VI. Considere

Three days later the world still felt like it had been turned on its head, and Ashleigh was left wondering how to tip it back in the right direction. It didn't help matters that she was alone in the knowledge of her mistake. She woke up and dragged herself down to the stables each morning, greeting Samantha's bubbling conversation and wishing she had someone to talk to whom wouldn't immediately be shocked by her story.

But, it was ridiculous to hope someone wouldn't be baffled by what Ashleigh was mulling over: that if she did break down and discuss exactly what she was going through she wouldn't have to answer a hundred thousand questions about why and how she had placed herself in this position. No one would understand, and Ashleigh knew this was because she didn't fully understand how things had disintegrated either. It had seemed like a simple act of giving in, but of course things never turned out so simple.

"I still cannot believe it," Samantha said as they walked up from the track, leading one of Brad's horses that raced for Townsend Acres back up to the barns. Ashleigh had forgotten the plain bay's registered name, which seemed fitting considering he hadn't attempted to lift his hooves in effort to win a race for a year and a half and hadn't been deemed ready to run by Brad for an additional five months. It seemed to Ashleigh it was about time to hang it up and sell the poor creature so they could stop wasting their time.

"The way he just zipped up there at the end?" Samantha asked. Ashleigh nodded, remembering the Mischief Maiden colt, the 5.2 yearling sale stopper of two years previous, as he inched up to nearly take the Kentucky Derby in the last seconds.

"It was something," Ashleigh agreed. "He'll be a Preakness favorite if he trains well."

"It must be difficult to let a colt like that go," Samantha sighed. "I wonder how Brad feels about seeing his yearling get that close in the Derby."

"There's no telling, Sammy," Ashleigh replied shortly, wishing for the life of her that she could remove Brad from the conversation without seeming too short about it. It apparently wasn't going to work.

"You've been a bit on edge since we got back from Louisville," Samantha observed as they walked into the training barn closest to the oval. "Is there something on your mind?"

Ashleigh suppressed a snort in response and shook her head with an ambivalent shrug thrown in for effect. "Nerves, I think," she said. "Precocious is getting close to yearling training, and I've never done that by myself."

Samantha offered her an assuring, carefree smile. "I'll be your helper, don't worry. Between my dad and me you'll have plenty of hands to make sure Precocious has the smoothest transition into training."

"Thanks, Sammy," Ashleigh said, whipping up a relieved smile at her friend as they tugged the tack off the bay gelding and handed him off to the grooms. Samantha collected the bridle and saddle, announcing that she had a few errands to run and would be back later in the afternoon. Ashleigh nodded, hardly hearing as she was again lost in thought. She heard Samantha laugh, commenting on something regarding Precocious, and headed in the direction of the tack room.

Alone in the aisle, Ashleigh rolled her shoulders and silently took stock. Since arriving back at Townsend Acres she'd managed to avoid Brad for the most part, and it helped that Brad hadn't shown at morning works at all, effectively cutting out the few hours of the day Ashleigh was most likely to see him. In Louisville he's also been as close to a non-factor as he was capable, showing up with Lavinia, speaking shortly to anyone whom dared to start a conversation with him, and watching the races several boxes away from the normal Townsend group.

It was a relief for Ashleigh, and a small part of her was almost convinced he might continue on like this, although she knew that was a fool's hope. It was only a matter of time before Brad decided enough was enough and went on the hunt again, or called things quits and convinced his father to fire her. The later version of possible events had Ashleigh's nerves on edge, and she found herself shocked that she couldn't determine which would bother her more. Ashleigh would never condone allowing a relationship to exist so she could keep a job, but she was more than a little worried that she might be offered the choice and forced into losing everything.

Exhaling the large breath she'd been holding in for as long as it took to calm herself, Ashleigh redid her ponytail and headed up to the employee housing to rinse away the grime that had accumulated on her skin during morning works. As soon as she emerged off of the wooded path to the apartment complex that sat well beyond the beauty of the farm, Ashleigh looked up from her feet to her front door and stalled there in the glen before the building, looking at Brad Townsend and feeling her breath hitch in her throat.

