Fvck The Haters

Ashley and I stood glaring at each other, breathing heavily.

“Dang, it’s midnight.” One of the guys at the table started throwing random fries onto a tray.

“We’ll finish this tomorrow on the field.” One of the guys said to Jake.

“No!” Ashley put a hand up and the guys stopped moving.

Jake looked at me then at Ashley, clenching his fists.

Ashley smiled past my shoulder. I turned around to see who he was looking at, and saw Lauren standing with her hand covering her mouth. She’d seen everything.

Suddenly I felt like the biggest loser in the world. I sighed, dropping my fists and folding my arms.

Ashley smiled at me and glared at Jake. “We’re done here.” He crossed his arms again.

Jake walked away. “Come on.” He said to Hannah. “Let’s eat.”

I could feel my heart pounding with adrenaline. I didn’t want this fighting thing to happen every time I saw Ashley and if he plans to be everywhere, I wanted this to end tonight. “I’m not done.” I shouted.

“Ashley’s letting you walk away, don’t jinx it.” A tall, thin guy with short shaggy hair said.

“Who the hell are you?” I barked loudly, trying to keep an edge of threat in my voice.

“Diego.” He shrugged and turned away.
“I’m not taking it anymore.” I said defiantly.

“Listen bruh, Diego just told you not to jinx this.” A guy with a short black choppy haircut snarled at me. “This is when you should walk away.”

“I’m not taking any crap from you either jerkface.” I crossed my arms and puffed my chest out the way Ashley had.

“My name’s not jerkface, it's Destery. Your name is Jinxx now.” He rolled his eyes.

Ashley stopped shuffling food around for a moment and looked at me, his dark brown eyes glaring, face tensing and posture stiffening. He made eye contact with everybody at his table then held my glare again. “Nobody here’s gonna bug you anymore.” He announced, his bottom lip was swollen with a lightning bolt pattern of blood streaking down his chin.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and kept staring Ashley down. “You better leave us alone.” I widened my stance, feeling a little invincible.

“Jeremy.” Lauren said quietly and wrapped her hand around the muscle of my arm.

“His name’s Jinxx now.” Destery threw an entire tray of food into the garbage, tray included.

“You guys gonna clean up or what?” Ashley stated. Almost all of the guys started joining his efforts to clear their table.

“Walk away.” Lauren whispered to me.

I looked into her eyes, thinking of looking into her eyes in the dim lighting of prom and smiled widely. Then I remembered how stupid I looked when I thought of how beautiful she was and tried to replace my smile with a mysterious grin.

She smiled and gently pulled my arm. “I’m starving.” She hinted.

I glared back at Ashley and saw him smirking at Lauren.

Lauren grabbed my wrist, intertwined her fingers with mine and pulled me toward the lineup. I was almost able to ignore Ashley and his gang as they left.

“Hey Jakey.” Ashley said, standing in the doorway.

Jake ignored him. I was waiting at the counter for our food with Lauren and Hannah.

“See you Friday.” Ashley added and walked out the door.

Notes