Young Writers Society

“Aren’t ironies, fun?” You say, laughing to yourself and running your fingers through your long blonde hair only to let it flop forward into your eyes again.

I laugh too, half-amused by the statement and half-amused by the your actions. You’ve come a long way from the skinny little kid with a buzz cut that you were ten years ago.

I pull my feet up under me on the couch to turn toward you and get more comfortable. We’ve been sitting here for hours, just talking. I can’t remember the last time we did. You’ve seemed to be so busy with your life lately.

Framed pictures are hung on the wall behind you here in your living room, most of them family pictures that your parents take every year though there are a few others mixed in. One of them catches my eye and I smile. It’s you and me, standing with our arms around each other’s shoulders at your twelfth birthday party. I was still taller than you were then. Someone had asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend after seeing that picture. At the time we’d thought it was a horrible idea. But I laugh about it now. I don’t know about you.

Somewhere in the room the CD player is going, almost too softly for me to hear. I know I recognize the music. The tune is so familiar. I must have heard it a million times before, but it takes a moment the lines of the song to come across clearly.

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened before

I have to smile. I introduced you to that song a long time ago. I remember the day. You’d come home and gotten online and just started ranting: people were cruel, no one cared, they all ignored you…

I never ignored you. I was different from them. I listened and I stuck by you even when it meant taking a verbal beating from the more popular kids because I spent time with Kevin, the dork.

“Ashley?” you say slowly, recalling my attention.

I look back at you quickly, shaking the thoughts from my head. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Get a little lost there did you?”

I smile. “Just a little.”

“Sure,” you say sarcastically. “Josh says you’ve been getting ‘lost’ more and more often lately.”

I look at you curiously. “What are you talking about?”

“He said that you just started staring off into space in Chemistry and that Mr. Skinner had to come over to your desk to get your attention.”

I looked down, slightly embarrassed. “Oh, yeah… Well, you know how I get when I’m writing a story.”

“When you’re writing a story? Ash, you’re always writing something.”

I laugh. “You know me too well.” And I almost mean that. We’ve known each other so long that I swear if we tried, we could get inside each other’s heads.

“So why weren’t you at the party last Friday?” you ask. “Josh and Kate were asking about you.”

I shrugged. “Parties aren’t really my thing. I’d rather stay home and actually do something productive.”

“Productive?” You shake your head lightheartedly at the idea. “How are you ever going get in the right circles with an attitude like that?”

I start to answer, but you stop me again.

“Wait, let me guess,” you say. “You’re going to use your favorite phrase here.” You pause trying to remember the exact words. “You don’t run in circles, it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“You still should have been there, Ash. I mean, come on, I’m the anti-social one and I went.”

I had to laugh. Anti-social? You’re the one that talks to a million different people every day and spends most of your time going back and for the between a million different conversations, all talking about what went down at the last party. You may have been able to call yourself anti-social a few years ago, but you’ve come up in the world since then. Somehow with the discovery that you look good with long hair you rose in the high school hierarchy.

You laugh with me. “All right, so that was a joke. But you still should have been there.”

“Maybe next time, Kev.”

You settle back into the seat, throwing your arm over the back of the couch and propping your head in your hand. “So what were you doing Friday? We called your house like a million times and you never picked up.”

“Oh, you know, the usual: battled griffins, sprites, dragons and computers that freeze up when you open too many windows at one time.”

“Ah… of course…” you say, going along with my joke. “That sounds like one of those, ‘which one of these doesn’t belong’ puzzles.”

I laugh. “And do you know the answer?”

You pretend to think really hard. “The… dragon. It’s the only one that breathes fire.”

I shake my head. “You must not have looked at my computer lately.”

You laugh. “I’m sure that’s not one of its intended capabilities. We’ll have to talk to hp about that. In fact…” you lean back to grab the phone off the table beside the couch.

“Kevin!” I protest, though I’m giggling at the thought.

“I wasn’t really,” you tell me, turning back. You pause for just a moment and then reach out to brush my hair behind my ear. “You really have a beautiful smile.”

I stop suddenly, grabbing hold of you hand. “Don’t,” I tell you severely. “I’ve told you before…”

You lean back again, raising your hands in surrender. “All right. All right. So did I tell you about Geometry class yesterday?”

“No.”

“We had a field day with Mrs. Hobb. She kept turning to look at the board and so, of course, me’n Jack had to do something. You know us.” You go on, talking, trying to get my mind off what you did, just like you always do.

Or maybe you’re trying to distract me from what you’re doing right now. But I still notice, Kevin. You’re slowly moving closer to me and your arm is subtly making its way around my shoulders. I wait a moment, wondering if it’s just my imagination and then stand up, putting several feet between you and I. “No, Kevin,” I tell you.

You look down, your smile completely gone. “We were laughing a minute ago, Ash,” you say warningly.

“And whose fault is it that we’re not any more?” I say, echoing your tone.

“Come on, Ash,” you say, standing up to tower over me.

“Kevin. No.” I say. Why can’t you just listen to me?

“You know, the girls at school would love to get this kind of attention,” You tell me.

“I’m not like them,” I say adamantly.

“No, you’re not,” you agree angrily and storm out, slamming the door behind you so hard that the pictures on the wall shake.

I sigh, sitting back down and resting my head in my hands.

You like ironies, Kevin? I think. How about this one? Because I was different from the kids at school, I was your friend when we were little. And now that difference is what is bothering you so much.

Author's note: I'm not sure if this exactly works the way I wanted it to, but I thought that I would post it here to see what sort of reactions I get and see if maybe someone could point out what isn't clicking with this one.