Chelsea grew to dislike me for my opinion about her beloved Ash. I still hoped she would admit she was wrong one day, but it took a while for me to understand that it was never going to happen. She was just too stubborn, which wasn’t my fault.
I also decided Ash an ungrateful pig, because he was always so lonely, yet he didn’t want the company of my best mate. If he could only explain to me why he always looked so miserable, I might have been capable of finding a reason to like him. But no. Too bad for me; too bad for Chelsea; too bad for him.
However, one music lesson, something even more disturbing happened. Our teacher set us to work in pairs to create a promotion poster for the Music Competition that was going to take place at the end of the next month. The teacher said that the pair with the best design will have their poster hung all around the school and they will get two free tickets to the Music Competition.
I really wanted to work with Chelsea - I knew we would come up with some fabulous ideas - but I knew that our music teacher liked to pick our partners herself, so I sat silently, waiting for her verdict to slip out of her foul mouth.
“Lola, work with Joe. Crissie, you can sit with Drake. Ash, you can work with…” she looked around, trying to find a person who really deserved the punishment of having to spend a lesson with the Emo, but she saw Chelsea’s hand up in the air and sighed with relief, “Chelsea. You can work with Chelsea. Daniel, shut up and go to sit with Michaela. Hilary, you’re working with Paul…”
And so on and so forth. I couldn’t stand it. I was sitting there, waiting for the teacher to tell me who I was supposed to work with, but she seemed to forget me every time. Finally, there was no one left to pair up, except me. All alone.
“Well, Mitchie, I guess you can go and work with Chelsea and Ash if you like,” the teacher sighed. I didn’t care; at least she said the name right. Plus, I was allowed to complete a project with my best mate. Who would want something more?
However, I realized after a while that Chelsea wasn’t the least bit interested in spending time with me. Everything she did was all about Ash, Ash and no one else.
“Ash, what colour should we draw the guitar?” was one of her irrelevant questions.
“How about orange?” I answered, trying to get hold of her attention.
“Like, no! Orange is too colourful, it’s atrocious! Right, Ash?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t mind.”
Wow! He actually talked! Seriously, it was the first time I had heard him speak, and his voice sounded just as sad and miserable as he was himself! Okay, maybe I’m being just a little too cruel, because Ash did sound kind and humane, but I was just resentful of him for “abducting” my best friend.
“We should make it black and draw tears or drops of blood on it. That would be stunning! I’ll go and ask Miss if we can use her PC,” decided Chelsea as she went off, smiling broadly at her supposedly outstanding idea.
I turned to Ash.
“Well, are you happy now?! My best friend hardly talks to me because she’s stuck on you all the time and now she’s even presenting things the way you would like them! She used to be a model student and, of course, she still is, but let me tell you something – after a while she’s going to turn into someone…someone…someone! And I don’t want to know who that someone will be!”
“Well, you can tell your best friend to stop following me around everywhere because I don’t like stalkers, and it isn’t my fault that I lost my parents a while ago. Both of them at the same time. Think about it,” the miserable creature responded quietly, definitely making a point. However, I was too outraged to listen.
“Chelsea is not a stalker! She likes you, and you are too ignorant to realize that she can’t do anything about that, either! Oh, and F.Y.I., I have lost both my parents, too. In a different way to you, but I still ended up all alone, without anyone to make me feel better! And now you’re taking the only treasured person I ever had, apart from my parents, away from me! How am I supposed to feel after that?!”
“You know, you’re being kind of selfish. I haven’t got anyone, either. You’re not the only one who feels so desolate. Maybe you should also start looking into people’s characters and not just observing them from a kilometer’s distance.”
“Excuse me?! Chelsea would have sex with you if you told her to! She would kill me if you told her to! She would trade herself into slavery if your highness wished so! What else do you want?! You’re not alone anymore!”
“You don’t understand!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, and why is that? Did I hurt your feelings, poor little Emo outcast? You know, I have as many problems as you do, yet I haven’t become Emo and I don’t cut my wrists or whatever you and your kind do!”
“At least I don’t insult everyone who isn’t like me and I take people for what they are and not for what they aren’t!”
“Whoa! So you admit that you cut your wrists?! Wow, that’s rich! People, did you hear that? He cuts his wrists! Show them to us! Come on, Ash, don’t be a wimp! You’ve just admitted it, there’s no turning back now!”
With those words I grabbed one of his sleeves and tried to move it out of the way, but Ash vigorously pulled back. By that time, he was really upset about the whole story and the people staring at him, some smirking, others laughing openly.
Then he swore. It was amazing since Ash was always so calm and tranquil. Yet he swore, for the first time ever, presumably. He swore and everything and everyone went quiet. The whole room filled with tension, which made me look up from his hands to his face.
And then I saw it, the pain and suffering, all exposed on one teenage face. All those memories, horrifying memories, all on one troublesome face. The expression could be described as nothing but agony, fear... However the eyes… As soon as I looked into Ash’s eyes, I regretted it. They felt like two strong magnets, pulling me closer and closer, making the connection between the two of us greater and more concentrated. The connection – there was something that me and Ash had in common and I couldn’t figure out what it was. It felt like our souls were similar in some particular way. What way, though? I didn’t know that. And before I could figure it out, he was out of the classroom, leaving nothing but the smell of his cologne.
I looked around, feeling dazed, and saw Chelsea. Her nose was wrinkled the way it naturally was when she looked at Lola, but this time it was pointing towards me. I was guilty this time.
“Chelsea-” I began.
“No, Carolina. You’re a bully, a big bully. I think you should better sit next to Lola this lunch,” she turned to leave, but then remembered something and turned back around, “By the way, you aren’t my best friend anymore. I hate you.”
And she walked off, leaving me astounded and shocked at her words. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t realized before how serious Chelsea was about Ash, and now that I had, it was too late. Too late for me to change the words I said to Ash, too late for me to let Chelsea know that I was on her side. Too late for anything. Too late.
I turned around and realized that everybody else in the class was still there, even the teacher. It wasn’t the end of the lesson, by far, and both Chelsea and Ash were going to end up in trouble for storming out of class just like that.
“Maybe you should sit with me this lunch, Mitchie,” I heard a familiar voice pronouncing a different tone.
It was Lola. I would have never in my life thought that one day I would eat lunch and talk freely with Lola Lehman, that she would be nice to me and let me join her for the time being, or maybe a lifetime. She was against Chelsea and Ash being together. She was against Ash himself. However, sooner or later, I was to find she was right.
