“Your brother is dead, Levi,” Asher growled, his eyes narrowing. “He’s been dead. Stop using your pointless guilt to run away from me.”
Levi felt like he had been filled with gasoline and someone threw a match down his throat. “Don’t talk about Ethan.”
“Why not? You talk about him constantly. You brought him up just now, as part of your excuse to avoid this,” Asher said. His eyes fell to the table, the muscle in his jaw jumped as his fingers began turning the wine glass. “I’m not dead Levi. I’m right here. I love you. I want you to stop trying to run away and stay.”
Maybe it was the fog still in his body, or the fact that Asher was weaponizing Ethan, or the echoes of the heart monitor inhis head, but the quiet, sheepish look on Asher’s face just pissed Levi off more. It sat inside him like acid, bubbling in his veins because everything he had done was so they could stay together. Every bit of fear, the pain, the never ending cycle of feeling himself slip away and trying to claw it back even when Asher’s hands stopped him, was about ending the game so they could be together.
Going along hasn’t worked. Distracting him hasn’t worked. Fighting, and crying, and dying hasn’t fucking worked.
Fine.
“Then prove it’s worth it,” Levi said softly “Prove staying is worth it. Tell me something real about yourself.”
“What?”
“What did you want to be when you grew up?”
Asher’s face went blank. His hands were still flat on the table but his fingers stopped turning the wine glass.
“What did your mom look like? Tall? Short? What color were her eyes?”
“Levi —”
“Where did you go to school? What did you study? What was your best friend’s name?” Levi’s hands were off the table now, gripping the edge of his chair, his knuckles white. The questions were coming out faster than he could shape them.
“Stop —”
“You can’t answer.” He was on his feet. He didn’t remember standing. His chair was behind him and every conversation in the lounge had stopped and he could feel the whole room watching — Jasper’s beer halfway to his mouth, Maddie’s hand on the wine bottle frozen. “You can’t answer because there’s nothing to answer. You don’t have a past. You don’t have a before. You’re asking me to sit in a room forever with someone who can’t tell me his mother’s name.”
“STOP.” Asher’s hand flew to his temples, his fingers pressing in. “It hurts when you — stop, Levi —”
“You want me to stop? Then be somebody worth staying for.” His own eyes were burning, the tears building, his voice shaking. “Be a person. Tell me one thing — one memory, one face, one name — that proves you existed before I walked into a campsite and you decided I was yours.”
“There is nothing else. Stop it, Levi. I’m warning you—”
“This game is designed around fear, Asher. What’s yours? Because I know all the fucked up monsters that are part machine are mine. Which one is yours? Space? Forests? Fancy fucking doors in basements?” Levi pressed. “Which one? Or are those mine too?”
“I DON’T KNOW.” Asher’s fingers were still at his temples, pressing hard enough that the skin was whitening under the pressure. “I don’t know, Levi. There isn’t — I look and there isn’t — you’re asking me for something that isn’t THERE and every time you ask it does something inside my head that I can’t —”
“Because you’re not fucking real!” The words exploded out of Levi’s mouth and the room went silent.
I didn’t mean that. Why did I say that?
He watched the words cut through Asher the way a blade went through a body — the entry point, the damage, and the unsettling stillness that came after something vital had been hit. Asher’s hands came down from his head, his mouth agape, and he reached for the wine glass, his fingers tightening around the bowl of it.
It shattered in his hand.
Then Asher was moving fast, around the table—two steps, three, his bloody hand leaving drops on the white cloth. Levi didn’t step back. The spine he’d built across four scenarios held him where he was, feet planted, shoulders level, his chin up. He watched Asher come around the table and he did not move.
Asher’s bloody hand closed on his jaw, his thumb on one side of Levi’s face and his fingers on the other, the grip tilting Levi’s head up and a piece of glass still embedded in Asher’s palm biting into his skin.
“Does this feel real, Levi?” Asher asked, his grip tightening.
“You’re hurting me,” Levi said, his heart hammering in his throat.
“Does it feel like nothing is hurting you?” Asher’s voice dropped to a whisper as he squeezed harder, leaning in, his mismatched eyes staring daggers through Levi. “Does it?”
“Get your hand off my face, Asher,” he gritted out through his teeth.