Loving Mr. Daniels(75)

“Ashlyn, stop,” he ordered.
I couldn’t. My mind had been taken away from me by the sadness, by the memories. How dare Mom order me to leave. How dare Henry take care of me. How dare Gabrielle get cancer. How dare Ryan kill himself!
“I gave Ryan a place to stay. We were supposed to sleep it off and figure things out in the morning. Rebecca calmed down. She wanted him to come home. Hailey needed him… What an *. He’s an * for dying!”
It wasn’t fair. They’d all left me when I would have done anything to stay with them. I would have given them all the love they needed.
Why wasn’t I enough?
He was holding me around my waist, yet I kept kicking and screaming. “Let me go!” He held on tighter. I started kicking my legs around, clawing my fingernails into his arms, trying to rip his hold of me away. My howls grew deeper and the pain only intensified. “Let me go!”
“No.” He held on and placed me against a wall to control my kicks. My body landed against the cold wall and I cried. “I’m never letting you go, Ashlyn. I’m never letting you go.”
“You will! You will let me go.”
My stomach twisted and I felt like I was going to vomit. He wasn’t trying to, but he was lying to me.
Because everyone always let go.
My vision began to blur over and I felt lightheaded.
“You’re having a panic attack,” Daniel whispered against me as my breathing started to increase. My insides tightened. “Calm down for me, sweets. Steady your breathing.” He turned me around so I was facing him. I yanked on his shirt, pulling him closer to me.
I lost it.
Completely lost it.
But he was still there.

We sat on the couch, facing toward the front door. When I heard keys jingling, my heart pounded against my ribcage. The door opened slowly and I saw Mom walking in with Jeremy behind her.
I stood to my feet and heard Mom gasp. Tears built up in her eyes and her shoulders slumped.
I was supposed to be mad.
I was supposed to hate her.
But all I could do was hug her, pull her to me, and cry into her. I didn’t know what to think of the exchange between the two of us.
And maybe tomorrow, I would be mad again.
And maybe when I went back to Wisconsin, I would hate her once more.
But right now? On Christmas afternoon?
Right now, we were just two people made to screw up, f*ck up, and learn new things. We were made perfectly imperfect.






Snow falls soft.
I love you slowly.
~ Romeo’s Quest


Those few days in Chicago, Mom and I didn’t figure things out. We didn’t work on our issues.
We mourned the first Christmas without Gabby. On New Year’s Eve, we cleaned out the bedroom, too. Mom lifted up Gabby’s guitar and smiled toward Daniel. “You can have it.”
He frowned. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Mom whispered, running her fingers over the guitar strings. “It deserves to be played.”
Daniel looked over to me and I smiled, nodding.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the guitar into his hands. As Mom and I folded up the last of the clothes to send the Goodwill, Daniel played Gabby’s guitar.
“Do you know any Beatles?” I asked him. Mom looked up toward him and smiled, waiting for his answer.
He played Let It Be, singing quietly. His voice was smoother than I’d ever heard it before. It gave me the best kinds of chills. Outside the window, snow fell at a tamed speed, falling against the tree branches, falling against every inch of Chicago.
And when the clock struck midnight, everyone cried.

“What do you think?” I asked Daniel as we arrived back at the train station in Edgewood. “Do you think she’ll be able to stop drinking?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I hope she does.”
“Me too.” I looked around and smiled at Daniel. We stood in a hidden corner by the payphones in the Amtrak station. “She wants me to come back to live with her…to work on our relationship.”
He nodded slowly. “I know.”
My voice whispered with the next topic. Mom had given me the letter from the college of my dreams on the way out. “I got into the University of Southern California.”
“I know,” he repeated. “Of course you did.” His head lowered to the ground. “No matter what, no matter how hard we try…why do I feel like I’m going to lose you?”
I felt it, too. But I couldn’t voice it. “Okay, well, Henry is going to pick me up soon. I’ll call you later? Otherwise I’ll see you at school this week.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him on his lips, trying to give him ease to his doubt. He lightly tugged on my bottom lip and I sighed against his mouth. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
As I watched him walk toward the door, my heart tightened. After our final exams in a few weeks, there was a whole new semester where Daniel and I would have to pretend to not be in love. Only this time, I wouldn’t be in his class. The idea of going through that again was painful. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted him to quit his job. I wanted him to run away with me, but I knew he couldn’t. He loved teaching. He loved his band. His home was here in Edgewood.
And what about college? I’d gotten into the University of Southern California. My dream school. That would be four years away from Daniel—four more years of separation.
We had gone one semester with being surrounded by each other and it had almost been the end of me. A raw truth was settling into my head as I studied him outside the building. I’d fallen in love with the right guy at the wrong time.