Andy

“I don’t know why I chose her.”

The birds seem to fall silent as he speaks. I stand up and press my back against a nearby tree that keeps me just out of sight but in hearing range.

“There were so many people there, and all I knew was that things were about to take a horrible change. She came through the crowd like a magnet was pulling her, and she stops mere feet away, watching.”

“Was there anything remarkable about her that made you choose her?” Ashley asks with a little too much malice in his tone.

“I honestly don’t know... She just reminded me of a lot of people. I couldn’t tell if she was meant to be the angel or death, or if she was Scout or Patricia or Deseree. She came through the crowd wearing a mournful expression I just could not understand. We didn’t know each other yet she felt sorry for me... She watched them load my remains into the back of an ambulance and left with a bewildered expression. Since I realized pretty quickly that I have unlimited time on my hands, I decided to follow her.”

“And be a complete perv, showing up in her room like that. Yeah, that went over well.”

Andy cracks a fond grin. “She would have killed me if she could. I scared her so bad that she had a panic attack and passed out... But in that moment that she was screaming at me, crying and hyperventilating, I realized my first ability.”
“Which was?”

“Calming eyes.” He says with wonder and curiosity in his voice. I peer out from behind the tree a bit, to see more of the broad hand gestures he was using to describe the memory. “Call it stupid, but I figured out that just by getting someone to stare into my eyes, I could make them feel anything I wanted them to. I was able to calm her and contain her outbursts just by looking at her.”

Ashley snorts, “Did you lose your charm? Doesn’t seem like you control her very well now, she’s still kicking your ass in arguments.”

Andy laughs, and shakes his head, sighing. “No, I just don’t like the idea of making someone feel something artificial.”

“Pssh, we’re opposites then.”

“Naw, it just means you’re incapable of making anyone feel anything other than belittled.” Andy replies smugly, swiftly pulling himself up into a tree to get over a low wall of rock. He jumps across and leans over to pull Ashley up.

“I have over seven ways in my arsenal to tackle climbing this wall and you want me to take your hand?” Ashley mumbles in disgust, making Andy roll his eyes and sigh impatiently, shaking his hand at him again.

Ashley grabs Andy’s gloved hand and pulls up over the rock wall with ease, not so much as taking a deep breath after reaching the top.

I realize after they’ve walked off out of sight again, that I now have to find a way over that wall on my own, or I have to go home because unlike the two of them, I lack the ability to climb up it like a monkey.

I dart across the small clearing, and press up against the rock wall, listening hard for their voices, hearing nothing. Aw hell no, I ain’t missing out on an opportunity to eavesdrop and figure out what it is about Ashley exactly that makes him hate me so much.
I’ve long since stopped caring about making friends with him, but if there is a way to make living with him tolerable, I’m all ears.

Looking up, I can see that there is no clear-cut way to tackle the obstacle except to backtrack a little and find a way around it. I grumble under my breath and jog along the length of the rock wall, keeping an eye out as it grows gradually shorter.

I find an area that has crumbled away to be waist high, and quickly scurry up it. Now that I’ve beaten the vicious rock wall, I have to regroup with my tour leaders. I follow the mental map I made back to the tree where they climbed up, only now there is no sign of either of them.

“Damn.”

I move deeper into the woods, trying to maintain a quiet, steady pace forward, but with all the twigs snapping under the soles of my shoes, I wouldn’t be surprised if every squirrel in a two-mile radius is running for the hills.

I get so caught up in trying to catch up that I don't notice the forest floor slowly slanting downwards, until I am almost scooting across the leaves and debris, trying to make out what direction the voices are coming from. I grab onto a little tree and hug it, scooting on my butt to the edge of what looks like a little rocky drop off. I hear more voices below and lean forward to investigate.

"-I don't really know about-"

I lean forward a little too far and am quickly acquainted with the sound of snapping wood as the tree I'm hugging cracks and pulls apart, sending me tumbling over the edge I was trying really hard to avoid. I don't get much time to look down at the ground below me as I fall, all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut and brace for impact, yipping in surprise.

"OW." I shout without thinking about it when I land feet-first almost eight feet down, my left foot landing on a large rock below, making it slide off awkwardly, twisting in the process. I tumble onto my ass when I lose my footing on my other foot, and am stuck staring up at two confused, annoyed men.

"Ash? What the hell are you doing out here?"

"She's fuckin' snooping on us, man. Told you she didn't trust you."

The anger is replaced by a cold look of betrayal and hurt. "You really don't trust me to not fuck up when I'm not around you, huh?"

I'm overwhelmed immediately. I want to inspect my ankle and cry for my mother, and apologize to Andy profusely and then cry for my mother... But I can't seem to do either but stare blankly at him.

