What was wrong with me?
“Yeah?” I murmured.
“Isn’t Charlotte’s sweater just…to die for?” She smirked, and sarcasm dripped from her words like maple syrup.
“Yeah, it is,” I said flatly, and gave Charlotte a real smile. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but to hell with that.
“I want to use some sort of deeper toned yellow coloring for my fashion line. It’s very in this season.”
Charlotte returned my reassuring grin with a slow, cautious smile of her own.
A gasp was heard from the girls; Betti and Layla at least, and Mackenzie’s eyes narrowed.
“What are doing?” She spat in a whisper as Charlotte examined her ‘fashionable’ sweater.
“It’s cute,” I replied softly, and bit my lip to hold back a chuckle.
Mackenzie glared at me for a few more seconds, then shook her head and turned back to Charlotte.
“So, is your dad still out of a job?” She inquired.
Charlotte looked up, and a frown shadowed her face.
“Yeah…”
Mackenzie giggled and so did Layla. Betti smirked. I raised my eyebrows and watched. I felt like punching Mackenzie in the face. I felt like walking out with Charlotte and leaving these petty girls to their sad lives. But it wasn’t a Disney movie. I was still Ashely Solovan, daughter of the man who created Panther car brand, with no mother and a huge mansion for a house and these were the friends who I had felt accepted with, who had talked to me and sat with me and laughed with me and partied with me, but…I felt like we had lost our connection, like I was in another world and I could never go back, and I felt like it had someone to do with my strange memories and dreams and mysterious absences and I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, because I was just so lost. It was like I was floating in space and right out of my grasp were Mackenzie and the girls and my father and my memories and Mystery guy and the man with the blue eyes that I had just remembered, whoever he was.
“Can you even afford proper shoes?” Betti asked, laughing at Charlotte’s old sneakers. Layla joined in. Mackenzie stared at me.
“Nope,” Charlotte chirped. But I could tell she was breaking down inside. I had to do something, I thought. Even if punching Mackenzie in the face wasn’t exactly an option.
“Aww, so sad, Charlotte can’t afford a pair of shoes,” Layla snickered. Mackenzie smiled. I sat.
Charlotte’s smile wavered and she stared at me, waiting, as if I was going to help her or something.
“Well, you can’t afford a proper nose job,” I said icily.
Layla turned and stared at me in complete and utter horror and shock.
“I’m just saying, before you bother someone about their shoes maybe you should take a look in the mirror.” I shrugged.
Mackenzie’s made up face seemed to cave within itself, as a grotesque scowl crowded her features.
Before anything could be said, the bell rang and it was time for class. I didn’t look at Mackenzie or the girls as I made my way hurriedly to the exit.
“Hey!” Charlotte’s voice called from behind. I stood as the sea of people swarmed around me, thrusting themselves out the door.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” She looked deep into my eyes and I could tell she meant it.
“Um, no problem,” I replied, wracking my brain for where my next class was.
“You’re different, Ashely,” Charlotte said softly, still searching my eyes.
“You shouldn’t hang with them,” She added. “They’re stupid, silly, shallow girls. You’re not. At least not anymore.”
And then she was gone, and I was left in an empty lunchroom, with no idea where I was going. What was my next class? I needed a schedule, some sort of guide, something to point me in the right direction. I felt my breath coming in short gasps and leaned back against the wall, opening my bag and searching to no avail. I felt like even if I found what I was looking for I would still be lost in the school, with the cold white walls and the gray marble floor, the fluorescent lights bright and obtrusive to my vision, a headache beginning again and a sense of comfort ending.
It was only then that George(Mystery Guy) walked by with an aloof expression, as if he was moving to his own music. He barely noticed my until he did a double take, and stopped.
“You okay?” He asked, as anyone would if they saw me pale as a sheet, leaning against the wall of the school cafeteria. But something in the undertones of his question made me want to dive deeper, as if there was some sort of understanding, an alternate meaning in his words.
“Um, no actually, I kind of don’t know where my class is.” I smiled politely and ran a hand through my hair, laughing breathily.
“Well, I’m on my way to Philosophy, and I’m pretty sure you’re in my Humanities classes,” George reassured me.
“Of course,” I replied, gulping. “I just blanked on the schedule, you know, since the vacation and all.”
I examined his response to my news, which was a small twitch of a smile and a blink.