He was sitting in the old, frayed lawn chair she'd snagged from Charlie's patio. It looked ridiculous compared to him, their styles so different and clashing. Brad sat in the orange and brown chair, his long, tanned arms resting on his knees as he looked at her like he'd climbed out of an advertisement for clothing that Ashleigh couldn't afford.

"Griffen," he greeted, nodding slightly at her as she milled there by the mouth of the trail, silently considering how ridiculous she would seem if she turned on her heel and marched back into the woods. For a split second she wondered if she could outrun his long legs with her agility, and knew that any such scenario would only wind up with them in a tangle of limbs in the middle of the forest. Ashleigh blushed at her own thoughts, and Brad looked curious for a moment but said nothing.

"That's me," she finally replied, and stepped into the sunlight, blinking to adjust her eyes to the light. He stood up, neglecting to say anything to her as she walked slowly up to the door to her apartment, eyeing him warily with each step. He waited patiently, electing to remain silent until she arrived at the cement patio.

"I thought," he started, and stopped abruptly, looking from Ashleigh's nervous, yet expectant gaze to the forest behind them. With a sigh, he rubbed a hand through his dark hair and took a step back.

He shrugged, moving as though Ashleigh's presence made him too uncomfortable to stand still. "This is all clearly a mistake, Ashleigh," he told her then.

"A mistake?" Ashleigh asked, her voice too strained to be recognizable as her own. "What do you mean?"

"My coming here," he said, lifting his hand through the air as though painting a large red mark across a canvas. "All of it."

He made a move to leave then, and Ashleigh felt compelled to jump forward, grabbing his arm to keep him anchored in place long enough to drag more information out of him and convince him to take everything back that he'd just now tossed to the side like it was nothing. He stopped immediately when she touched the bare skin of his lower arm, his whole body seeming to tense under the pressure of her fingertips.

"What do you mean by that?" Ashleigh asked, narrowing her eyes in confusion, angry that he wasn't looking at her.

"Everything, Ash," he nodded. He turned around to focus on her face, looking dead set to let go of all that he wanted. "From the moment I saw you…"

He trailed off. Ashleigh let go of his arm quickly, and he shook his head.

"From that first moment to now, Ash," he said. "You want it gone, so it's gone."

"I don't understand," Ashleigh croaked, embarrassed by her refusal to follow him and be happy with what he was offering her. He looked at her like she was speaking in tongues.

"Don't do this to me, Ashleigh," he told her simply. "I'm not going to willingly wrap myself around your little finger."

"I don't want that," Ashleigh started, and came to a flustered stop before she could continue into a long, confusing speech that couldn't advance their situation toward any clarification.

"And we're back with what you don't want," Brad muttered to himself, rolling his eyes.

Ashleigh brought her eyes up to his and lifted her hands up into the classic flustered sign of peace. In reality, she didn't mean to offer any such sign.

"You want to know what I want, Brad?" She laughed, but it didn't sound normal to her ears. "I want you to stop swooping in and determining for the both of us what's best!"

"This isn't want you wanted?" Brad asked in some disbelief. "To be handed the opportunity to erase everything that happened?"

"I'm not a simpleton, Brad," Ashleigh remarked dryly. "Our pretending that nothing happened isn't erasing history. It will become a skeleton in a closet that will inevitably tumble out into the living room at the absolute worst time. That's how it always goes."

"So you're saying you don't want to ignore all of it?" he asked, the smallest spark of hope catching in his voice.

"I can't ignore all of it," Ashleigh told him. "For me, that's pretty much a physical impossibility."

He sighed; another reminder. Ashleigh blushed again, not meaning to let details like that slip. Carefully collecting herself, Ashleigh tried to do the same with her thoughts and found herself scrambling to form an argument for why exactly pretending was out of the question without admitting her simple desire for him. Simple victories, Ashleigh thought angrily, were still well within Brad's threshold. He'd be pleased with an admission of desire, so Ashleigh shied away from it on instinct.