He sighs and wipes his hands on his jeans, extending one towards me with no emotion in his eyes. "Come on, let's get you home."

I sigh in defeat and grab his hand, hoisting myself up into an awkward, half standing position, wincing in pain. He doesn't say anything, just walks around me and grabs me, scooping me up easily without disturbing my ankle. "I'm taking her home." He tells Ashley and is on his way.

When I don't hear him reply, I look over Andy's shoulder and see him looking back at us, disappointment in his brown eyes.

Andy's movement is quick, swift and graceful as he walks across the uneven forest floor, showing no signs of discomfort or trouble. I look up at his face, forcing my eyes to stick to his, even though the guilt of being caught snooping makes me want to hang my head and never look at him again.

"I'm sorry," I say, and he doesn't react. "I knew what I was doing was wrong and all that shit... But I didn't really care, to be honest." I zone out a little bit, realizing that I hadn't cared too much what would happen if I was caught. All I acknowledged was that he'd be angry, but I didn't really think about myself in that equation.

"Okay. Why didn't you care?" He says it stiffly without looking at me, his voice stressed and bitter. He doesn't sound like he actually wants to hear my response.

I finally look down, fiddling with my hands in my lap, feeling his broad steps shifting with the ground beneath me. "Because I realized that if I didn't find a way to figure out what was going wrong in our relationship and find a way to fix it soon, I'd lose you forever to Ashley."

"Don't start that again."

"You know it's true, though..." I whisper. "You follow him like a puppy, like you've got no conscious of your own. I woke up this morning feeling like I'd already lost you, and I prayed all day that you'd show up and everything would be okay, but you didn't, and I... I realized we... Probably don't have much left in us. And I know you'll choose him. For all I could tell, you'd come home tonight to tell me you can't do it anymore and you were running off to California with Ashley to go on bachelor adventures."

"It was never my intention to make you feel unloved. But I also never intended for the two most important people in my life to start butting heads upon meeting each other and never finding common ground."

"I can't change that." I mutter, "You're mad at me already anyways, so I figured what more harm could it do?... And how much more could you really hurt me, anyways?"

"Right. You're not the only one getting hurt, Ash. How much could it possibly hurt you? You've hurt me by invading my privacy."

"I've given up everything for you." I breathe and regret it instantly when his face crunches up in anger. He turns in a sweeping motion and sets me upright on a fallen log, taking several steps back, pressing his hands to his face, taking deep breaths to control the anger overcoming him.

"I've taken a lot from you, I understand that, but you cannot keep blaming me for everything. Love isn't always fair, both lovers don't always walk away satisfied with how things turned out. If you love someone, disappointment is part of the package."

"I know that." I say through clenched teeth, "I..."

I glare at the ground and loosely cross my arms in anger, realizing I'm more in the wrong than I'd like to admit.

"I'm just trying to do anything I can to make you stay... Even if that meant invading your privacy."

"Make me stay?" He laughs without humor, "I was never going to leave."

"But we are growing apart... And I'm just trying to hold things together amidst the hurricane, but things keep pulling themselves apart, and I thought that maybe if I followed you and Ashley I could find out what was wrong and find a way to fix it, and while I wasn't trying to make you madder, part of me wanted to just to get revenge for how fucking terrible you made me feel."

"How did I make you feel terrible?" He asks in disbelief, "I already felt like crap after that fight! I feel just as much like shit as you do! Ash, for as long as I've known you, even when you were vague on details and had my sickly worried about you, I never read your journal, snooped your room or-"

"Shut the hell up." I snap at him, already knowing what sympathy road he's trying to drag us down. "You read through my very personal journal while we were in California! In fact, you have no right preaching to me about your invasion of rights."

He bites down on his bottom lip hard, searching for something to say, his brows furrowed over his bright blue eyes, giving his angered gaze enhanced power.

"Okay, just that time, but-"

"There isn't a 'but', Andy. If you follow up any statement with 'but' it's an excuse. You read it and you knew better, what did you gain from it? You found out I'm mentally unstable and hardly the same person on the inside that I am in my exterior. Did you read it for a cause?"

"I was worried about you."

"You said 'I thought it was a book'." I mocked him in a deeper version of my own voice. "You don't accidentaly read something that looks nothing like a normal book, then try to justify the wrongdoing by saying that you were worried about me, before trying to cover your ass again!"

"We committed equal crimes, alright?!" he shouts back, spreading his arms out at his sides in disbelief. "What I did was wrong, and what you did was wrong, okay? I'm not trying to say one crime was worse than the other, but fuck, after our spat last night I thought - I hoped, that you'd give me some breathing room to sort things out. Instead, you push harder for the answers I can't give you."

