terrible things - ashton irwin

thirty eight

"So," Ashton said, "onward to the Big Apple?" We were finally heading for the truck, so exhausted it felt like we ought to take turns carrying each other.

"No one calls it the Big Apple, you know," I said. "That's a tourist thing."

"And we're not tourists?" he asked, lifting one eyebrow.

"No, we're adventurers," I said. "Explorers."

Ashton handed me the souvenir key change he'd bough at the last gift shop before the exit. It was a tiny model of the Millennium Force, tucked inside a snow globe. "Since you're a driver now and all," he said, grinning crookedly.

"Of course, I don't have any keys," I pointed out.

"Hey, if you don't want it, i can hook it to my screwdriver or my cordless drill."

But of course I wanted it. It was a present from the boy I loved. "I'm going to get you something, too, you know," I said, giving the snow globe a little shake.

Ashton demanded to know what it is, but I shook my head and mimed zipping my lips. "It's a surprise."

As i climbed into the driver's seat of the truck, I caught Ashton eyeing a sporty back BMW parked next to us. "Don't even think about it," I said. "I can't drive a stick."

"I'll teach you that next," he said. "And then, ATVs."

"Then dirt bikes," I said. "Why not?" Because everything was going to be just fine from now on. Maybe we really did have all the time in the world.

With Ashton as my navigator, I got us onto the I-80. We had a long drive ahead of us, and the back roads just weren't going to cut it. I wanted something lined with Starbucks.

"Doesn't time move slower the faster you go?" Ashton asked, staring out at flat green fields and signs for truck stops.

I thought back to my physics class, which felt like it was about a million years ago (so what does that say about time?).

"It's only a matter of nanoseconds or something. Time moves slower the closer you are to earth, too."

"That gives me an excellent reason to not go mountain climbing."

"As if you needed one," I said.

"True. Somehow the thought of plunging hundreds of feet to my death never appealed to me." He toyed with the key chain, watching the snow sift down over the tiny roller coaster.

"Do you ever think about what happens after?" he asked suddenly.

"After what?" I asked, moving into the passing lane.

"After we earn our wings," he said. He looked at me, waiting for a reaction.

I kept my eyes on the road. "Don't joke," I said.

Ashton crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not joking. I'm asking.

"After we earn our wings..."

"Don't you remember? Nurse Sophie used to say that all the time. She was totally sincere."

I pressed harder on the gas pedal. I was actually going the speed limit now. "Because she believed that when you die, you become an angel," I said. "Whereas you think we just take a dirt nap."

Ashton snickered. "Sorry. That dirt nap thing always gets me."

"It's not funny," I said.

But the truth was. we'd joked about death constantly back in the ward. All of us had, because somehow it made us less afraid. Oh, I'm sooo tired, someone would say, I think I'll go sleep with the fishes. Someone else would pipe up: Yeah, I'm planning on going into the fertiliser business.

It was flipping Death the bird. And it made awful things like cheotherapy-induced nausea and hair loss just slightly less awful. But I thought, or hoped, that Ashton and I has left that sort of thing behind us. That such humour was no longer...medically relevant.

"I don't know, Ashton," I said, gripping the steering wheel.

"I want to think there's something on the other side, but where's the evidence? No one sends you a postcard from the afterlife."

"Which is totally rude of them," he replied.

"I know, right?" I raised my fist. "Do you hear that, Carole Ann? Rude."

Ashton reached over and put his hand on my knee. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll write you."

I felt like I'd ben punched in the gut.

And I wanted to laugh, to show that I knew he was joking. But I wasn't entirely sure he was.

-

We crossed the wide expanse of Pennsylvania while Ashton slept. In the dark it looked like any other state, and I shot through it at seventy-five.

In New Jersey, at midmorning. I sent Ashton into a Pathamrk to buy groceries ("healthy stuff," I'd said, fully expecting him to try to pass off Froot Loops as actual fruit) while I went across the street to a place called All That Glitters Is Gold.

Thanks to my dad, I knew my way around a pawnshop. Which was how, for fifty bucks and the pearl-and-gold bracelet that had been my mother's, I bought Ashton an acoustic guitar.

"Where'd you go?" Ashton asked when I pulled up outside the Pathmark. He set the bag of groceries in the backseat, and I was shocked to see an actual banana in it.

"Just a quick errand," I said, trying not to smile at the thought of the guitar hidden under the tent behind the backseat. "Did you honestly buy fruit and vegetables?"

he leaned over and kissed my neck. "Tell me where you went," he said, his lips ticklish on my skin.

I drew in my breath. "No." Every time he touched me, I felt my whole body begin to hum and shiver.

"Tell me," he said again, moving from my neck to my earlobe, his mouth light and teasing.

"Ashton," I whispered. I'd tell him anything, I'd give up every secret I'd ever had, if he kept doing that.

I pulled him toward me, my mouth finding his. Before I knew it, my fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. i managed to get the top two undone, but then suddenly he moved away from me. He backed up against the car door, rebuttoning his shirt quickly.

I sat up confused, blinking. Confused, Didn't he want it, too?

"What?" I asked. "Why-"

"Security guards," Ashton said, nodding toward the burly guys walking up and down the rows of the parking lot.

There were three of them, two only in a stones throw away. But they could have been sitting in the backseat and I wouldn't have noticed while Ashton was filling up my senses.

"We should probably go," he said. "We can, um, do some more of that later."

My cheeks were pink from embarrassment. "Okay," I said.

As if I didn't want to shout, Hell yes, we will!

Ashton smiled. "But you know what? I think I want to drive."

I was so relieved that he was feeling good, so thrilled at the way I could kiss him now whenever I wanted, security guards notwithstanding, that I, small-town girl Lavender Moore, didn't freak out at all when the New York skyline became visible along the turnpike, with its hills and valleys of silvery skyscrapers. I didn't care that we sat in traffic outside the Holland Tunnel for forty-five minutes, or that Ashton got lost on the way across town to the East Village.

He was driving. He was happy and strong. That made everything okay.

-

word count - 1184