It's Not Fair (Part Three)

Part Three edited-“What are you doing after detention?”

Detention was quiet and packed with students. She didn’t even see Rex as she walked in and sat in the only available desk left. It was in the back corner, the seat she preferred.

“It was reserved for you, detention queen,” Mr. Scott had said. Ashlynn had spent many of her afternoons with Mr. Scott in his algebra classroom. Ashlynn smiled at him and opened her notebook to a blank page.

She didn’t look up from her notebook until a piece of paper landed in the middle of her desk. She glanced at the students around her, but no one was looking back.

She unfolded the piece of paper. In the middle of the page, there was a note addressed to her.

What are you doing after detention? I was wondering if you wanted to hang out or something.

Towards the bottom of the page, in pathetic calligraphy, Rex had signed his name. She smiled to herself as she crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and dropped it beside her desk. She didn’t search the classroom for him.

Why, all of a sudden, was his attention turned to Ashlynn? Just last week he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Robin. It didn’t make sense to Ashlynn, but she continued to doodle in her notebook and let any thoughts of Rex slip from her mind.

When the bell finally rang, she quickly closed her notebook and bolted for the door, reminding herself not to look behind her.

She half-ran to her locker, quickly spun the dial on the lock and whipped the door open. She thought she was home free until someone touched her elbow.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to not reply to a note?”

It was Rex.

Ashlynn let out a sigh and turned to face him. “What do you want?” she demanded.

He took a step back from her with his hands raised as if he was surrendering. “I just want to be your friend.”

“Why?” she asked in the same voice.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“Hmm, let me think. Maybe because we’ve never said two words to each other. Maybe because your stupid girlfriend makes fun of me and every one of my friends on a daily freaking basis. Maybe because people like you and people like me, just aren’t friends. Politics of high school, you understand.”

He blinked at her. “I was just trying to talk to you.”

Ashlynn hated how cute he was and hated herself more for noticing. For always noticing, even then. “Sure you were. Because you’ve said so much to me in the past. Oh, no, wait. You just laughed.”

“Not at you. I wouldn’t—”

“Make fun of me? Please.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Look, Ash, I’m sorry.”

For some reason, that made Ashlynn furious. She didn’t want his pity. She was so sick of high school, her parents, of everything. She lifted one hand, to either shove him or slap him, and he caught it. Caught her.

Ashlynn froze. It wasn’t that her anger suddenly disappeared, because she was still angry. She just felt so much other stuff too, stuff she didn’t even have a name for, and it hit her so hard she couldn’t move.

Rex didn’t either, and as they stared at each other Ashlynn felt a weird prickling heat, like a blush but stronger. She could sense something was going to happen.

And then it did, and he kissed her.

It was Ashlynn’s very first kiss. With Rex. It was like something out of a dream.

Except she was in a hallway in her high school. And she was with Rex, who had been making out with Robin just hours before.

“You jackass,” she said, pulling away and trying to ignore how she was shaking all over.

He was staring at her like he’d never seen her before.

“Jackass? You just shoved your tongue down my throat and now you’re calling me names?”

“I didn’t do that!”

“Did.”

“Did not.”

“Did,” he said, and leaned in toward her.

“Did not,” she said again, and then she kissed him. She couldn’t help it. The look on his face was so intense and the whole thing was so intense that she had to. She couldn’t help herself.

And she didn’t want to. At least not until someone came down the hall and she heard someone else say, “Oh.”

Then she bolted, slamming her locker door closed and taking off as if she was being chased.

Which she wasn’t. Rex didn’t come after her. Not that she wanted him to, or anything.

Besides, when she got home, she forgot all about the kiss, at least for a while, because her father was there with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where have you been?” her father asked when she walked through her door.

She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and fall to the ground. “I got a stupid detention because my stupid teacher is insane.”

He rolled his eyes. “Can’t you be a little more creative? It’s always some teacher saying or doing something insane. Don’t you have at least one teacher that isn’t crazy?”

