Ashley knew she should be home because she expected everyone would be looking for her now.
She thought the middle-aged man who offered to help but later didn't, was weird and the paramedics and the man who called 911.
Now that she thought of it, Nicolas had been weird too.
Why would he not hear her out or take her with him? Did she look so lifeless when he saw her?
Her head was pounding. She drifted off to sleep in a few minutes and when she woke up, her leg was better. She had managed to tie it with a piece of her cloth to stop the bleeding
It was morning but since she didn't like the sunrise, she got up and started towards home.
She had been gone since the previous day but no one had come to look for her after Nicolas.
She knew that her mother didn't care that much,but she never thought it'd be this bad.
Nicolas must have told her about the accident, right? why didn't she come to the scene to find her?
Let's not even talk about her father.
If Zuri hadn't left home, she would have come to help her immediately. Her older sister and her boyfriend were the only ones who cared about her.
But Ashley wouldn't blame her now for leaving home, because if she had the opportunity, she would have left too, a long time ago.
She reached home in fifteen minutes and rested on the block of the balcony.
She didn't want to go in yet, but was too afraid to turn back too.
She leaned on the back door and listened to the sound inside.
She could hear Imani arguing with her father- something they did on a daily. It seemed like they were just bickering at first but it turned out to be literally something serious.
"Jeff, she's dead, our daughter is dead, didn't you hear me? I got the news just this morning. I've been up all night and I didn't know why, Jeff..." Ashley could sense a hint of pain in her voice but no response from her alcoholic father.
"All you care about is your alcohol, how can you not be moved by your own daughter's death?" Imani cried the more.
Ashley shivered within her.
Something must have happened to her older sister, Zuri.
She thought she should go in just then to confirm it, but she was too shaken.
"Well, she was warned, to stay away from him. He killed her, didn't he?"
"Jeff, how can you say so? Nick didn't kill Amahle, she was involved in an accident!"
"Didn't he run into her? Didn't you see his van there? I wonder what Ash sees in that impatient, bipolar young man. Oh, his money. I know now" he coughed
"Jeffrey, what exactly is your problem? Why are you doing this to me? How can you say such a thing?" Imani was close to breaking down
" I am only being honest. She is obsessed with his money just because he would give her anything anytime, unlike me. She doesn't want to submit to me. There they go!" he bawled.
Ashley's hair stood on end- they were talking about her, and not her sister.
Dead? Nicolas told her mother she is dead? But ...
"You're out of your mind. Nick was not even there! That's not what matters now, don't you see? Amahle is no more! Can't you show a feeling at least? Our daughter is dead!"
"I have no feelings" he muttered, his enormous bottle of alcohol dabbed at his mouth. He seemed to be out of it already.
Ashley could not wait for the next thing. She couldn't tell what angered her more- the fact that her alcoholic dad displayed his usual unfeelingness towards a matter that almost cost her life, or that her uncanny mother acted like she was actually affected, or the fact that they thought Nicolas was bipolar because he was Ecuadorian and they disliked Ecuadorians.
Imani had indeed acted almost too real to be fake that Ashley temporarily forgot how she actually is like.
She had always known something was wrong with her family even before things started to happen.
Her mother, father were fake people right from the start. Jeff- emotionless and sadistic, and Imani- very selfish and insensitive.
She had always known it when Jeff refused to call her 'Amahle' or call Glenda, 'Zuri', and even when he stopped Imani from going to work, giving flimsy excuses about her showing off her voluptuous figure to the public too much.
He would not let her travel without him.
If he didn't like their mother's identity, or her career, why did he marry her then? It was obvious he did not truly love her.
Foolishly enough, Imani actually gave up her career for him. She became a lazy photographer and started to chase his money instead
Sometimes, Ashley blamed Imani for bringing her and her sister into the world despite knowing that her husband did not love her or want kids with her. She should have left him before it got serious.
He was the beginning of her ruins, everyone's ruins.
Ashley rushed out of the block and towards the road, careful so none of her parents would see her. She was seething and her eyes were brimming with tears.
"I can't believe they already wrote me off as dead! How can Nicolas lie to them? Why won't they even find my body and save me?" She thought, tears running down her face as she hurried towards her boyfriend's.
She knew at that moment that she was never going back to that house.
**********************************
She heard his voice before seeing him. There he was outside, at the pool behind his house, soliloquizing.
It was their couple spot. A lot of memories, talks, wet kisses, and tears were formed there.
She especially liked the pool because it had the same feel as his eyes- turquoise and dreamy.
He must have been lost in his thoughts because he didn't see her walk up to him.
"How would I ever do without you, Ash? How?" He lamented. "You know how much I wanted to make this work. You deserved peace and I was going to give you that. Why would you leave me now?"
"I am not going anywhere, baby" Ashley whispered walking towards him. He had pictures of her in his hands and he had sunk his fingers into each album in anguish. The result was a cut to his finger. It dripped blood but he didn't care to wipe it.
