slipped, streaked, seeped into every part of me, though not as much as the need to kiss away each drop until her trembling lips.
It had been a battle to leave her alone on the sidewalk like that then, a battle my sore muscles didn't have the strength to win again.
"I'm not here to fight with you. I just want to see you..." she called softly, her siren chant tugging at my heartstrings and pulling my hand into movement as I pushed the wheelchair closer and closer until I could glimpse the faint flicker of hope in her doe gaze.
But still, the door remained closed because I couldn't both unlock it and maneuver my chair at the same time with one hand, and that left me time to picture what would happen next.
Our eyes would meet. The lips she was nibbling would stretch into the tiniest smile, enough to outshine my reason. I would let her in and...
"Please, just one last time. I'll leave you alone after this. I-I'm going back to New York tomorrow morning since you don't want me... around."
'You know I need you everywhere.' I would yield, like my heart already was with each of her hoarse words.
But still, I remained silent, resting my forehead against the cold door and closing my eyes as I searched for what could happen next.
I would confess how much I loved her, in between kisses, as we wouldn't be able to resist the pull between us, and she would stay. We would move into a single-story house... and then we were back to the same scenarios I'd replayed a billion times in the past three years.