"You can't give them to me." I repeat him, sarcasm and malice dripping from my tone. "Why? What's stopping you?! Are you bound by blood? Your head in some afterlife noose that drops you after you say too much? What the hell are you so afraid of?!"
I push myself up from the log, staggering forward on my sprained ankle, jabbing an accusive finger at him, my expression relentless and furious.

"I am afraid of losing you!" he bellows so loud his voice breaks and the birds fly from the branches above, sending down a shower of fleecy feathers and leaves to settle into our hair.

My breath hitches in my throat and I fight to get myself to focus. "Why?" I ask him, my voice firm but shaking, "I haven't run away yet. I haven't even thought of it, despite all the crap you brought with you when you entered my life. I knew from the first minute I whispered your name in the woods that I was in it for the long haul." I have to press my lips together to keep them from quivering. My hands have already begun to shake from the adrenaline.

"Whatever you have to tell me, you can. It just bothers me that it's not a two-way door."

"What does that even mean?" He mutters, looking away.

"You wouldn't even hear me out about Ashley. Just like you won't hear me out about him now! I will listen to you, think about what you said, and respect it. Not silence you when your opinion differs from mine."

"It's not just an opinion, Ash, it's a Goddamned theory."

"With a lot of evidence to back it up!" I gesture around us. "I've provided plenty of reasons why we shouldn't trust him and you won't even think about them."

He grits his teeth and crosses his arms, pacing two steps before facing me again.

"This is why it's almost over." I murmur to myself, taking a deep breath to relieve the ache in my chest that promises the downpour of fresh tears soon.

"Don't say that." He snaps, averting his frustrated stare back at me. All I can do is stare helplessly back, before closing my eyes and inhaling another deep breath through my nose to control the oncoming tsunami of emotions no one wants to witness.

"I can't stop thinkin' it." I breathe helplessly, my chest rapidly rising and falling. "Something's gonna happen and it'll be the final push and we won't want this anymore."

"You're being delusional." He says, trying to put on a brave face to hide the terror that is so plainly visible in his expression. He takes a deep breath but it yields no results, so he paces in a small circle, gripping his head, bending himself in half, taking deep, panicked breaths in intervals. "It's not..."

He straightens his back and looks up at the sky. The forest has fallen silent again, as though the birds, squirrels, and deer have stopped their daily routine to stop and look, watching the finale of a long three-week ride. In my heart, I don't want it to be over, I never wanted that, and I can tell from the panic in his icy blue eyes that he doesn't want that, either.

"Ash," He cries, voice tearing away from the angry, frustrated tone he'd been using for days. Just hearing his voice crack in pain and fear reminds me of the night before his funeral, when he had climbed through my window with the news. When we both found out he wouldn't be my friend anymore after the deed was carried out, because he'd be somewhere else that neither of us understood.

I see that same, scared kid in him now... And I feel that same terrified little girl in myself, shivering in fear of losing him.

"Ash, no, I can't lose you, not now... How do we fix this? We're broken people."

He turns to me with tear-streaken cheeks and anguished eyes, pushing me over the edge, my own sorrowful tears matching his.

"I don't know." I admit, my voice shaking. "I can't keep pushing for this... I need you to listen to me, Andy. I need you to hear me. I can't-" I have to pause and take a deep breath, or else I'll be lost to pointless babbling and snot trails.

"I can't be the only one trying to make it work, Andy!"

He looks like such a kid in that moment, and I can suddenly see him filling the role of the terrified kid who accidentally killed a girl.

"You have to trust me!"

He doesn't answer.

I stand there, my hands limp at my sides, palms upturned towards him, craving so badly to grab him and pull him close, whispering promises of never letting any harm come to him again. But I can't keep going on like this, no... I need his trust. Without that, this relationship means nothing if it's solely built on taking sides when it's convenient and keeping secrets.

No more.

"I do trust you, I..."

He grits his teeth and pounds his fists against his thighs, torn.

"Ash. I trust you. Do you trust me?"

He raises his eyebrows a little, reaching up to wipe the tears off his cheeks before extending his fingerless, gloved hand towards me. I look down at it, then back at him, softening a bit. "I do." I reply quietly, remaining cautious.

"If you trust me, please trust that I know what I'm doing, okay? Please? I want this to work, it's going to work. I'll make sure it does. If I listen to you, will you listen to me and trust Ashley?"

It bothers me that he's still trying to bring Ashley into the folds, but I know that this is the only way I will be getting him. He won't come alone, not without the baggage of his past life... I've got to keep trying, too.

His hand is still there, the offer remaining, hovering and expiring in the chilly spring air.