Prologue
"Do you love me?" He pulled her close.
"Silly boy, you know that I do." Her face belied the nervous flutter of her heart.
"Would you do something for me?" He continued to draw her towards him.
"You know I would do anything for you."
"You know what I want."
She stopped. "I don't know if i could do that."
"But i'm leaving in two days! I won't be back for a while. Don't you want to make this special for me? Something i'll never forget?"
"Of course I do, I just--"
"Come on! Just this once. Please?"
She started to protest, but he kissed her, stopping all refusals in her throat.
He pulled her all the way to him. He kissed her again.
She didn't walk away.
Part One.
"Ashton Harvey! Wait up there, Princess!"
The April sun came out from the clouds, chasing some fo the left-over chill away. Ash peered over the rims of her sunglasses at the three male classmates scrambling into her car.
"What do you think you're doing?" Scowling at the ringleader, she tried to stop the grin breaking across her berry lips.
"We're just trying to catch a ride on the A-train! What else?"
Giggles escaped as loud whoops came from the back seat.
"All right, all right. Where to, boys?"
OK. Pause. This is where i interrupt to narrate my story. That was the first day that Tyler, the ringleader, had ever paid any real attention to me. Sure, we had the casual greeting in the hallway, but it was nothing more spectacular than that. Absolutely nothing worth cataloguing in the "Top-Ten-High School- Sweethearts" section of the yearbook.
Of course, I was flattered. He was Tyler Kingsley, star football player, teacher's pet, and voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' by his Senior class. I, on the other hand, was the dubbed brainiac who had never been on a date throughout her entire hig school experience.It's not that I was ugly. I wasn't. I just had tendencies to make things... awkward.
It was the first day of Spring break, and i was headed home from my first gallavant day on the town with my school posse. He had seen me leaving the Cafe downtown, and had caught me at the red light in the Town Square.
Flattered, i was willing to do anything for the attention. 'Anything' that night didn't turn out to be too extravagant. We dtopped his friends off and went to the local bike park. Chatting for a bit, we eventually ran into some of his friends where he made a quick goodbye. There was nothing for me to do but go home.
"Hello?" Rubbing sleep from her eyes, the phone finally made it to her ear.
"Hey, Ash. Tyler here. What're you doing?
Searching in vain for a light switch, she mumbled, "Uhm, I was sleeping. But now i'm talking to you."
"I feel special, you waking up to talk to me. Say, uh, sorry to have left you like that in the park. I twas just..you know.."
"Really, it's ok. I understand." Tingling bursts of crimson carressed her cheeks. "Maybe another time."
"Another time. Yeah, sounds good. Night Ashton." Click.
"OK class, what we have in your glasses is the..."
"So he really called you?" Ashton's best friend Lana speculated.
"Yes. Do you want to check my call log?"
"No. It's just weird." Tossing lenghty tawny curls over her shoulder, she turned her attention to her notes.
"I know." Pressing against the lab table, she mulled over the glass contents compared to her in-class notes. Something wasn't adding up..
Wait, what was on her cheek? Slowly moving the back of her hand against the flesh of her cheek, she pulled her hand away from the wet that had been indadvertently placed there.
"Oh my gosh! What was that?" Frantically tipping her head to the side she managed to wipe all the contents from her face. "What the heck--" Flit!
Droplets of water flicked into her ear, gaining a severe head shake to escape the feeling.
"Ha! Sorry Ash, but you should have seen the look that just took over your face. It was awesome!" The handsome Tyler doubled over in hysterical laughter. "Really, it was amazing!"
Something was softly starting to pull at the gentle strings of her delicate heart. Trying to dispel any blush from her face, she smoothed the remaining water plops from her face. Maybe he was starting to like her.
Hi. Me again. Ok, so, seriously, ar this point I had already decided that i was going to have a crush on Tyler, whether he ever acknowledged me or not. And i had convinced myself that he liked me at least a little bit. I mean, why else would he have acted like this? Not many girls were the object of his playful, flirty behavior. I didn't know or even really care. I wanted whatever he had to give me in whatever form it happened to come in.
I thought it might be good to mention that even though Ty was a Senior and I was a Junior, we had almost all of the same classes. We attended a progressive program school which thought it was better to mix the learning groups in a rotation of classes to further diversity among minds. So as you can imagine, i was left quite often to do nothing but stare at the back of the head that had captured the immediate attention of my loves interest. Pathetic? Why, yes, but the true story.
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