He began to walk down the hall and I followed, and once we were there I thanked him and we entered. There were only two seats left, right next to each other in the back of the room near the window where the pigeons left their droppings. How delightful. I took the one nearest to the window, for at least it was something to look out of when bored during the long discussions.
Already the class was arguing about the question “what is the meaning of life?”. I wanted to fall asleep. Then I remembered my C plus average in the class due to my lack of understanding and participation.
“Everyone says that the ‘meaning of their life’ is to do something they want to do,” Michael(former football player I’d dated for a year) said, standing, as we had to do when we said something.
“But I can’t help but think that that’s missing the point. Who wants to do nothing in their life except be happy? Don’t you want to be remembered for something?” He sat down.
A loud bit of shouting occurred after he finished his speech.
“Quiet!” Miss Fitzwater raised her arm. I raised my hand.
“Ashely.” She smiled.
“Um, Michael?” I searched the room for him, my hands shivering with nervousness.
I stood.
“The meaning of life.” I coughed. A few laughs. “The meaning of life is…to live.” I mentally punched myself as more laughs joined in.
“I mean, there’s more to living than being happy, Michael. There’s your relationships, there’s love and hate and despair, there’s happiness and bliss and there’s accomplishment, determination, and rejoice.” I could feel Goosebumps on my arms.
Michael stared at me, a confused expression on his face. He’d never seen me as more than a blonde bimbo, I realized. I’d never quite shown my thoughtfulness or intelligence to people, even though it had always existed. I was too caught up in shopping, boys, and drama, people assumed that I got good grades because I bribed the teachers or I flirted with them or something.
“The meaning of life is not to be happy, and you’re right, there’s a lot more to it,” I stood a little taller, feeling more comfortable now.
“But you don’t have to be remembered to have a life. Everyone forgets. Everyone loses their thoughts and that’s normal. The amazing things that you may do in your life should be things that you feel proud of, not things that you are unhappy with and spend your life doing that mean nothing to you.” I licked my lips.
Miss Fitzwater nodded slowly.
“If you want to be a doorman, and that makes you happy, then by all means, do it!” I exclaimed. “If it makes you feel happy, and alive, and free, then it’s the right thing to be doing. But if you feel stuck, and alone, and bored, and upset, being a doorman, then you’re not doing the right thing. Then it’s not meant to be. And you have to open that door and get out there and realize what you’ve been missing all your life.”
Then I sat down.
No one said a word.
A silence ensued.
A deafening silence, I mused. Oxymoronic, but true. It was almost crushing me, and through the silence I could almost hear the thoughts of the students in that old wooden paneled room with the bright light coming through the window and the cold air still as an ice statue.
“Thank you, Ashely.” Miss Fitzwater wrote something down on a piece of paper at her desk.
Michael continued to stare at me as the rest of the class got into some new discussion. I sat down stiffly and daydreamed until the period was over.
As the class went to leave, he came towards me.
“Yo, Ashely,” He said in that deep jock voice of his.
What a jerk.
“Yes, Michael?” I asked plainly and politely.
“What the hell were you doing in there?” He spat at me.
“Um…participating?” I replied, as we exited the classroom.
“You totally shot me down in front of the entire class. That’s not cool babe.”
I grimaced, disgusted. “Yeah, that’s what a debate is for.” I barged past him through the door and he ran to catch up to me in the hall, accidentally knocking my bag over. The entire contents scattered all over the floor and I shrieked as my graphing calculator landed on my leg with a burst of unnecessary pain.
How could I have ever even thought of dating such an incompetent douche? Oh right, he was “cute”. I stared at him as he looked at the disaster that had just occurred. He had an average face, angular features and a strong jaw line. His eyes were a greenish brown color and his hair was a soft brown, swiftly brushed to the side. He was attractive, I supposed, but an imbecile.
“Well?” He squinted up at me with a confused look on his face.
I realized I had gone off in my own thoughts again.
“What?” I yelled back at him, my face turning red.
“Aren’t you going to pick up your stuff? We’re running late for gym.” He laughed nervously.
“You pick it up, you moronic buffoon!” I snapped at him, starting to lose my nerve.
“You insult my intelligence and get mad at me for crushing your idiotic idealisms, and now all of my belongings are destroyed thanks to you. The least you could do is pick up my-”
“Hey Michael, bro, sup?” Michael’s football buddy Greg have him a big pat on the shoulder. Michael interrupted my tirade to do some stupid handshake that involved many handshake-high five movements.