"Talk," Ashleigh said. "We can come to a decision that doesn't involve conveniently forgetting, can't we?"

Brad gave her a look of disbelief. "I hate to burst your optimistic bubble here, Ash, but we don't talk."

"We're adults, right?" she asked. "We can try."

"We'll fail miserably," he told her, already sparking her fury.

"If you don't give it half a chance, yes, Brad, we will," she retorted.

"Why don't you tell me something first, then," Brad said, changing course. "Why is it you don't want to forget it? Wouldn't that be right up your alley?"

At that moment, the door next to Ashleigh's apartment swung open and April, one of Ashleigh's longest acquaintances at Townsend Acres, emerged into the daylight. Starting in surprise at what she had walked into, April offered them both a tentative smile and slipped out of the way, heading with brisk steps toward the path for the farm with one curious glance behind her.

"Great," Ashleigh muttered, taking the chance to avoid talking about her refusal to forget anything involving Brad.

"She'll chalk it up to our usual public arguments," Brad dismissed it. "Answer the question, Griffen."

"Despite what you're thinking of my tendencies," Ashleigh told Brad, crossing her arms over her chest. "I do not like to forget certain details of my life. Believe me, I have plenty of traumatic memories I'd be all too happy to forget, and I've never once tried to brush them aside."

"So this is a traumatic memory, then?" Brad asked.

"Maybe it wouldn't have been if Lavinia hadn't shown up," Ashleigh said, dropping her voice to a dull whisper to ensure that no one could overhear them. Brad grunted his amusement at her attempts to hide their conversation.

"Would going inside make you more comfortable, Ash?" he asked, and she shook her head quickly, rewarded with one of his snide smiles. "Didn't think so," he shrugged. "I can't apologize for Lavinia."

"You can explain her presence," Ashleigh said, refusing to let this issue be swept aside.

"She was sharing the room."

"Shared the bed, you mean," Ashleigh corrected, her voice low again.

"And not much else," he told her.

"That's not very comforting."

"Nothing else, okay?"

"That's not even remotely assuring."

Brad sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Then I have nothing else to offer on that subject."

"That's all you're going to say?" Ashleigh asked, her jaw dropping at his reluctance to explain himself.

"Does everything have to be so black and white with you?" he asked. "If you're trying to get around to asking if I had sex with her last week, or hell, anytime since that Christmas party you're all flustered over, then no. I haven't. If you're wondering why she was in that situation with me at Louisville, the answer is that yes, I wanted to get a rise out of you and yes, I hurt the poor girl in ways I shouldn't have in order to do it. Turns out we're all getting a raw deal after everything's said and done, so Lavinia is no longer pertinent to our problems, Ashleigh. Next fucking topic."

Ashleigh pressed her lips into a hard line and digested this information, wondering finally if any of it even mattered. Brad wanted to forget about things, and she didn't want to admit to anything. It was a deadlock neither would be able to break, and it was a solution that would ultimately hurt them both. Already Ashleigh could feel the first wisps of regret and pain course down her spine and settle uncomfortably in her stomach. She knew the notion was ridiculous, that she could be upset about his decision that erasing his desire for her was for the best. She'd never asked for him. She still wouldn't admit even to herself that she'd developed her own bottled up, nameless emotion for him. Then again, she understood that was probably her biggest obstacle; she wasn't at all willing to give Brad any morsels of hope.

When Ashleigh didn't say anything, Brad clenched his jaw impatiently and shifted away from her. A surge of adrenaline pumped through Ashleigh's system then, and she swore she felt her fingers start to tingle. Yet she couldn't talk. As she opened her mouth to talk, to respond, the words refused to climb out of her throat. Instead she stood there, staring wide-eyed and her mouth gaping.

"Are you going to say anything, Ashleigh?" he asked, looking for the life of him like he wanted to leave, and Ashleigh was too afraid she'd be left staring after his retreating finger and she'd never get a word out.

