Chapter Five

Ashe and Nia go to a town festival, but it ends with trouble.

 

With the Pumpkin Bash around the corner, the school hallways were decorated in frilly orange things and little plastic pumpkins with smiley faces on them. Unfortunately so was Sue.

 

“Yo! Yo! Yo! Happy hallow-weenie,” she said waving back and forth.

 

Ashe looked over his shoulder and arched a brow, “It’s not Halloween yet. You don’t have to wear that scary outfit during school hours.”

 

“This isn’t a scary outfit,” she cried.

 

“Then what’s with the orange claws?” asked Ashe pointing down at Sue’s long orange fingernails.

 

“They’re not real,” she said.

 

Ashe grabbed Sue’s hand and quickly picked off the fake nails one by one.

 

“Hey,” she cried pulling her hands away. “Those were expensive.”

 

“You got ripped off,” he said.

 

“Yes I did,” Sue mulled over her loss before noticing Ashe’s change in direction. “You’re heading to the library again?”

 

“Maybe,” he said turning away.

 

“You’ve been going there a lot lately. What did you do, stash porn mags or something?”

 

“What?” Ashe almost tripped over nothing and gave Sue an obviously disturbed look. “No. Who the hell would do that?”

 

“My brothers,” she said with a blank look.

 

“Ah,” was all he could say after an awkward pause. “I’m going to go now. Did you want something?”

 

“Huh? No, just wanted to wish you a happy Halloween.”

 

Ashe shrugged uncomfortably, “Thanks?”

 

“Well hey,” Sue said smiling, “What are friends for?”

 

“I don’t know,” muttered Ashe. He turned away and started toward the library. Everyone else in the hallway was also chatting on about who they’re taking and what they’re going to do afterwards. Even Drake started pestering Ashe about taking some girl named Samantha to the thing. Ashe just tried to shrug off the whole thing. It’s not like he was going or anything.

 

Ashe was already sick of orange frills by the time he got to the library. ‘Just another half a day of plastic pumpkins,’ he thought. He went in the library and passed the receptionist who was reading a magazine and listening to a music player she probably confiscated. After going through all the columns of tall bookshelves, he made it to the corner where Nia was reading that black book she always had.

 

“Oh hey,” she said, shoving the book into her bag.

 

Ashe always wondered why she had that and why she wouldn’t let him see it, or talk about it. He just figured it was none of his business and decided not to bother her about it.

 

He held up his messenger bag and shook it. Nia’s face lit up, “What did you bring me this time?”

 

“Well,” he said unzipping the bag and pulling out various CD’s. “I got some My Last Fantasy, MoonMen, some WTF!?, and a few mainstream CD’s like Slipknot, Korn, and Incubus.”

 

Nia snatched the CD’s, keeping the one’s that seemed interesting and throwing the ones she wouldn’t like. “Is that it?”

 

“For today,” Ashe said. “I would have gotten more but…”

 

“But what?” Nia pulled out a portable CD player from her bag.

 

“But you still haven’t returned that Phobia album I lent you,” Ashe said, pulling away his bag of CD’s.

 

“Hey,” Nia reached over trying to grab Ashe’s bag away. “That one was a gift. You gave it to me.”

 

“I lent it to you, as in borrow, as in return, as in bring it back or I’ll be super-pissed.”

 

“Don’t be like that,” she said. “I brought the Kurt CD’s back.” Nia reach in her bag and pulled out more CD’s, all of which she was borrowing.

 

“Never mind,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.” Ashe pushed his back up against the wall and slowly slid down.

 

“Bad day?” Nia asked. She grabbed most of the CD’s and put them in her bag. She grabbed the one labeled “WTF!?” and played it in her little CD player with the headphones hanging around her neck. She dragged her bag along, moving to sit next to Ashe, who had his hands on his face.

 

“How long have we been doing this?”

 

“A few weeks,” said Nia.

 

“The teachers are starting to notice,” said Ashe, “how I keep skipping every other third period to hang out here with you.”

 

“So go to class,” she said.

 

“Why? So I can put up with those a******s that come just to mess up my already crappy day? I’ll pass.” Ashe took a deep breath and shook his head. “Did you get what you wanted?”

 

“Huh? Oh yeah, I just took a few of the one’s I like.” She turned the volume up on the player until they could both hear it.

 

“Hey Nia, do you want to go do something later?”

 

“Something like what? Go to the Blackberry?”

 

“Well, that Pumpkin Bash thing is coming up. I heard there was going to be some sorta festival today. You wanna go?”

 

Nia froze for a few seconds and slowly brought her knees to her chest. “I’m not very good in…crowds and stuff.”

 

Ashe hung his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Then we’ll go late, when everyone’s leaving. If you start to feel uncomfortable we’ll just take off.”

 

Nia buried her head in her arms. “I guess if you want too, but I’m going to wait till its dark first.”

 

Ashe turned to her, “You gonna be okay?”

 

“Maybe,” she said. Nia wrapped her arms around her legs and fumbled with her fingers.

 

“If you don’t want to go we don’t have to go-”

 

“No, I’ll-I mean, it’ll be okay. We’ll just wait until after dark.”

 

Both of them sat there with the music playing through the headphones. Ashe stared down at the floor.

