Crossing the Deep (11 page)

“Exactly. You walked on it too much, and you see what happened because of it. Your foot is messed up bad, Rachel. There’s no telling what will happen if you put weight on it again.”

“I thought you said it was fine.”

“I lied.”

“Asher, I can’t sit here!” She knew she was yelling, but she couldn’t stop herself. He started it! If she couldn’t walk, that only left two options, and she doubted he’d choose the one that involved them both sitting and waiting for help. That left—

”You’re planning on going for help yourself and leaving me here in this cemetery?”

“I’ve not planned anything!” he yelled back. “But if you really think about it, what can you do? I can’t carry you. You don’t need to hobble on that. The ground is beyond saturated from all of this rain that doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. For all we know, it might not even let up before sunrise. With our luck, it could rain all day tomorrow. I know where you are, and as long as you don’t move I can bring help back for you.”

“Just like Sid did,” she spat back, shaking. No way would she let him leave her alone out here. Not again. Having Asher with her had to be better than having nobody. How could she survive if another animal attacked? Throw her Bible at it?

He sighed, running his fingers through his drenched, dark hair. “I can’t take you with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll slow me down!”

It was the second time that day he’d told her that, and the words hit her like knives, causing a lump to form in her throat. Asher thought of her as a hindrance, an obstacle he had to overcome. A burden. All things she hated being. Tears formed in her eyes, threatening to fall. She willed them away, not wanting to cry in front of him.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean I can move faster without having to worry about you. I can get help and get back here. It’s the best we can do.”

“It stinks.”

“Never said it didn’t. Look, I’ll stay with you until the sun comes up.”

“Is that my consolation prize?”

“It’s all I have.” He took the backpack and laid Rachel’s ankle on it. After that, he crawled next to her, near the middle of the small gazebo. He lay down and squirmed around a bit on the cold, wet, concrete floor, trying to get comfortable. “Wish your mom had packed a sleeping bag.”

“I wish a lot of things,” she said sadly with her head down. She needed some sort of comfort. Something to give her strength. Moving her foot off the backpack was necessary even if it was painful. Once she opened it, she dug in to find what she was looking for.

“You need to rest,” he said, stating the obvious.

“I’ll have plenty of time to rest tomorrow while you're gone.” Her voice had an edge.

“Don’t be like that.”

“How else can I be?” she asked, still hot that he had even made his mind up to leave her. “You are going without me, Asher. For my own good or not, it’s scary.”

Ignoring his attempts to reassure her, she found her Bible. She lit the book with the flashlight and flipped it open. Wind blew rain inside their little sanctuary, causing her pages to dampen, but she didn’t stop reading.

Matthew 28: 19-20 caught her attention
:
‘Go
ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.’

Tears welled up in her eyes again. Tomorrow, Asher would be gone, but she still had Jesus with her. He would take care of her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her eyes on the comforting words. She had no idea if he was even awake. “I know you're just trying to do what’s best.”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all for it,” he answered, and she knew he meant it. She didn’t think he wanted to leave her either.

“I wish,” she said, reading the verse again to herself. “Do you want me to read some to you?”

“Trying to convert me?”

“You
are
on a church trip. Kind of our thing.”

“Church trip ended yesterday,” he said.

Rachel lay back on her elbow and shined the flashlight in his general direction to see him better. The light made him squint. She took more pleasure in that than she should have.

“Why did you come?” she asked straight out. If he was going to leave her, by golly she was getting answers.

“It appears that God sent me to take care of you.”

“Don’t joke about God.”

“Sorry — sorry.” He had his hands behind his head and his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. When Rachel had given up on him answering, he said, “I had to come.”

“Why?”

He bit his lip, making Rachel that much more curious. “I was spending the night with Sid,” he sighed. “My Aunt Carol was supposed to be home this weekend, but she called and said something had come up. Not unusual for her. I came because I had nowhere else to go.”

“Why couldn’t you just go home?”

“I would have, but my aunt has befriended Jason again.”

“Jason? The one you got into the fight with?”

“One and the same.” His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, but she didn’t think he was looking at anything in particular. She had a few suspicions about why Asher hated Jason, but nothing solid. Part of her questioned whether she should drop it, but the tired, frustrated, lonely part just had to know.

“Asher, what did he do to you? Why do you hate him so much?”

“Who said I hated him?”

“People don’t usually beat up people they care about.”

“Guess not,” he said.

Rachel knew it hurt him, but she had to know. He wouldn’t have brought it up if some part of him didn’t want to talk about it. “You can tell me. I won’t judge.”

He laughed darkly. “I guess you wouldn’t.” His face became hard and his nose flared. For a second, Rachel wondered if he would say anything. “Jason doesn’t really like me. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He likes parts of me. Specifically the ones he shouldn’t like.”

“Oh God, no” she said, putting her hand to her lips. She would have never guessed that.

“God had nothing to do with it. In fact, He let it happen.” Asher let out a deep breath and blinked a few times, still focusing on the ceiling. Rachel felt her heartbeat race with all sorts of scenarios running through her head. What had Jason done to him? And why was Asher the one arrested?

“What did God let happen?”

He bit his lip and shook his head. “When I was nine, I was already living with my Aunt Carol. She always had different boyfriends. None were ever good for her. Mostly they were just clients who wanted free drugs.”

“Drugs?”

“Don’t tell me you hadn’t heard the rumor about my mom being a dealer? I thought everyone knew that.”

“I heard it. I didn’t know whether to believe it.”

“Well, believe it,” he said. “My aunt isn’t much better. I started living with her when I was eight. Jason was just one in a string of idiots my aunt brought home, but he was by far the worst. When I walked in a room, he stared a little too long. He’d walk into the bathroom when I was using it. He always said he was sorry, but he always looked where he shouldn’t. Any reason he could find to touch or hug or whatever, he would.

