|CHAPTER THIRTEEN|

Henry met Bash on the first snow of the year over beer and Scrabble in my father's claustrophobic apartment.

I stumbled over myself trying to explain the relationship between Henry and Meredith to Bash in the library two weeks prior. He listened patiently as we walked down the aisles together, sliding books into their appropriate spots on the shelf.

"Can I ask you something?" he wondered that day as he fiddled with some misplaced books on the shelf.

I leaned against the book cart with a sigh. "I guess so."

"Why are you so ashamed of your parents?"

I dropped my gaze to the carpet and clenched my jaw. "I dunno. I was the result of a one-night stand between my mom and her secretary. My mother's pregnancy was an embarrassment-because, you know, being a female mayor was a big deal around here at the time-and it made her irresponsible somehow. I made her that way. Now, her and Henry are so weird with each other, and I just feel so torn between their ideals. It's...complicated."

"Everything is so complicated," he whined with a grin. I swatted his shoulder playfully. "I have another question."

"Okay..."

"If you are so good at letting things go. If you are so good at picking up and leaving...Why don't you just ignore all of that superfluous familial background? Why do you live so purposefully in the past?"

If he thought he could stump me, he was wrong. I placed my hands on my hips and answered without wavering, "Because I live in a small town surrounded by people who have known me my entire life. Because I go to volunteer with my mother and Henry and people look between us like they're watching reality TV. Because every teacher I've ever had calls me out in front of class when the rest of the room is silent. Because I've never been able to disappear into the background without trying. And, that's not me being paranoid. If I seem bitter and distant to the people around me, it's because I learned from my mother how to avoid people I don't want to talk to-which is everyone in this town. That's why it's absolutely necessary that I get out of Ashwood Creek and start living without all this extra baggage, okay?"

Bash stared at me for a long time absorbing all of this. Being able to tell him all of that should have been a relief, but it only made me more anxious and aware of my situation. Maybe he would think I'm crazy, or that I was looking too much into everything-that I lived in a constant state of my own insanity. Maybe I would have to go back to conditioning myself to be content with me, myself, and I because being independent and lonely are two different things entirely-and I hadn't gotten too attached to him, right?

"I'm going to be very honest," he told me. "If somebody told me you'd reveal all of that to me a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed them."

"So?" I said.

He took my hand in his and held it against his chest where I could feel his heartbeat beating steadily under his sweater. "You trust me."

"I trust you," I confirm, and I was glad it wasn't my heart he could feel, because it was fluttering.

Now we sat across from Henry playing a competitive game of Scrabble. They got on so well, Bash and my father. It's like they shared this mutual connection over something I couldn't understand. I would make an expression or comment on something of little importance and they would share this look and chuckle. I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Underwood, that you've set me up to take the lead by playing HAIL precisely where you did," Bash announced wickedly as he lifted a single letter from his line-up and placed it over the A.

"ZA? That's not a word." Henry snorted and shook his head.

"Yes, it is. It's the accepted slang for pizza," Bash replied smugly. "Don't believe me? Look it up."

"I will. Jovie, get me the dictionary."

"Oh, no." I lifted my hands and shook my head. "I'm not involved in this."

"I'll get it," Bash volunteered. "Where is it?"

"Side table there, top drawer," I said.

Bash dashed across the room, dodging Henry's odds and ends, to retrieve it. Henry chose this moment to lean across the protruding kitchen counter.

"Not that it matters, but I like him."

I let out an airy laugh. "I can tell."

"What did Meredith think?" he asked around a sip of beer that was meant to keep the topic of my mother casual.

I shrugged. "Hard to tell. I think she liked him, but..."

"But?"

"She said he reminded her of you."

Henry trained his eyes on the board game, trying hard not to purse his lips. I still wasn't sure if it was an insult or compliment. My mother was cryptic when talking about her feelings.

"That's interesting of her to say."

"Why is that? I questioned.