 

“You still gotta bring back that CD though.”

 

Nia laughed and nudged his shoulder. “Shut up.”

 

***

 

After sunset, Ashe found where the festival was held. Down the street from The Scene, it was decorated with frilly orange banners. Booths stood on both sides of the street offering various games and foods. Bits of trash littered the floors while most groups already headed home.

 

Ashe went over to one of the booths and bought a hot dog. Eating, he wandered around the street, checking out what was left of the festival.

 

“Hey.”

 

Ashe spun around and saw Nia coming from one of the alleyways. Ashe finished his last bite. “Hey, you want to grab some snacks?”

 

Nia looked both ways before coming out into the open, “Yeah, okay. What do they have?”

 

Ashe and Nia walked side by side to the booths. “I think they have some candy, popcorn and some of those giant pretzels.”

 

Nia stuck out her tongue in disgust at the mention of giant pretzels. “I think I’d rather have candy.”

 

Ashe let out a small laugh. ‘She’s like a child sometimes,’ he thought. The trash crunched under their feet when they made it to the booth. Ashe bought a bag of popcorn and Nia grabbed a bag of Skittles. Struggling to get the bag open, she kept pulling until it burst open, spilling little candies everywhere.

 

Ashe stepped back and tried to shield himself from candy. “Hey, what happen?” He saw that Nia hung her head staring at all the little candies on the floor. “You okay?” He tugged on her arm, but she didn’t respond. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll just buy some more.”

 

“Thirty…four?”

 

Ashe cocked his head to one side. “Huh?”

 

Nia looked back up at Ashe, “Thirty-four candies.”

 

“You were counting them?”

 

Nia shrugged, “…yes?”

 

“Why?”

 

Nia shook her head, “I’m not sure.”

 

Ashe grabbed a candy bar from the booth and gave it to Nia. “Chocolate, one.”

 

Nia smiled, “Thank you Count Smart-a*s.”

 

Ashe smiled back, “It’s what I do. Come on. Let’s go check out the other stuff.”

 

Side by side, they saw as the other booths being cleaned up or dismantled. Everyone else was either leaving or getting ready to leave.

 

“Huh, I guess it wasn’t much,” said Ashe. He grabbed a handful of popcorn before being shoved in the ground.

 

“Ashe,” Nia cried.

 

“Well would you look at that?”

 

Ashe got up to see the two usual upperclassmen who always try to mess with him, or twidle-dee-dee-dee and twildle-dumbass as Ashe called them. He didn’t care to learn their names.

 

“What are you doing out of your cage loser?” said one. The two sauntered over to Ashe, trying to look intimidating.

 

“Leave him alone,” said Nia.

 

The two turned their attention to Nia when one tapped the other’s arm. “Isn’t that the weird girl who hangs out at the library all day?”

 

The other nodded, “Ah yeah. She’s kinda cute. So babe, ya wanna hang with us?”

 

“Get away from her,” Ashe yelled.

 

Only one of them turned to face him. “Or what?” he snarled.

 

Before anyone could react, Ashe slammed his fist into twidle-dee’s eye. Instead of knocking him back, he wrapped his arms around Ashe in a headlock. Ashe struggled and swore until something crashed onto both of them. Ashe rolled upright and saw one of the two stooges bleeding and cussing. Before Ashe could wonder why he was bleeding, a security guard waving a baton sped towards them.

 

Nia grabbed Ashe’s hand and pulled him in the opposite direction. “Let’s go.”

 

They both kept running through different streets and alleys before they had to stop to catch their breath. Ashe had to lean up against a wall and talk in between breaths. “Hey…you…okay?”

 

Nia wasn’t breathing as hard as Ashe, so she didn’t have much difficulty speaking. “I’m fine. I could’ve handled it. Don’t worry.”

 

“I wasn’t worried…I just…f**k…” Ashe slid down to sit on the sidewalk. “Well this sucks. I try to go out and something like this messes it up. Just my luck. Just my damn luck.”

 

“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. We’ll just go to the BlackBerry next time.” Nia reached out her hand and help pull Ashe up.

 

“Thanks,” he said without letting go of her hand. It was probably bad timing, but he went for it anyway. “Would you want to maybe…try again?”

 

Nia’s eyes widened in surprise, “What?”

 

“I mean, do you want to go out another time?”

 

“Do you mean like on a-”

 

“If you want it to be,” he said.

 

Their eyes met and neither one moved for a while.

 

“I’m gonna need my hand back.

 

“Oh. Right.”

 

They both let go just to turn away from each other. He still couldn’t believe it. He asked, but would she?

 

“So we’ll meet at the BlackBerry?” she asked.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Text me.”

 

“I will.” Nia twirled around fumbling through he pockets. “Shoot.”

 

“What?”

 

Nia sighed. “I lost my candy bar.”

 

 

 

Author's Note

I'm so ashamed. This took too long. I wanted this chapter to show that Ashe and Nia have become good friends but...anyways. As usual I'll edit and revise later after all the chapters are done. Comment, critque or flame. Either one's fine.

Reviews

[Emily B]

I think it's good. You show a development. He still wonders about her, but decides not to ask, which tells so much about their relationship in itself. I'm really enjoying your story line.