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Andy

Confronted.

Tear a membrane... It allows the voices in. They want to push you off the path, with their frequency wires. You can do no wrong in my eyes.
- Hearing Damage by Thom Yorke



“Ash, concentrate!” Coach Joan called to me when I’d failed to serve the volley ball for a third time. I nod feverishly, squeezing my eyes shut to control the migraine building in my forehead.

Concentrate. I curse myself, opening my eyes, and pushing myself forward to get involved.

Elizabeth is on the opposite team, and she’s watching me carefully. I’m going out of my way to avoid meeting her eyes. Reece is in the other half of the gym, playing basket ball with his team.

“Miss Hunter, I know you’ve got it in you! We’ve all seen your mean spike, now get in the game!” She shouted at me encouragingly over the roar of excited shrieks from the other girls as the faded white balls came flying towards them.

I glance up, past the girls on the opposing team to the group of boys playing basket ball on the other end of the court. I study them until I spot the afro of curly, golden blonde hair bouncing around on the court. It’s that asshole, Reece. He’s smug as he makes shot after shot, parading around the court like a flamingo. I look away when I’m sick of staring at his gross face.

I hadn’t noticed the burns before, and now they were all I could think of. They didn’t hurt or anything, but now that was all I could feel present on my arm was those five finger shaped markings.

My vision blurred, making a streak of blue and white from the rows of uniformed girls in front of me. I sway, and lean off the course, getting a concerned glance from Elizabeth.

I stumble off the court, and shake my head, “Get it together, dammit.” I mutter to myself, stretching my arms, trying to find a way work the distraction from my mind. Coach Joan makes her way around the court slowly, clipboard in hand, grey eyes locked firmly on me, judging whether or not I was okay.

I duck out of the way when a volleyball comes soaring over the net, towards me.

“Ash! You had it!” one of the girls on my team cries at me in frustration. “You’ve avoided every shot!”

“Sorry.” I mumble, getting out of their way entirely, abandonning the game in favor of leaning against the wall of folded up bleachers, hoping the cool chill of the metal against my back would be enough to knock the daze out of me and get me alert.

Coach approaches me with a wary look, and I know what’s coming, except I don’t expect what she says at all.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, of course.” I nod, trying to sound as confident as I can. She lifts an eyebrow and waits a moment before proceeding.

“You look kind of out of it... Have you suffered any head trauma lately?”

She pulls a small Mag light from her letterman coat and shines the bright white beam in my eyes, lifting my chin to get a better view. When she doesn’t find the signs of shock or distress she’s looking for, she clicks off the light and returns it to her pocket with a sigh.

“Anything you need to talk about?”

I shake my head, and she looks a little frustrated.

“I don’t get how a straight A student can go to random C’s and B’s with a weeklong exclusion from school in just three weeks. You have to understand how strange that is.”

“I know,” I sigh softly, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” she tells me, patting my shoulders, trying to maintain eyecontact with my fleeting glances. “you need to explain to me what’s gone amiss. Anything at all?”

I shake my head again, “No, I’m okay. Just some home stuff, I guess.” I shrug, “We’re relocating to California, my Grandmother’s not doing well, the flood’s got me down... I dunno, I guess it’s just stress.”

She carefully stores away the information I’ve given her, so that she can later tattletale to the guidance counselor about her being concerned about me.

“Tell you what, you can sit out today, concentrate on getting better. Tomorrow, I want to see more of an effort, okay?”

I nod quickly, “Okay.”

“Alright... I’ll catch up with you later.” She nods as she proceeds to make her rounds again, keeping a close eye on everyone, especially me. As I turn to walk away, she calls to me, just out of earshot of the other girls still practicing volleyball.

“What happened to your arm?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, shrugging, “I just noticed it, too.”

Something changes in her expression, and I realize too late that she’s put the wrong pieces together. She walks towards the far end of the gym, pulling aside the boys’ basketball couch, whispering and nodding towards me a bit before he too, was looking at me. I sat on the opposing bleachers, watching Coach Joan leave the gym, to go contact my parents, no doubt.

I lay my head in my hands, sighing loudly. When can I catch a break?