"She regrets being fond of him." It sounded bitter leaving his mouth, like he needed to rinse with water and repeat.

I could tell immediately that it was more of a personal criticism so I jerked sideways and called out for Bash. Once again, I was growing tired of my parents' mutual internalized resentment.

"Did you find 'za', yet?"

"Yep," Bash replied triumphantly as he strode across the room to show Henry. "Read it and weep, Underwood."

"I am disgusted," Henry groaned as he read the indicated passage and recorded Bash's points.

I listened to them banter for the rest of the game. I watched Henry knock Bash in the shoulder when the younger man rose victoriously above the both of us with a winning score of four hundred and twelve. Clanking beer bottles, matching laughter, a natural chemistry. It startled me how right Meredith was. In their own little way, the two were very similar. I guessed it was written in the stars then, the kind of people who fall for one another.

When Henry retired for the night, Bash joined me on the sofa to watch a history documentary. I closed my eyes and rememorized the sound of his slow-melting chocolate voice, the feel of his paper-cut fingers against my forearm, the warmth of his body radiating with mine. I counted the seconds it took for him to breathe in and out until we were silenced by our own sleepiness.

Late in the morning he finally whispered, "I should go."

"You should stay," I replied, pulling him closer.

He laughed softly and I adjusted my head to look up at the way the flashing colors from the television bounced off the angles of his face. He looked down at me through his eyelashes and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

"This was very enjoyable. I like Henry a lot."

"I'm glad," I said. "He likes you, too."

"You think?"

"I know," I assured him with a lazy smile. "So, he wouldn't mind if he woke up and you were still here with me."

"Why the sudden urge to keep me here?" he asked.

I laced my fingers through his. "Do you want me to ask you to leave?"

"No, I'm just a little confused. It's not like you. You like your space."

I reburied my face in his shoulder and replied, "I have me for the rest of my life. I only have you for a little while."

"Doesn't have to be that way," he muttered. "You could have me for the rest of your life, too."

I struggled to take a breath. "Bash..."

His voice was far away. "I know."

"Stay?"

"Kiss me?" he countered.

"Okay."

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Bash went back to L.A. over Thanksgiving to see his family. It was the first time I became achingly inquisitive over his family. I knew he had two sisters. I knew he was the third Sebastian. I knew both of his grandparents were living. I knew the first names of his parents. But, that was it. He had met both Meredith and Henry and I was left in wonderment of what a family outside of Ashwood Creek looked like. What his family really looked like.

I knew very well what families inside Ashwood Creek looked like. Everyone around me was stuffy and nosy and held the cliché small-town Ask-If-They-Don't-Tell policy. I was itching to experience something new. I wanted Bash to take me with him, but that was unreasonable, so I stayed exactly where I was and experienced Thanksgiving two days in a row, one parent after the next.

Extended family never appeared to celebrate with Meredith and I. As far as I knew, my mother and my grandmother did not get along. They made each other incredibly uptight. The urgency that my mother instilled in me was impressed upon her by her mother. It was this never ending trend-the pressure of high standards and unattainable perfection. One generation to the next.

That was the really scary part. I saw the way my mother loathed hers, and I could feel that same underlying dislike boiling under the surface for me, as well. I hated it. I wanted to be no part of it. I wanted to get away.

With Henry, it was different. Aunts, uncles, cousins-everyone you could think of gathered together at Henry's parent's house and ate and laughed and asked personal questions like it wasn't uncomfortable. It was like one giant family reunion. I felt so connected to them. I longed for something like this on the opposite end of my genetic line, but new it could never be. That half didn't know forgiveness. That half held grudges.

What was the rest of the world like? Black and white-how utterly confusing. I wanted to experience grey. And, the only person I knew who gave me a hint of grey was Bash. He wasn't from here. So, he had to be the answer, right? He was a little piece of the outside. So, how was Ashwood Creek not suffocating him?

The answer would make me leave him behind.