Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Ash nodded.
“So I started to apply everything in my real life to the books. Or, no. I brought the lens of the books to bear on everything in my real life? Anyway, it was a kind of…I mean, I’m not religious at all, but it was kind of like a bible for me. I admired the characters so much, so I used their strengths and ethics as a guide for who I wanted to be. I asked myself if Clarion would be proud of me for a certain behavior. If yes, I felt good. If no, I knew I should’ve done something different.”
Truman trailed off, contemplating what Clarion would think about his recent relationship with Guy and realizing she would be horrified. She had stepped away from her lover when he made choices she couldn’t endorse because she had only been interested in a love that was a true partnership. She would never have allowed herself to be treated the way Truman had. She would never have settled for a love that was strangled and conditional and all on someone else’s terms.
She would be ashamed of him.
It walloped him. Here he sat, in a place that felt sacred with Agatha Tark’s presence, and his role model would be ashamed of how he had behaved. How little he had valued his needs. His ethics.
He felt slightly sick.
“Truman?”
Truman tried to swallow with a totally dry mouth and choked a little.
“Are you all right?” Ash put a hand on his arm.
No. He was decidedly not all right. But he wanted to be—could be, he thought. He needed to do better. Be braver. He needed to take a deep breath, figure out what he wanted, and try to be honest about it. When he put it like that, it sounded so easy. But Truman’s guts knotted and his fingertips tingled.
Just be brave. Be brave like Clarion and tell the truth.
“I like you!” Truman blurted out. “We just met, and I’m, like, actively still heartbroken over this shitty person, but every time I see you, my stomach is like Jell-O, and I want you to like me!”
Ash’s eyes were wide and he was blinking owlishly.
“You don’t have to say anything, but I’ve been a coward about my feelings for basically my whole life, and Clarion would be ashamed, so. Are you happy now?”
This last he yelled up at the cave, and it sent echoes tumbling around them.
Ash smiled. He let out a small, undignified sound that might’ve been a choked-off giggle. Then he stopped trying to hide it and started laughing. It was booming in the small space, and Truman covered his ears.
“I’m sorry,” Ash said between laughs. “It’s not funny at all.”
But he kept laughing.
“Is this a panic response?” Truman asked.
Ash shook his head and clamped a hand over his mouth. “I just haven’t laughed in a really long time,” he managed. “I forgot about it.”
“You forgot about laughter? What are you, a Dickensian street waif?”
Ash snorted with more laughter.
“Well,” Truman sniffed, “I’m so glad my confession can provide a reminder of what true hilarity feels like.”
Ash grabbed his knee and shook his head. “No, no. I’m sorry. It’s not like that at all. I swear.”
His grip on Truman was firm and warm. Truman instructed the nausea roiling in his gut to recede.
“Okay,” Ash said, getting himself under control. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I was not laughing at you. Well. I was laughing at you, but I wasn’t laughing at your feelings at all. It was just that you yelled it like you were mad about it, and it came kind of out of nowhere for me. And I’m really sorry I laughed. I like you too. Obviously.”
Obviously?
“Uh, it isn’t obvious to me,” Truman said.
“No? I gave you a rose the first time we even met.”
“Well. People give their friends roses.”
“We weren’t friends.”
“Okay, but I do this! I take ordinary, nonromantic things and make them into this whole narrative where someone is romantic and kind and lovely, and then it turns out they have husbands and children and are actually just using me as a fuck piece on the side,” Truman blurted.
“Don’t call yourself that,” Ash said softly. “Your boyfriend was an asshole.”
“Yeah. But then what does it say about me that I fell for him?”
Ash looked at him very seriously. So seriously that Truman got scared and dropped his eyes to the floor. Ash put a hand under his chin and gently raised it. His eyes burned.
“It says that you’re kind and generous and probably give people the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it.”
Truman swallowed hard and blinked fast to keep from tearing up.
“I—”
But before he could say anything, Ash’s phone chimed. Which was a relief because Truman had had absolutely no idea what he was gonna say.
Ash was looking at his phone intently, then cocked his head and glanced at Truman. “You think I’m probably a good kisser, huh?”