The Boiling Point | ✔️

20 | awakening

ASHTON

The rain has let up to a hard drizzle, moonlight breaking through the clouds. I'm sitting on the windowpane, replaying it all, reliving every second while it's still fresh. Before my spent mind forces me to sleep and end the night. 

I finish my cigarette and flick it on the roof, watching the stream of an overflowing gutter whip it away. Stirring comes from the bed, and I look at the girl who has me so tightly wrapped around her finger it scares me a little. Her back is to me, caramel hair fanned over the pillow, the slope of her hips a work of art.

I get up and scan over her room, having given it zero attention when I came in. It's neat until you look closer. The desk is chaotic. Laptop buried under piles of papers, stationary scattered, dozens of highlighted and underlined handwritten class notes. I read over one.

-Add garlic last so it doesn't burn. BITTER. 

-Bouquet garni: parsley, thyme, bay leaf

-Bechamel, white roux. 2:2:1

-Scrape board with back of knife so blade doesn't dull

I smile, recognizing my own advice from when I showed her how to cut. Seems like a lifetime ago. My gaze jumps to a framed photo sitting next to a small potted cactus. I pick it up, vision adjusting in the dim light. A graduation photo.

Summer's in her cap and gown, clutching her diploma, a long braid over her shoulder and the biggest beam on her face. Two women and a man flank her. It has to be her family. She's a clone of her mom, except her mom's hair is short, her eyes look darker, and she doesn't have dimples when she smiles. But she has the same heart-shaped face, same gold skin and button nose. Same natural radiance.

Her sister is pretty in a different way. Snowy complexion, dark hair, pointed features. She kind of reminds me of the girls in those dramatic period movies, like she could blend right into Pride and Prejudice. More of a seriousness to her. I assume she gets that from their dad. He stands tall, hand resting in his pocket, not a crease in his blazer. He looks intimidating in a total opposite way from my dad. Like an academic who could school you on any topic you dared to approach him with.

I lower the picture and see it as a whole. Surrounding Summer, holding her shoulders. Proud of her. My stomach twists as I think back to my graduation. How my equivalent photo to this was one of me and Nick. How I couldn't stop searching the crowd, desperate to see my dad when I walked on stage. And how I felt so stupid for being disappointed and wanting his approval. For wanting him to be proud.

I instinctively reach to the back of my head and run my finger over the scar. The day I got it is just another reminder of what life could have been if things were different.

Shattered glass and screaming and crying... those sounds will never leave me.

"Ash?" Summer's voice croaks. "You going?"

I set the picture down, her gravity pulling me to earth. I've never liked my name being shortened, but I could sure as hell get used to it coming out of her mouth.

"I was just having a smoke." The bed dips as I sit on the edge. "But shouldn't you be sneaking me out of here or something?"

Summer is the only girl I've been with who didn't just crash after sex. She insisted on dragging herself to the bathroom to follow through with some nightly beauty routine. Her face is so clear that I notice light freckles peppered across her nose and dotting to her cheeks, and I wonder if they're leftover from the summer sun or if they're permanent, always hidden.