Ashlynn smiled. “Yeah, the guy that sits behind some desk during detention.”

Her father rolled his eyes again. “I’m very disappointed, Ash. You use to be such a good student. What happened?”

She started for the stairs. “High school.”

As she ascended, she heard her father say, “Ah,” and sigh as he went back into his office.

Ashlynn loved how calm he was about all of her detentions. He was in high school once, he understood.

“Oh,” her father suddenly said. “Not as a punishment or anything, but I’m inviting the worker bee for dinner tonight. He’s been doing a pretty well job out—”

“Dad!” Ashlynn yelped. “You are infuriating. I can’t believe you’d do that. I go to school with him!”

Her father smiled. “Not as a punishment, I swear.”

**

Ashlynn was sore from lying in the same position for over an hour. She was reading some book Stella told her was ‘totally awesome’ and all of Ashlynn’s muscles were tight and throbbing. She decided it was a good idea to join her father for the dreaded dinner with Rex.

The entire time she read, she didn’t think about Rex. She didn’t wonder if he was working in her yard. She didn’t wonder what he was thinking about, and if he was thinking about her.

Not much, anyway.

She had no idea what was going to happen, other than she hoped things would be okay but was pretty sure they wouldn’t be. In Ashlynn’s heart, it was all happy endings, but even then she was fuzzy on how to get there. And then there was the fact that she had kissed Rex, who was dating Robin—and clearly knew what he was doing—that he was basically a professional kisser. Plus, she had run away after the kiss, and was positive that wasn’t something a normal, well-adjusted sixteen-year-old-girl would do.

Ashlynn saw Rex in the yard. That was normal, although the way her heart started pounding as soon as she saw him wasn’t. He worked on some bush by the end of the driveway. As if he knew Ashlynn was watching, he looked at the house. His eyes met hers and he smiled.

He waved at her. That wasn’t normal either. Rex didn't notice Ashlynn when he was working. In fact, he never noticed her. At least not like that.

She felt shaky and her palms were wet with sweat. He looked away from Ashlynn and started for the house. She glanced down at her digital clock and saw that it was almost dinner time.

She ran for her bedroom door and descended down the stairs two at a time right as Rex closed the front door.

“Dinner will be in a few,” Her father said as he walked towards the kitchen.

Ashlynn rocked back on her heels. She had to say something to him. Anything. Even she knew that.

She couldn’t because if she did say something, said “Hey,” then what? Rex and Robin would break up and her mother and father would get back together and Rex would want to date her and people at school would treat her like something other than dirt and she would pass all her classes?

None of those things were going to happen, not ever, and she didn’t want that kiss to become something like that. She didn’t want it to be one good memory that led to a lot of bad ones. She wanted it to stay what it was, one amazing moment, something that was strong and sweet enough to stand on its own. Something she could remember without any pain.

It was a good thing she didn’t say anything because he did.

“So…about this afternoon,” he said, and as soon as he did, she knew what was coming. The “Look, earlier I was drunk/in a really bad place/etc., and I just don’t see you that way” speech. Ashlynn had seen it in the movies plenty of times and that was always how it started.

She didn’t want to hear it.

“I don’t care about it, just quit moving around like that, okay?” She said, and looked back towards the kitchen where her father was making dinner. Rex was shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he was nervous.

“You don’t care?” He almost sounded hurt.

“Yes. I don’t care, so please spare me the speech.”

“Speech?”

“What are you, an echo?”

He stared at Ashlynn for a moment, and then grinned just like he had that afternoon. “What kind of speech am I supposed to make?”

Flustered, Ashlynn walked away from Rex and into the kitchen where she wouldn’t be subjected to talking about it.

As her father moved around the kitchen, Rex took a seat at the table and faced Ashlynn. She stood against the counter and watched her father. She glanced at Rex from time to time. When her father was scooping the pasta into plates, she sat in the chair across from him and glared. He winked at her and she slumped back into her chair. Stupid Rex.

Stupid Ashlynn.