“You know what, forget it,” I shouted. Michael and his crony turned back to me, bewildered.
“Just go.”
And they turned and left. And I picked up the pieces. At least I stood up for myself, I thought. And I was not going to let Mackenzie and her crew get the best of my in P.E.
By the time I got to physical education there was a lot of gossiping being murmured about. I even heard someone say that I “made out with Michael and his friend at once and then punched him in the face”. Great.
The massive gymnasium, with its great dome ceiling and windows, bright lights and quiet interior, full of girls whispering, waiting, and giggling, had never intimidated me as it did now. I was almost always late to gym actually, because I liked to refresh my makeup on the seventh floor and then return to the basement before, since I was there in front of all of the girls in my grade. But today, with my disheveled appearance, set into one of the leotard-uniforms we used for gymnastics, I had done one of the recent “infractions” of the standards at Waterside High.
More girls stared and murmured than ever before, and this time it wasn’t about my dad’s latest car commercial or my new suede designer miniskirt. I felt like a deer in headlights, and I quickly rushed to a seat and the corner and prayed that class would start shortly.
Chapter
“Remember this is all about balance and control. If you have none of that, just try.” Mr. Dorten adjusted the balance beams and had us all work in groups of 4. My gym group was with Mackenzie, Betti, and Layla, and I groaned, anticipating another spat like earlier that day.
The girls pretended to ignore me for most of our practicing. When it was Mackenzie’s turn, they “accidentally” jabbed me sharply in the stomach with their elbows, clapping and cheering wildly as she mastered the easy steps(a jump and a spin). I gritted my teeth. As she jumped off the bar in perfect balance, the whole gym watched and applauded.
And then it was my turn. The people watched. Left their bars, sat on the mats, and fixed there eyes onto my pale, graceful frame. Only silence filled the room, and the shifting of people in their seats. I got up unto the bar neatly with no problem, and performed a simple jump and an arabesque. And then it was time. One more move and I could dismount. But it wasn’t that simple. I wanted to surpass Mackenzie. I wanted to feel the heat on her face and take in the rage in her eyes. At that moment, I wanted to show the school that I had changed for the better. No matter where I had been, I was still Ashely Solovan, popular, beautiful, and spectacular. I hadn’t thought about the fact that maybe I had changed. Maybe I was no longer that Ashely. Maybe I was even better. But I didn’t consider these minor affairs. I stepped back a few times, and lifted myself into a handstand, wavering in that one fraction of time and landing back on my feet like a true gymnast.
Except that didn’t happen.
Instead of one of those dramatic scenes of the movie where I show the world how amazing I am, I tripped and fell off of the beam. Onto the cool, hard mats, leaving me with no reassurance, and a cool, hard, feeling of regret.
It happened slowly, then with a bang, kind of like falling in love. That was a bit overdramatic and corny, but true. I was just hanging there, gravity pulling me down and the force of my arms pushing me up, when the world seemed to collide with my body and I was left on the mats as guffaws started up. And it was all because of that one little thought. Trying to keep my mind off of the fact that I was performing a risky feat in front of my entire grade, I had let my mind slip off course. Or maybe I had made it slip off course. Whatever it was, once I had been on a smooth snow-dusted ground, and then I was on a slippery ice covered hill. And that one thought found its way into my head, and I was falling down the slope. That one thought of the man with the blue eyes.
Chapter
"What is it?" I asked stiffly, adjusting myself on the couch. I could feel his body heat emanating from him and suddenly I felt awkward and weird and uncomfortable and I wanted him to leave the couch or something bad was going to happen.
Fortunately, he stood up. Unfortunately, he grinned.
"Gotcha," He said. "There is no news."
I wanted to kick his groin or something painful, but he turned to leave.
"Do you enjoy it?" I said as he was halfway out the door.
"Enjoy what?" He turned halfway, and I could see his profile, the sharp nose, and chin, and black, shiny hair, one blue eye focused on me.
"Working here? Kicking cheese sticks around? Torturing me?" I pursed my lips and waited for a reaction.
He gave a fake laugh and kind of grimaced.
"Do you like being the rich, spoiled popular girl who gets everything she wants?" He asked.
My eyes burst open as the memory seeped into my head. What the…
The man with the blue eyes. His name was Roy? Was I making all of this up? No, I couldn’t be. It was all too real.
“Ashely!” My maid, Silvia entered the room holding a small gift. From Daddy, I decided. It was wrapped in gold paper, with a pink bow, and she laid it on my bedside table and left. I checked the time. 6:30. I had time to open the present, get dressed, and make it to school.