“One day, he told my aunt he wanted to take me camping in a field by our house. Stupid me was excited about it. I’d never been camping.” His eyes glazed over like he was a million miles away.

Her heart ached for what he’d been through and dreaded hearing more, but she knew he needed to get it out if he was ever going to move on and not hate God. “That night, when I was asleep, I felt him unzipping my sleeping bag. No one had to tell me what he was going to do. Even at nine, I had a pretty good idea. I pretended to be asleep, but really I was praying to God to make him leave me alone. I’d been to church with my grandma a few times and was told that if I ever wanted anything, to pray for it. So I did. And God turned His back on me.

“I knew I had to take things in my own hands, so I punched him as hard as I could in the nose and ran out of the tent. Jason was right behind me. I could hear his footsteps getting closer and closer and I just kept running. I slipped on a stick and fell on a rock. It cut me here,” he said, touching the crescent scar on his chin. “I saw stars after that. I felt his arms around me, picking me up, and taking me back to the tent.”

“You got away, didn’t you?” she asked, not wanting to know if he didn’t.

“When he got me back there, I hit him as hard as I could between his legs. Figured if he wanted to use it, I’d give him a reason to. He doubled over and let me go. I took the opportunity and ran as fast as I could. I got home and told my aunt who didn’t believe me.”

“Even with your hurt chin, she didn’t believe you?”

“She didn’t want to believe. Jason was her favorite. And I guess she didn’t want to think of him as a pedophile.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“He came home around dawn. He never mentioned it, and I was too scared to. A few days later, I found my next door neighbor, Jessica, crying outside her house. We got to talking, and that’s when I found out that he didn’t just like little boys. She was too scared to tell her parents, but they moved not long after. I wonder sometimes if she ever told anyone.”

“That’s horrible. Poor girl. To have to live with that…”

“Yeah, it’s not fun.,” His eyes were wet with unshed tears. “Anyway, he and my aunt got into a fight not long after, and he left. I never really got over it though. I always said that when I got a chance, I’d pay him back.”

“I take it you did, since you got arrested for beating him up.”

“When I was fourteen, I saw him coming out of a grocery store. He looked so normal with his little brown bag. It all came back. Everything. So, I ran over to him, pushed him down, and kicked him until someone pulled me off.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police when they arrested you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done. It’s embarrassing. Do you really think I wanted it to get around school?” He rolled his head to face her. “You have to promise me, Rachel, that you won’t tell anyone what I told you. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, but wished she could get Jason arrested for something when they got home. “And now he’s back?”

“Yup. I came home from school last week and found him sitting on my living room couch. I’ve been at Sid’s ever since.”

“You never told them what he did?”

“They know he smacked me around a lot and left a few bruises, but they don’t know about the other. And you can’t tell them,” he said so sternly it made her jump.

“I won’t. I promise. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good.” He looked back at the ceiling “Everything’s a screwed-up mess at home. I didn’t want to be held responsible for what I’d do to Jason if I went home this weekend. You know? Break a bat over his head. Slam him against a concrete wall until it turned red. It was either that and probably go to jail or go on a little church hiking trip with Sid and his brother. Not a hard choice.”

“Given our current situation, you might have picked the wrong one.”

“Believe me. I didn’t.”

Rachel couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through in his life. She wondered why he stuck around as long as he had. ”You’re seventeen. Why don’t you just leave?”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Asher…”

“No, Rachel. Just drop it, okay? Please. I’ve told you enough. I can’t talk about it anymore.”

Not knowing what else to do, Rachel put her hand on his chest to keep him from flipping out again. He flinched when she touched him, making her jump too. “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up on his elbows. “I’m — I just don’t like talking about him.”

“It’s all right.” She said as calmly as she could and she racked her hair behind her ear. “I shouldn’t have pried. I’m curious, though, why can’t you just live full-time with David?”

“David offered. I declined.”

“Because?”

“Because I was afraid of what Jason or Tom or whoever Aunt Carol’s man of the month would do to her if I wasn’t there to protect her.”

“But you said you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t. Well, she’s okay, I guess. She’s all the family I have. Just because I don’t like her much and she has the worst taste in men, doesn’t mean I want something bad to happen to her.”

“What about the Department of Children’s Services?”

“DCS? They knew. Took me away a few years go. Aunt Carol swore to change, and I wanted to go home. She did change for a few months, and it was nice. Once DCS was off our backs, she started back to her old ways. But it doesn’t matter if it’s Jason or some other jerk. They all treat her the same.”

“Wow. What a horrible life.”

He shrugged. “Could have been worse. At least Aunt Carol, messed up as she is, took me in after my mom took off. She didn’t have to. And I do have Sid and David.”

She stared down on him in awe. All of these things she didn’t know about. Asher was deep down a caring guy who thought of others over himself. Who would have thought?

“Is the interrogation over yet?” he asked with his jaw set. She knew that no matter what she said, it was over for him.

“Yeah.”

“Good. We need to rest for tomorrow.” He moved around, trying to get comfortable.

Frozen both from his story and the rain, she pulled her purple blanket out of the bag. It was a bit damp, but it was better than nothing. She threw the cover over Asher and then lay down beside him. Before she could find a comfortable position, he raised the blanket and motioned her to get closer. She hesitated at first, then decided it would be stupid not to. It was freezing, after all.

They laid there for a few minutes, close but not too close. “Come here, girl. I think we both need this.” He took his arm from under his head and held it up as an invitation. She had to think about it for a second, but only a second. Sure, it might not be the proper thing to do, but she was cold. She couldn’t see God or her mother holding it against her.

She scooted over as close as she could and hugged up to him. It felt both awkward and comforting. Most of all, it felt warm. She rested her head on his chest and draped her arm over him.