"I," Ashleigh croaked, her one attempt to talk swallowed by the swelling need to cry.

"Jesus Christ," she heard him mutter, and then he wasn't walking away; she was being pulled forward, and only stopped when she met his chest and his arms held her tightly to him.

Breathing raggedly, Ashleigh stared at the cotton fibers of his shirt through watery eyes and tried to rapidly piece together a reason for why she was acting like this. She could only come to one conclusion after several moments of hyperventilating and Brad's soft rubbing on the small of her back. He wanted to forget, and she didn't want him to. It was all her, now. She was the one hanging on after being unwillingly chased and seduced. She'd taken their games of cat and mouse, raised them to a new level, and was shocked to find out that in response he'd simply decided to give up the chase. It felt like she was left stranded in the ocean without a life jacket, and she was slowly sinking.

"It's better this way," she vaguely heard him mumbling into her hair. "Honestly, it was idiotic for me to do all of this to you. I'm…"

"Don't," Ashleigh said, maneuvering herself away from him just enough so she could swipe at her eyes. "Don't say you're sorry. You can't be."

"I am, Ash."

"How can you say that?" she asked, pushing further from him as his hands slipped to her hips, holding her gingerly like she was a clump of a hundred bottle rockets about to go off at once.

"How can you do this?" she asked before he could answer her. "Do you even know what you're doing?"

"I've spent the past three days thinking about this, Ash," he said with a dark glower as she looked up at him. "Since the moment you walked out, I've been actively avoiding you and I know you've been avoiding me. It just hit me that this is a lost cause. It's fucked up, really, this attraction to you."

"Do not do that," Ashleigh demanded, pulling herself away from him completely to his confused expression. "Don't presume that you have complete say over anything that involves me."

"I'm not presuming," Brad answered. "I'm right about this, Ashleigh. Things went too far, and God knows I wasn't ready for the fall out. I thought you'd be glad about this, really," he said, shaking his head. "I thought you'd be absurdly happy."

"How can I be?" Ashleigh cried at him. "How…"

"There it is," Brad said as Ashleigh's voice fell off, drowned by her fear. "How can I keep doing this, Ash? I can't. It's that simple."

"You're a coward," Ashleigh managed. "Pure and simple."

"It's better than making a complete fool out of myself by continuing this game over a girl who can't, and maybe never will, admit she wants it," he said with a shrug.

"I don't want it," Ashleigh said, vehemence rising under grief and spurred on by anger. "Never did."

"I know," Brad said, and then he laughed softly. "I'll be seeing you, Griffen."

Then he simply walked away. He didn't glance back, and he didn't stop, like Ashleigh assumed he would. He walked off the concrete patio, into the light, and disappeared into the woods. Ashleigh closed her eyes, wondering how far her legs could take her to him on that pathway, imaging tangled limbs, and then struck it all from her memory.

Quietly, she turned to her door and slipped the key into the deadbolt with shivering fingers. The door wrenched open and Ashleigh half fell into the apartment. Absent-mindedly, she kicked the door closed behind her and waited a moment, standing stalk still in the middle of her living room and she expected a knock on the door. None came.

With a soft breath from her lips, Ashleigh let her fingers go limp. Her keys dropped to the floor with a metallic clink. She inhaled again, finding a new resolve she didn't know she had, and bent to pick them up. As she moved from the living room and into her bedroom, placing the keys on an end table thoughtlessly, she arrived at her bedroom and shut the door. Calmly, with precise movements, she pulled off her shoes and leaned against the door for a second, taking a moment to breathe.

In that moment, Ashleigh decided she'd hate Brad Townsend. She could crush these feelings blossoming in her chest, developing in her mind, and she'd forget. It could be simple; just as simple as he seemed to think it would be for him. Ashleigh smiled a sad, emotionless smile, and knew she'd be better at it than him. She'd forget him in the blink of an eye.

Then she walked forward and curled up on the bed. She was asleep within minutes, and she dreamed.