"Depends on who's asking. Probably." I responded, slightly stepping on Ava's shoe as a way to tell her to stay down. Reaching out, I offered a cigarette, only to be rejected with the shaking of her head and the waving of her hand. "Your choice."
Dressed in a black jacket and a pair of similarly dark jeans with a large bag over her shoulder, the girl stood in wait. As the look of contemplation passed over her face, I had been sure that she was innocent enough - that, or she had been a great actress. Inhaling the smoke of the cigarette that rested in between my index middle finger, I continued to watch her make a choice. Had she been deciding if it was safe to say anything?
"I take it that you know her, then? Fine. I'm a friend of hers that pretty much grew up with her back in California." she replied.
"That so?" I leaned back, smiling, and still wondering why she hadn't looked to see who had been lying down next to me. "Anyone can say that. All you need to find shit like that is Google. Tell me something only a friend would know."
"What do you want me to say?" She gave something between a laugh and a sigh, rolling her eyes as an expression of annoyance rolled over her face. "Well, if you know her, then you'll probably know that her mom is a tattoo artist. If you're her boyfriend, then you're going to know about that tattoo on her ass. Good enough?"
I snickered under my breath, standing up and further approached her until I stood directly over her. She had looked at me with bright, wide eyes. Had she been as innocent as she looked? If it had been a few months ago, I would have had her in bed. Yet, there I stood - doing nothing excepting scaring the shit out of her. Turning my head around, I nodded towards Ava, implying that she been over there.
"Looks like she's probably sleeping or something. Dunno." I flicked the butt of the cigarette off into the distance. "Why don't you watch her for a second. I need to take a piss."
"Gross."
As I walked away, I kept her in my sight through the corner of my eye. As I hid myself behind the darkness of a tree, and pressed my hand against it for balance. I had watched her in the distance, as she set her bag down and leaned over Ava. As she brushed Ava's hair out of her face, she looked up and around, seemingly searching for what most likely had been me.
Pushing myself away from the tree, I had begun to zip up as I had started to walk back to where Ava had been. However, instead of walking back, I had ran into the very girl that I had told to watch Ava. This time, however, she had clearly been angry for whatever reason. She hadn't cowered like a scared puppy this time. Had she felt the need to protect Ava for some reason?
"What did you do to her? Why does she reek of alcohol? I swear, if you did anything to her, I will call the cops." she pushed me, pulling out her phone. "Tell me why, or I'm calling right now."
"Even if I tell you, would you believe me? You seem to have this image of me in your head already." I took another step closer, leaning into her ear, hissing. "You act like I'm the guys who raped her."
"...I'm going to ask her." she replied, sticking her phone back into her pocket. "If you're lying, I'm going to kill you myself and then call the cops."
"If you say so." I lightly tapped her shoulder with my palm. "For now, how about we just make sure she isn't dead, yeah?"
_________________
Nearly twenty minutes had passed without a word after having checked Ava and deciding to just let her sleep it off. Instead, she had just continuously scrolled through her phone, not paying any mind to the person sleeping in between us or the person on the other side. Who had she been to Ava, why had she shown up all of a sudden without any warning?
In some ways, she had acted just like Ava. In others, she had been the complete opposite of her. Quietly, I had only sat and watched as this mysterious girl looked at her phone, and only her phone. Had she been trying so hard to avoid me, or had she really been that absorbed in what she had been scrolling through?
"Hey."
"What?" she refused to look up from her phone.
"Who are you?"
She laughed, finally turning her screen off. "What is this, AA?"
"I dunno. Is it?" I exhaled through my teeth. "Your name. What is it?"
"I don't know if I'll be around long enough for it to matter to you."
Letting her jacket fall off of her shoulders, she leaned back and gave a crooked smile as she looked back at me. In a tight-fitting red tank-top, she had finally given me the time of day. Just who had this girl been, and why had she been here? How impossible had it been for her to just coincidentally run into Ava while being completely lost?
Everything about this girl had been weird. Her timing, the way she had appeared, and even the way she had treated me. Maybe the better word had been 'off', as she hadn't been the crazy kind of weird, but the loner kind of weird. While being a loner hadn't been bad, they had this certain air around them that sometimes came off as weird - only because nobody had attempted to understand it.
"My name is Ashlynn Rhoads. Just call me Ash." her fingers sifted through her bangs, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I was Ava's neighbor my whole life, up until she moved. We kinda had a small fight before she left, and we haven't talked since. I didn't have a way to contact her."
