“So I guess we need to talk then,” Ashley mumbles from somewhere around my trachea.

            “Yea, we do,” I say, staring up at the placid white peaks and ridges of her spackle ceiling.

            “Well I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be,” she continues, tracing her fingers along my collarbone and down the side of my arm.  Her hand, warm and inviting, comes to a rest on top of mine. “Tell me exactly what happened then.”

            “Well,” I began, “I walked in the house yesterday after you dropped me off, my parents called me into the kitchen and I could tell that something was kind of off, you know.  Glenn was sitting at the table and I sat down beside him as my parents started into all of these thoughts they’ve apparently been discussing.”  I take a breath and look down from the ceiling to find Ashley’s round brown eyes staring up at me from my shoulder like a disheartened child.  Sliding my hands around her waist to the small of her back, I interlace my fingers and continue.

            “They said that they’ve been thinking and that it seems to them the life in Ohio was a lot better for our family than life in California has been, what with losing Clay and mom and dad’s marriage falling apart and all.  So they want to go back.  I was so upset. I tried to argue but it was so unexpected, I couldn’t think straight. All I could think of was you…” I said, reaching up to playfully tug down a curl from Ashley’s shoulder.  “…and how much it would hurt to have to go.”

            Ashley digested this for a minute, her eyes reflecting the distant thoughts slowly turning.  She pushed herself up and brought her head down next to mine on the pillow, pulling my body to face her, side by side and face to face on the bed.  Her lips, a few short inches from mine, parted as she quietly asked, “when do you leave?”  The green flecks around the pupil in her eyes searched my face for answers. 

            “Two weeks,” I say slowly, knowing the hurt my words will cause.  Ashley bites her bottom lip and gradually nods her head. 

            “Okay” she says with a shudder, closing her eyes.  I sigh and bring my face towards hers, resting our foreheads together, noses touching.  I wish I could read her mind at times like this.  It’s hard for me, to look at the pain etched around her face, the quiet little creases ebbing around her down turned mouth and between her eyebrows; to know that I was the cause of these soundless tarnishes makes me so very sad. 

            “I don’t want you to go…” she whispers, her warm breath breezing against my chin.  I sigh and pull her torso against mine.

            “Neither do I babe, Neither do I…”  Surprise, I open my eyes to feel the hot wetness of her tears, trailing down the bridge of her button nose and onto mine.  The bitter tang of salt tinges my taste buds as I press a kiss to her cheek and pull her head into the concave of my chest against my heart, beating quietly but steadily, for her alone. 

             Resting my chin against Ashley’s hair, her shuddering shoulders taper into a quake as she slowly drifts back into a fitful sleep, sad and broken in my arms.