a/n:This is most definitely the final chapter of Ashes. A big big thank you to all who left feedback, I was pretty overwhelmed by it all and it certainly helped to motivate me and propel this fic forward. Thanks to all who have read this far and I hope you enjoy this, the final installment...
Chapter Ten
She's leaving in a week. That's seven days, 168 hours, 10, 080 minutes and a whole big bunch of seconds.
I look despairingly at my alarm clock next to my bed. The minute ticks over. That's another one gone, that's another one closer. I turn over in my bed, unable to stand the countdown any longer. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Why were we brought together in the first place? I mean, everyone was surprised, not least of all myself. Everyone thought how unlikely it was. And in the end our differences were just too different. So why were we reunited? Why did I ever think there was another chance? Why am I thinking like everything happened for a reason?
After all, I'm not much into chaos theory. I believe we control our own destiny. Just because events seem random and then lead on to other events which in turn can lead you on to say, breaking up with the boy you thought you'd share your future with in favour of the only girl you have ever loved. I mean, that wasn't connected. That was just coincidence. Right?
That's why it's important to have a plan. To have some sense of direction. This is what I had said to Alex that day at the mall. She hadn't agreed. She didn't want a plan. She wanted to "live in the now" as she put it. She didn't want to feature in my plan, not as some by-product anyway. Maybe I had just tacked her onto it somehow. Maybe I didn't really see a way forward together as we were. Maybe I just didn't want to change my direction.
And so there was a crushing inevitability to the breakdown between us. Just like what happened yesterday. Inevitable. But the hurt is still overwhelming. I hate the way everything has completely turned sour. I hate her lack of justification as to what she did to me. Above all else, I hate that I am holding out hope that she will call me.
I know she won't. I know this really is it. The day ends and I am proved right.
ooo OOO ooo
Okay, this is so stupid! I'm in love for goodness sake, I know this. And here I am, wallowing in self-pity, while she's just slipping away from me.
I resolutely decide that it's time for action. I pick up my phone to call her. It rings three times…. five times…. twenty times…. The monotony mocks my false confidence. My tears start to spill and eventually the operator cuts the line.
ooo OOO ooo
Marco comes to see me. "I've been to see Alex," he tells me.
I say nothing.
"She's really not in a good way, Paige."
I say nothing.
"She told me how she…she…y'know, messed you around. She really feels awful about it. Paige?"
I say nothing.
"She wants to see you before she goes. To clear everything up. Don't you think that would be a good idea? Paige? Don't you think she deserves a chance to explain?"
I say nothing.
"Well, you best make your decision soon. She's leaving on Friday."
Friday? My heart starts pounding uncontrollably, reminding me that it's only dormant, not broken.
ooo OOO ooo
I'm pacing around my hallway, glancing at my reflection in the mirror and generally behaving like a girl who's prom date is over an hour late.
If only it were that straightforward, I think. All I'd have to worry about were stupid things like my dress and my hair, not what I was going to have to say or have said back to me. Wait. Did I just diss fashion? What the hell is happening to me?
The doorbell goes. This is it. I cannot mess this up. I must not mess this up. This is it.
"Hi," she smiles almost shyly.
"Hello," I reply, her nervousness transferring over to me as I step back to let her through.
"Thanks for letting me come over," she hesitantly begins. "I just…couldn't leave it like that."
"Without you getting the last word?" I shoot back. I meant to say it jokingly, but unfortunately it comes out sounding sharper than I had intended.
"Um…"
"Look, let's go through," I usher her away from the hall and into the den. I'm surprised to find my brother in there, watching TV.
"Dylan," I pronounce his name in agitation. He turns his eyes towards us nonchalantly. I make a small "what the fuck?" face at him, he knew Alex was coming over and he'd been briefed on making himself scarce.
"Dylan," I try again, more blatantly, "Alex and I need to talk. In private."
"That's nice. Look it's a Chuck Norris marathon," he says, gesturing towards the TV like we should be impressed.
I roll my eyes at him. "Fine!" I turn to Alex, "let's go to my room." I think I catch Dylan giving a sly smile out of the corner of my eye, but I can't be sure.
In my room the awkwardness continues. I immediately go to sit on my bed, but Alex hangs back, standing uncomfortably and swinging her arms as she looks around. Maybe she thought she'd never be back here again. Maybe I thought it too. Certainly not back like this.
"Paige," she begins, "I just want to tell you…that I'm sorry for what I said." Her voice still seems tainted with nervousness.
"Which part?" I ask, suddenly unable to meet her gaze.