Coach Michael juggled both teams for the remainder of the class, then let everyone have the last fifteen minutes to hang out, go take showers, and get their stuff together for when the buses came by to pick up the kids.

I looked up every few minutes to see how many kids were left, and I spot Reece and Elizabeth across the court from where I am sitting. He’s raised his voice, and is waving his arms around in angry gestures, and she shouts back, but looks worried. A wave of protective anger burns in my chest, but I restrain the urge to jump up and run over there.

I remained seated on the lowest bleacher seat for a while longer, biding my time, trying to see if Coach Joan had called my parents in, and if so, how much trouble was I in for accidentaly accusing my parents of abuse. I didn’t even say anything outright, and it seems as though it was automatically taken that way. I looked down at the chipping turqouise nail polish on my fingers, and only looked up when I noticed two figures getting pretty close to me. It’s Reece and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looks down at me for a long moment before speaking.

“Hey.” she greets me calmly. I look up at her, “Hey?” I repeated with sarcasm in my tone, smiling slightly. “What’s up with you?”

It’s her turn to feel under pressure. She loses her confident demeanor and flounders in the pool of awkwardness that I’ve always known her in. “What do you mean?” she finally speaks, avoiding the fact that she’s been a rightful shite to me all morning.

I laugh humorlessly, “You got me excluded from school for a week, then your Dad comes up to me in church and demands to know why I broke your nose, you come up to me this morning to blame me for it, but we both know you’re lying to cover up something else.” I snap at her, my eyes flickering to Reece, whose face has paled a little bit.

“I know I didn’t break your nose, because I aimed for your jaw, and believe you me, I didn’t miss.”

“It was my nose-” She began, her face getting red and she grew equally angry.

“No, it wasn’t.” I interupt her firmly, “Because right there, under your makeup, I can still see the purple bruise from where I got you. So unless I’m all wrong, and some other unorthadox thing happened to your jaw, I broke your nose, is that right?”

She looks angry, and kind of scared, strangely. “Are you seriously denying what you did?”

“Are you seriously denying what I actually did?” I reply, standing up, eye to eye with her. “I didn’t touch your damn nose. Do me a favor and pull it out of my business, because what goes on in my life is no longer any of your business. Stop shooting me concerned looks from across the room pretending you still care. We were never really friends, just distractions for one another until something better came along. You know all about that, don’t you?” I glance at Reece and narrow my eyes at him.

“I’m going home.”

I turn and begin making my way towards the changing room when she shouts behind me. “I don’t know, Ash. You seem pretty mentally unstable, talking to yourself like a fucking retard.”

I freeze momentarily, realizing she meant the moment at lunch when she’d caught me speaking to Andy. I glare straight ahead, and speed up my pace, briskly walking to the changing room, and grab my backpack and jacket from my locker, not bothering to put my normal clothes back on.

The tile floor of the changing room feels sticky on my bare feet as I quickly exchange the tennis shoes I use on the court for my converse. I lace them up as quickly as I can, fumbling with the strings a few times before they’re on. I don’t linger in the changing room long, in fear that Elizabeth would follow me in, demanding answers I wasn’t prepared to give.

The halls are busy with end-of-the-schoolday traffic, so I blend in easily in my white tank top and ugly reflective, blue shorts with gold trim. No one looks at me now, and after I pull up my hood, no one notices I am there.

I’m almost to the exit doors when the loudspeaker sparks to life above the door.

“Can Asheen Hunter please make her way to the registration office? Asheen Hunter to the registration office.”
Chapter 91

Notes

This story is almost to 100 chapters!

Shoutout!

-Cannible Cat

Comments

I just want to say, I am here to support you no matter what you do <3

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/12/20

Oh gosh, I'm getting weird vibes towards this "sketchy" part of town.

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
5/8/19

I am absolutely in love with this book!

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/30/19

Poor Ashley. Poor Andy. Poor Asheen. Wow, what a story! :)

Merelan Merelan
4/29/19

I am conspiring so many theories about this book my head hurts... lol... anyway, great chapter as usual! Can't wait to read what happens next

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/25/19