"What is going to happen to our plans now?" He sulked.
Ashley tapped him on his arm, "Stop saying stupid things. I am here"
Nicolas slowly turned to face his girlfriend seated beside him, watching the calm of the pool. His face was expressionless.
"Are you really here, Ash?" He drawled absentmindedly, making an attempt to touch her, but recoiled halfway. "Look, I'm already going crazy because you left me too soon" he half-yelled
"I'm really here. Touch me. What's wrong with you, Nicolas? I'm not dead of course" she got up, petrified by his reaction and walked swiftly into his apartment. Her brain was muddy from all the events of the previous days and so she needed some sleep.
She had to talk to him about a lot of things, especially why everyone thinks she's dead. Well, he did pass that information, but why?
As soon as she entered his room, she realized how much she had missed this place.
His room had the usual glow, and ambience, with purple curtains and white bedspread, walls, door and tiles.
The plush blankets and the voluptuous purple pillows on the bed called out to her fatigued frame, tantalizing her with their luxury.
Her boyfriend, Nicolas had always been a hardworking guy who didn't depend on his parents' wealth for himself, and so everything in this room had been bought by him. It was one admirable thing about him. He made his own money from his pub and super modeling.
Although he was barely twenty three, he already had some assets and degrees to his name, with little or no assistance from his parents.
It was the biggest thing everyone admired about him- he rarely ever asked for help from anyone, and he was very humble.
He believed he had it in him to be as wealthy or even wealthier than his parents were.
He had the looks, the money, the gentlemanliness and so, it had unnerved rather than pleased her, when in a fashion show she had been in town, he walked up to her and made advances.
It had been his mother, Jenny Newton's show(JenVor Fashion Shows) which she co-hosted with her husband, Trevor. Ashley had won a ticket to the show from a game she played, and so it had been an opportune time for her to attend it.
She thought she was not good enough for him.
He could have chosen one of the hot sophisticated girls at the show for all she cared. She had seen how women and girls her age hovered around him everytime.
She thought he was out to make fun of her. Why me?
So, she made a conscious effort to explain to him that she could never afford the clothes he wore, and the stuff he bought, in a million years because she had nothing and absolutely no one, without exactly stating that her family was useless.
"Maybe if he saw my average-classed life, he'd give up on me" she had thought, but then he passed by her house twice and said it was lovely.
"He will definitely run if he knows that my dad is very possessive and that my mother has exposed herself to drugs because of him. He will run because he definitely doesn't want a girl from a crazy family" she thought many times.
"Maybe if he knew how much I am hated by my family, he'd run from me" she had thought after, but he probed her during their early dates together, to talk about her problems to him, and when he heard that her father was a ruthless dipsomaniac and a possessive motherfucker, (because that's what Ash called him everytime) and that her mother was a headless sheep and a neer-do-well, he didn't flinch.
He told her that he would protect her, and help her get peace because she deserved it.
Ashley had refused to believe him at first because she thought he was merely pretending to love her.
She in fact didn't think men were worth her time.
But time had proved that he was real.
He protected her and gave her too many good things. He was too good to be true.
Their relationship had indeed been made from heaven, but Ashley knew that he could not end the series of abuse she suffered at home or he would get broken in the process.
It kept happening. Home was a dread and so she rarely went back.
Still, she didn't want to live with him and be a burden, even though he never complained.
Not that her parents cared if she left home for a long time anyway, but they especially cared that she went to be with Nicolas everyday.
They did not like him.
Or maybe they did not like to see Ashley around him.
For a long time, Ashley wondered why, until she had to conclude in her mind that her parents were jealous of the good life she was enjoying with him.
They enjoyed her misery and didn't want that to change.
He was her picture perfect and they had many enviable memories together but theirs was a very complicated relationship.
Nicolas' parents didn't like her as well because of her background.
They thought their son should not have any dealings with 'vagabonds and vicious neer-do-wells' who wrecked the society, as they termed her parents.
But he stuck with her.
He had even put a ring in her finger, promising that he would never leave her, and she had promised the same.
The two and half years they've been together have been the most peaceful of her life.
As a matter of fact, peace came into her life when she met him, and he gave her hope that her family would change and her father would not drink so much and her mother would not hate her so much, although, it didn't look like it would ever happen.
"I love you" Ashley whispered to herself, caressing the teddy bear in her hands. It was hers because he got it for her, but she had left it at Nick's on one of her visits.
"I love you very much, Nick" She could see him through the plush, transparent curtains still seated at the pool.
She thought it was crazy that he believed she was already dead, and even told her parents that she died in the accident.
"Nick, you have to believe it. I'm alive" her voice was breaking. She hoped he would get up and come to her.
She waited for fifteen minutes and as if he heard her, he got up from the edge of the pool .
She watched his fingers drip with blood as he staggered towards the front door and up the staircase.
He looked like a warrior that had been defeated in battle.