"Just… I think perhaps I gave you the impression that sleeping with you, that it didn't mean anything to me."
"Are you saying it did?" I ask, almost afraid of the answer.
"Of course it did. Paige…Paige, please look at me. Of course it did. You mean so much to me. You always have."
And you always will, I almost expect her to say. This is beginning to sound like the brush-off she'd already given me days before, just worded better. It makes my heart swell, that things just aren't going to work. I try and look at her like she's asked; I have my own pride to maintain here after all.
"But not enough," I say flatly, the lump already rising in my throat against my will.
She comes to me then and sits on the end of the bed. "Paige, it's not a question of how much. I thought…I thought you understood that. You and me, we're just…"
"We're just going in different directions," I finish for her, memorising our previous conversations that have followed these lines.
"Well, yeah," she concedes. I can feel her eyes on me, examining me, waiting for me to start crying, like I usually do.
I just start fiddling with the label on one of the cushions on my bed, unable to find the words, the words that will reverse all this mess.
The air is heavy with the silence between us. Alex sighs a few times, and rakes her fingers through her hair like she always does when she doesn't know what to say. I can barely remember ever feeling as tense as this and in my own bedroom no less. It seems so wrong, so unfair that my last memories of Alex in my room will be of this moment. This horrible, agonizing moment.
This was the room where we had our first kiss. Our first intensely exquisite, frightening kiss. This was the room where we had our quasi-study sessions. That is until they started to descend into full-on make-out sessions. In the end we had abandoned any pretence that my bedroom was suitable for anything academic orientated. This was the room where I had sneaked her up past my parents to spend the night. The room where she had told me she felt safe, the room where I had first told her I loved her, the room where we had never fought without making up.
And now…what would our last moment together in this room be?
"I think," she began at last, "I think…you're probably right about my situation. At work. With June."
That does trigger my eyes to snap up, examining Alex curiously.
She looks tentative, "I mean, she is my boss, and everything. Probably not the best idea in the world," she smiles sardonically.
"And she's married," I add tentatively.
"Yeah," Alex agrees.
"Be careful," I say.
"Thanks," she replies, almost shyly.
Our eyes meet and lock on each others and they tell the whole story. The sadness, the hurt, the love, the need, but most of all, the loss.
"I do love you, y'know," Alex tells me, her voice low, not quite a whisper. "Maybe I shouldn't say it anymore. But, it's always been true. And it's about the only thing in my life that hasn't changed."
I'm not sure how to respond to this declaration. Alex is looking away again. I think back to our night together, when I had gone to her to offer my condolences and we had ended up making love. As unexpected as it had been, I knew what she had felt. I knew that it was more than a desire for comfort in her time of grief. I knew that there had been others for her since then. It was evident in the new ways she touched me, the new ways she looked at me. But I also knew that there was still that connection between us. The one that only we shared.
"I love you too," I reply desperately, the tears really on the verge of spilling now. I pull her towards me into an embrace, holding her like my life depended on it. I can feel them streaming down my face now and can here Alex sniffing hard.
"You better call me this time," she says through her own tears and into my shoulder.
"I will. I promise I will. And I'll write to you. And I'll email you every day. You'll be sick of me."
"And, er," she pulls away from me and wipes at her eyes furiously, "You'll have to come and visit some time. I'll show you 7th Avenue and the whole midtown thing."
"Definitely," I affirm, touched by this offer to indulge my love of all things fashion-related.
We sit and stare at each other for several heartbeats and the kiss between us becomes one of those that seem to have no natural beginning or end, it just always was and always is.
When I try and pull her down with me onto the bed she starts to resist.
"Paige," she warns me, "We mustn't start this. You know we can't finish it. I'm leaving tomorrow."
"I know," I whisper against her cheek. "What time are you going?" My hands are stroking their way up her arms now and the contact seems to be clouding Alex's ability to speak.
"Um," I nuzzle her neck and she leans in for another kiss, "it's the overnight bus. I think it leaves at 8pm."
I look into her brown eyes then, searching her intent and being overwhelmed by my own. "Stay with me tonight?" It's more of a question, still unconvinced if this really is the wisest thing for us to be doing, but entirely governed by my own desire now.
"Okay," she says at last, kissing me again, "but I'll be gone in the morning."
We drift in and out of sleep that night, my heart racing every time I awake, scared that she'll be gone. And every time she's still wrapped up in my arms I have to kiss her to make sure she's real and then we come alive again for fleeting minutes, sometimes hours, before our bodies relent.
In the morning she is true to her word and leaves me, the sweetest of kisses still impressed upon my lips.
