Read Online Asher: A Second Chance Novel by Kylie Walker - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t just think about that though, he thought about the sound of her voice as she told her husband how bad the pain was and how tired she was of fighting. He couldn’t stop thinking about that and he couldn’t stop wondering if keeping her alive was the most selfish thing they could do.
    He was in the middle of reading her new book to her a week later when she said, “Asher.”
    He put the book down. “What’s up, Mom?”
    “Baby I have to ask you a big favour.” Asher felt a pain in his chest. He knew what she wanted and he didn’t think he was any more capable of doing it than his father.
    “What do you need, Mom?”
    She reached her pale, skinny hand out and put it on his face. Asher leaned into it. The tears were already forming in his eyes. He was praying he was wrong and she wasn’t going to ask him. “I need to go, Asher.”
    “Go where?”
    “Go. You know. It’s too hard for me now, Ash. It hurts too much. This is no kind of life. I’m ready to go.”
    Asher could feel the tears slowly spilling down his cheeks. “Mom, please don’t ask me to help you do that.”
    “I asked your father but he’s not as strong as you…”
    “Mom, I can’t.”
    “Baby, please! Please help me.”
    Asher was sobbing now. “I can’t Mom!”
    She started to say something else when the bedroom door was shoved open. His father rushed in, smelling like booze as usual. “No! Do not listen to her! She has no idea what she’s asking. The medication has fucked her up.”
    Asher was stunned at first. His dad was yelling at the top of his lungs while his mother lay there in excruciating pain, crying, asking her son to end her life. He was in shock that his own father could be such an insensitive ass. Without thinking it through any further, Asher stood and put his hand on his father’s chest and pushed him out into the hallway. He shoved him into a wall and said, “Do not yell in front of my mother.”
    His dad reached out and shoved Asher back into the other wall. “She’s my wife and this is my house and I’ll fucking do as I please.” That was it for Asher. That flipped the switch. He grabbed his father by the collar of his shirt and shoved him so hard into the wall that the plaster cracked.
    “You don’t get to be the master of the house any longer. You’re a drunk piece of shit and we don’t fucking need you.” He tossed him back into the wall and then he stormed away from his father and out of the house. There was only one person who could calm him down. He needed to see Mia.
    **
    Asher had picked up Mia and they were laying in each other’s arms in an old Barn on her father’s property. She knew something was wrong, but he hadn’t told her what. He just told her he needed her and she didn’t hesitate to meet him there. He was just holding her, not talking. She was worried about him, but if that’s what he needed, then that’s what she would give him. Probably an hour passed before he said anything and when he did it was, “Is it selfish of me to want her to go on living when she’s in so much pain?”
    “It’s human.” she said. “You’re not ready to let her go. She’s your mother. That’s human.”
    “So what if I’m never ready to let her go?”
    Mia hated to be the voice of reason but she was sure he didn’t want her to lie to him. “At some point we all have to accept that it’s not always up to us. Maybe if you think of it that way; her pain will finally stop, it won’t be as hard for you to accept when it happens.”
    He ran his hand through her soft hair and she felt his lips brush against the side of her face. “It’s not fair.” he said. “None of it is fair. And it’s only been a year, she was supposed to have two.” He had her wrapped up in a bear hug and Mia could hardly breathe. Instead of pulling away though, she pulled him in tighter. Suddenly she felt his body begin to shake and she knew he was crying. Her heart was breaking for him and she felt so