"Hmm. You know Social Media is a thing, right?" I replied, carrying a near sarcastic edge as I nodded at her phone. "Aiden, or Cyrus is the name. Choose whichever."
"She doesn't use it. After all that stuff happened to her, she deactivated and deleted all of them." she answered, quite a bit more seriously than I had expected. "I don't blame her, either. People were so fucked up to her. It wasn't fair."
"People get awfully judgmental over something everyone does." I lit a cigarette. "Hypocrisy is life, hypocrisy is the answer. People just need to choke in their sleep."
"Deep." she reached over and took my cigarette. "But why are you wishing what you could do to yourself onto others?"
As she took a drag of the cigarette, it had become immediately apparent that it had been her first time by the small cough she let out. However, I had paid little attention to that, and more to what she had said before it. Had that, in fact, been true? Had I been wishing that I would choke in my sleep, had I been a hypocrite? While the latter had been more debatable, I wasn't able to count the former on two hands. I had actually lost count of how many times I wished that I would die in my sleep.
Painless and unavoidable.
Dying in my sleep would have been peaceful, and I would have been alone. I wouldn't have been bothered, and I wouldn't have bothered anyone else. It would have been easier for everyone if I would have been able to just die like that, no messes, pain, or emotion. Everyone could take it as nature taking its course.
"Maybe you're right." I sighed, lightly. "Maybe I just want people to feel what I feel. They feel like they have it so bad when they get fired or their car breaks down, yet they fail to even realize that things can get worse. That they can be me."
"Or Ava. Or thousands of other people." Ashlynn continued after me. "It's self-centered to think that you are the only one that feels that one thing. People have felt it before you, and they'll feel it after you. Christ, you are a naive little child. I really don't understand what she would see in someone like you."
"You have to ask? My chin was chiseled by the gods themselves." I grinned, stealing my cigarette back. "Among other things."
"And I'm a bitch forged by the fires of Hell. Your point?"
It had come to me at that moment. Had this been the friend Ava referred to when she had told of what happened to her? If so, why had they and why had she shown up now of all times - with such a large bag? That hadn't been a vacation-sized bag, and I had known that from experience. It had been a runaway-sized bag. Why had she ran away from what was likely a good home?
Or had she been lying to Ava? Had she been through fighting, or even abuse from her parents? While it hadn't been my place to act on or say anything, it had been wrong to do to Ava, someone she claimed she had grown up with. That is assuming I had been right in my assumption, which could have been entirely wrong.
However, people who had been through some form of abuse had known when others had, as well. People who had suffered abuse in any form had been reminiscent of stray or feral cats. They had always been constantly sketchy, wary of anything that had seemed too good to be true. Like they had to smell the food to check for poison before eating it. That had been a feeling I knew well, and it had been a feeling that I was able to pick out in others.
With Ashlynn, it had either been faint or she had been doing a good job hiding it. Whether it had been the former or the latter, I hadn't been sure at all, and I hadn't planned on saying anything to her about it. It hadn't been my place to feel for her, or saying anything. Comfort isn't something that can be given to the unwilling, or given by those who don't want to give it.
Turning my head, I had caught her looking at me only to see her avert her gaze. "I probably shouldn't ask this to someone I barely know, but why are you here?"
"I wan-"
"Don't feed me some bullshit about coming to apologize to Ava." I interrupted, nodding towards her bag. "You're running away from something."
Looking at her bag, her head dropped with a sigh. "Some stuff happened at home and I can't go back there...I won't go back there. I've had enough. Don't tell Ava."
I blew the smoke from my nostrils, letting it flow back into the air and mix with the oxygen. I had figured that something had happened, yet I hadn't been able to gauge what exactly had happened nor at what scale. Why had I been question anything about her to begin with? Why had she interested me so much?
Had it been so bad that she couldn't have told Ava anything at all? Had she ever told Ava anything about her home life, or had she hid every last bit and pretended that everything was fine? Had it been the reason for their fight?
"Isn't she your friend? I mean, at some points you both are probably closer to sisters than friends, but you get the idea." I murmured. "I get how you feel, to some degree. But if she's someone you love, then you should be honest..."
Had I just repeated Ava's words, in some sense? When had I ever been the type to give out advice and tell others how to go about problems? When had I ever the person to promote confrontation and communication? I had said all that, yet had I actually believed any of it? Had I actually meant any of that? Saying and feeling had been two completely different, yet entirely readable things, but I hadn't been able to tell myself.
"Don't tell me what?"
ns 15.158.61.48da2