I roll over into my pillow and breathe in her scent, unwilling to let go.
ooo OOO ooo
The car screeches into the bus station, as the summer evening draws to a close.
Dylan looks at me warily, "Are you sure this is necessary Paige? I mean, you've already said goodbye."
"I am absolutely positive," I declare amid his protestations.
I find the greyhound leaving for New York, just as the doors are closing. Talk about cutting it fine.
"Wait!" I shriek, barging half my body through the door and glaring at the bus driver.
He, in-turn looks incredibly pissed off. "We're leaving now, that's it."
"I know," I say, boarding the steps and raking my eyes wildly across the passengers, who are all sharing the driver's impatience, before spying her. There on her own, right at the back, with her head phones on and completely oblivious.
Typical, I think with a smirk.
"Look, it's too late to be putting that in the hold," the driver warns me.
"Fine!" I reply distractedly, ignoring his incredulous look as I proceed down the aisle single-mindedly.
That's when she notices. I would like to think it was because we shared this sixth sense with each other, aware of the other's proximity without the need for sight. But it was probably me staggering to the back with an overstuffed pink suitcase that Imanaged to slap several people on the head with on my way down.
"Paige!" she exclaims in disbelief.
"Hi hun!" I reply cheerily as I try to manoeuvre the case without any further casualties.
"What-what are you doing?" she stammers bewilderedly.
"Living in the now," I affirm as I finally reach her and stash my case on the empty seats on the other side.
"What?"
"Alex," I sit down next to her, fuelled by adrenaline and the hecticness of my day I grab her hands. "Listen to me, okay?"
She gives a confused smile in return.
"I am so in love with you. Really really in love with you. And I know it's taken me a while to figure this out, but I want to be with you. So…I'm coming with you. I'm coming to New York."
She laughs at this, "Okay, this is not the Paige Michalchuck that I know, what have you done with her?"
"Hun, I'm right here," I assure her, trying to look more earnest now, "And this is what I want, I promise. So if it isn't what you want well…" I break off as the bus draws out of the station. I see Dylan standing outside his car and waving as we go past. I lean over Alex towards the window and give a big cheesy grin and a wave back. Alex instinctively gives a confused wave also.
I turn back to her as we set off. "Yeah so anyway, where were we? You don't think this is a good idea?"
"Paige!" she shakes her head in disbelief and laughs, "I think it's a crazy idea! I mean, where are you gonna live for a start?"
"With you," I reply smugly.
"My cousin will be thrilled. Another body for his tiny apartment."
"Well, I'll get somewhere else then. I'll get a job."
"Paige," Alex continues to shake her head as she rests her hand on my knee and I immediately go to cover it. "You have your whole future planned out. Banting, remember? Your big marketing career that awaits. This does not feature in your plan."
"Alex, if I've learnt one thing since seeing you again, it's that things happen. Life happens. And it doesn't matter how much you plan and think ahead, sometimes something earth shatteringly huge will just come and shake everything up." I'm thinking of her when I say this. Of how her mother's passing has changed her future. And of how it inadvertently led to Michael and I breaking up. And now this moment. "And you have no control over that. I have no control over that. And all we can do is accept that things change and find new ways of dealing with them. Making some good come from it all. Maybe?" I had been so sure during my little speech, but now there is hesitancy in my voice. Will she still want me?
"What about college?" she asks with concern, obviously still not entirely convinced.
"Well, I heard this rumour that New York has one or two, so," I fish around in my bag and pull out a stack of prospectuses, "I thought I'd take a look. See about getting a transfer."
"And what if you can't? What if you have to wait another year?" She's testing me now. I can tell. She wants to see if this is just an impulse decision that I'll grow out of in the morning.
"Well, we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it," I reply with a smile.
"You really haven't planned this at all have you?"
"No. Don't do plans. Not into them."
She looks at me then and at last her eyes relent and the smile extends to the whole of her face. It really is the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld. And knowing I'm the cause of it, well that does everything for a girl's self-esteem. "I hope New York's ready for you," she laughs.
I squeal in delight as I hug her tightly. The thanks and relief I feel is evident as my body collapses against hers and the emotion starts to seep out of every fibre in my being. "I'm sorry," I whisper, "I'm sorry I was such a long time coming."
She answers me with a kiss. Okay, not a kiss, but THE kiss. The one that conveys all the love, all the security and all the passion that we have between us.
And when we part we lean our foreheads together and pretend we don't notice half the bus that have turned in their seats to witness this minor spectacle.
"It's okay," she says to me, "You were worth the wait."