Asher Banning still mourns his mother after three years. When his friend, Caden, decides to get their group of friends together for Christmas as a way to help Asher not feel lonely for the holidays, things quickly turn upside down.
MATURE: for expl...
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Freyja escorted me back to my bedroom. We were already on the second floor, in front of the door, when a voice echoed through the hall. "Asher?" Caden ran toward us from the stairs. His muscles flexed, his veins popping out like tubes underneath his skin.
"Yeah?" I said, turning to face him.
"Can we talk?" I turned my head toward Freyja and back to him, confused. Couldn't he say what he wanted to say right now? "Alone?"
I shrugged, annoyed at the secrecy. "Sure, I guess?"
"I guess I'll leave you to it?" While I was able to hold myself up and walk normally, everyone agreed to hold me in case I had another episode, so she helped me lean on the wall for balance before she left.
Caden stepped near me to open the door, then wrapped his arm around my waist, and guided me to the bed. Once I sat down, he went to shut the door. "Look, I know you've been through a lot and—"
"How many times do I have to tell you? Stop apologizing! It's not your fault that everything went wrong. It's not your fault that I'm having these dumb episodes. It's not your fault! At all!"
"But aren't I part of it?"
"No. You're not." I laid down, staring at the ceiling as exhaustion filled my body to a point where all I wanted was to sleep and never wake up. With a deep inhale and exhale, I added, "Maybe a little?" I rubbed my fingers over my eyes. "I don't know."
"So, you admit it?"
"I'm not admitting to anything, Caden." I sat back up, now making eye contact with him. "I'm not saying you're to blame, 'cause you're not. It's just . . . this place brings back memories that I never thought much about. It honestly haunts my nightmares and now that there's a crazy maniac wandering around, I'm afraid that my mental stability—or all of ours, I guess—will dwindle. Or perhaps, we all end up dead or whatever. I wasn't ready when we got here. But that doesn't mean you're to blame."
"What do you mean?" He wasn't staring at me anymore as his eyes fell to the floor, sadness spread across his entire physique.
"Maybe I wasn't ready, sure. Maybe you knew that—subconsciously or not—but I don't think I would have ever been ready."
"Why?" His blue eyes met mine, sparked with curiosity. "Everyone gets over grief at some point."
"Yeah, but I lived through hell as she died. Most people don't watch their loved ones die in front of them. But I did. I saw that pole go straight through her. I was the one who called for help and tried to help her when the ambulance was on its way. I watched her slowly die in front of me, blood oozing out of her mouth and chest. I listened to how she spoke her last words and how she told me how she loved me, and that she knew she was dying. I was the one who saw the life in her eyes slip away and her head fall limp. I was the one who comforted her in those last moments. It was all me. Me. And for a while, I blamed myself for her death. I could've got the pole out of her chest. I could've moved her body and helped her stop bleeding. Maybe something could've been done, I don't know. But I thought about it for months and felt like her death was all on me because she didn't have to die."