Tearing open the golden sheets of paper and opening the box, I revealed a gaudy necklace with a huge red charm on it that said “Rich Gurl” on it. I threw it across the room and it hit the wall with a tremendous snapping sound. Cringing, I jumped out of bed.
It had snapped in two. Broken, on the floor, forgotten as I left the room to get ready for school.
Daddy was gone when I entered the pretentious dining room with it’s mahogany counter and floor panels and a huge statue of a horse by the kitchen table.
Silvia was bustling about the room, the smell of eggs and butter drifting to my nose. The sun was just rising above the trees on the estate, and it felt like a good morning. And a good morning always meant a good day, I thought. Or I hoped.
“Eat.” Silvia grumbled, handing me eggs with hollandaise sauce on one of our expensive China platters. I took a fork from the drawer and began to cut out a piece.
“Hey, Silvia,” I called, as she turned to leave the room.
“Do you like working here?”
She stared at me for a moment.
“What do you mean?” She mumbled finally.
“Well, you don’t seem like you like it very much.” I shrugged and continued to cut my eggs into pieces.
“I don’t have a choice,” She snapped, and went to leave the room once again.
“Why don’t you?” I inquired.
“What?”
“Why don’t you have a choice?”
“Well, Ashely, let’s see,” She started, getting a bit annoyed. “Most people don’t have millions of dollars at their disposal. Most people need to work for their money. I have three children and no husband and I live in a tiny apartment. All of this money is going to my kids. Now, for you, this must seem very impossible to be happening, but I don’t live in your fairytale world.”
She left the dining room.
Normally having my maid talk back to me would be means for Daddy to fire her on the spot, but I couldn’t help but see the imminent truth in Silvia’s words and I felt like an idiot for asking about her personal life.
That was who we were. Two completely different people with two completely different lives, Silvia with a 15 hours-a-day job and me with my pampering and spoiling.
It sucked. I felt even more spoiled for thinking this, but, what if I didn’t want to be this way? Everyone of a lower class hated me. Even at school, they had hated me, they had been scared of me and Mackenzie and Betti and Layla and had bowed down to us like peasants to royalty.
Even Charlotte still hated me, I realized, even after I’d stood up for her yesterday.
“Ashely!” It was Silvia, sweeping the entrance way.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going out for groceries, but I don’t have my keys.” She slammed her broom against the wall and it echoed throughout the house.
“It’s okay, I’ll leave the door wide open!” I yelled back.
And suddenly another thought invaded my mind.
“They’re going to take you away from here,” He said in a hoarse voice.
I should be surprised, I thought. “What?”
“You’re going to be put into a slave trade.” He said each word slowly, as if he couldn’t believe it. But I knew he’d been processing this for a week now.
“WHAT?!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs, doing the best acting possible. Then I began to breathe heavily. It wasn’t that hard to pretend to be scared or startled. It was today that my life would change forever. Or end. I was ready. But not ready enough.
Roy handed me a thick white sheet of paper that was folded 4 times. “This is your… interview response. You have to give it to the…to the people that take you.”
I took the paper and stuffed it into my pocket without reading it, crumpling it. Roy winced.
Why was he so upset about some dumb piece of paper that I had to give to my slave-traders?
“I’m sorry.” His voice was almost emotionless, but his eyes flickered. Did he actually care, or was he a talented actor? And why would he be apologizing to me? It’s his fault I got into this mess in the first place.
“They’ll be picking you up in the next 5 minutes. It’s my fault this is happening to you,” He said slowly. “Just remember…the door’s wide open…”
“No it’s not!” I yelled.
But he just turned, walked straight out the door, and slammed it shut. I could hear his footsteps retreating away, one last time…
I jolted and my eyes flew open as the memory joined the collection that were forming a story in my head. As strange as it could sound, it felt like I was getting used to these now, as if each one was a different puzzle piece and I just had to find the one that connected them all together.
I made myself busy until seven-thirty,-read the newspaper, made myself coffee, worked out on the treadmill and laid out my glorious outfit-sweatpants and a hoodie. And then, when it was seven-twenty-five, I sat down on the plush couch and lay back on it and tried to remember.
I could feel the memories, as if I could grasp them, just in the back of my head. But I couldn’t conjure up anything. By seven-thirty I was angry, nervous, and frustrated. Angry about life, nervous about school, and frustrated with myself.
The nervousness was the most prominent, as yesterday I had made a fool of myself in front of my entire grade and now I got to face them again, as well as turning against all of my popular friends and standing up for Charlotte. Great. But I could overcome, I could make it through those six hours, and as the morning got lighter I felt within myself that the best of mornings made the best of days, and the best of lives.
So I opened the door into the fresh day, and left it wide open behind me.
Chapter
As I entered the building, whispers and stares, suppressed laughter, and as the goose bumps crept up my arms, I stared back, giving them the satisfaction as their snickers and smirks slithered through my body and smothered me.
“Hey, that’s the girl who fell off the bar,” One girl whispered to her boyfriend.
“Wow, what is she wearing?” Another said about my sweatpants.
“What a loser…she‘s like Charlotte‘s bff now.”
“How was she ever popular?”
“I guess she’s pretty…but ew.”
And I stood there, my shadow long and stiff as the hot sunlight lit my body from the back with the huge window, everyone on all sides staring at me in the long, wide, marble hallway.
Then I bowed my head, and let the warmth shine on my disheveled hair and down my back, and I knelt on the cold, hard ground, and then I lay upon it. Cold, but reassuring, it held me, the only thing I could depend on. And the sunlight took over me, and my shadow was gone as I lay there, and a stunned silence filled that long hall. I closed my eyes.
A beautiful peacefulness erupted like a volcano, starting at the tips of my toes and lifting to the ends of my hair. And then I was no longer in that frigid room, but I was remembering.
I lay there, and I could literally feel my heart slowing down. But I wasn’t in pain, I was at peace. I was just…happy. It was over. And I convinced myself of this until a sharp fire flew into my lungs, and I remembered everything I’d told myself to forget, remembered my life and how things used to be, and how I’d never get to change. And I cried out, but I couldn’t hear my own voice, just the cold floor beneath me.
Time seemed to pass so slowly, because I still wasn’t dead when the footsteps returned. I ought to play dead, I thought. That way they won’t kill me again. But no one talked, no one said a word, and when strong arms lifted me and heavy breathing and a soft T-shirt carried me, I didn’t think about it. I gave in to sleep. Or death. Whatever it was.
In my dreams it felt like I was awake, but something in me knew I wasn’t. I was lying in a soft hospital bed, IV’s stuck in my arms. I heard voices coming towards me and waited, wondering what turn my dream would take. The voices were men. Roy? Roy, had he come for me? Had he saved me? It felt unreal, and his footsteps came closer and closer and I could just see his face leaning over me.
Mystery guy?
Mystery guy coughed a little and stood upright again, then sat down in a chair next to my bed.
I saw him turn, and someone was walking towards him, with a leather jacket and dark jeans and dark hair and Chanel.
Roy.
And then…
“Ashely.” His voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear.
I cleared my head of all thoughts except for his words, in the memory I was remembering of the dream that wasn’t a dream…weird.
“I’m not going to get all mushy like in those hospital scenes in the movies,” He said.
“But please wake up, Ashely.”
“And I’m not going to say ‘I know you can do this’ because I have no idea what the heck you can do. Well, I do actually…I know that you can attack kidnappers with jewelry and throw cheese sticks across the room and take 40 minute showers and do your makeup real nice and laugh and smile and cry and love and die and sleep…”
“Anyway, back to my original point…maybe you can wake up, Ashely. Maybe you can. And if you can hear me, although you probably can’t because you’re asleep…well, if you can hear me, please do that…for me.”
“I went through all this trouble to help you, you know. You really pissed me off, Ashely. You were such a brat. But you weren’t just a spoiled brat, you know, I mean, you were a lot more than that, and I’m glad I know that now…”
“And I’m glad that you aren’t with them anymore, even though this isn’t exactly good either, you’re here, with me, and this is all my fault, because I started it all in the first place, and you just wanted to buy a watch for some sort of mystery guy, and who is that by the way? Because you told me you had a boyfriend but you were obviously lying…”
“Anyway, the real thing is…well the real point is, um, that you need to wake up, because I went through hell to save you and you are not going to die.”
Then he turned around, and walked swiftly and purposefully up to where I lay and kissed me on the forehead, and it just felt good, and safe, and who was I kidding, it was ROY, why was he kissing me, what the heck? When it happened I wasn’t surprised. Then he was gone. He didn’t actually leave, though. Blackness took over, and then light.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
