My Roommate

Chapter 28

Didn't really edit for grammar so if mistakes appear, that's way. My bad.

-Max

~~~

Ashley's POV—

"Alright, to the mall it is!" Sasha beams as we step out of one of the school's double-doored entrances/exits. The sun is out now, providing more heat than earlier this morning. It's still a bit cold, though. But at least it's warmerish.

"Yup. Time for hours of shopping..." Ben mumbles under his breath. Evan slightly cringes at the thought of it and snaps her head at him.

"Hours of shopping?" I hear her ask him as I walk ahead to catch up to Izzy and Sasha, who are quickly making their way to Ben's car, seeing that he drove them today. I also manage to hear Ben tell her something about how she'll eventually learn to get used to it. Followed by her groaning at the thought of it.

I wasn't really expecting her to say yes about going shopping with us. I know shopping isn't really her thing. But I mainly just suggested it to her because I thought it would be nice for her and my friends to start getting along better. Seeing that we're dating and all, I want my friends to genuinely like her, and vice versa.

I was kind of surprised that Roxy declined my offer to tag along too. But I guess it's probably for the best. She doesn't know Ben, Isabella, and Sasha at all; and really only sees them around in the hallway during passing time. So she asked Andre if he could pick her up when he goes to pick up Mathew and my brother.

"So, we'll meet you guys there? Say by the fountain on the east side of the mall?" Ben asks as we stop right where we'll need to split off to get to our cars. Ben, Izzy, and Sasha are parked down this lane while Evan and I are parked two lanes over to the right.

"The one closest to HotTopic?" Evan asks him.

"Yup."

"Alright. We'll see you guys there," Evan says.

We split up afterwards.

"How often do you guys go shopping again?" Evan asks me as we get into the car.

"Not that often. If I had to estimate how many times we've been to the mall so far since September, I'd say around five or so times? So not too often," I tell her as I buckle up.

"You want control of the radio?" she asks me as she turns around in her seat to look at me.

"Sure," I say as I take out my phone from my jacket pocket and connect to her bluetooth transmitter. Within seconds, I'm connected and pick one of my playlists on Spotify.

Some Beatles sound good today.

The car comes lively as "I Want To Hold Your Hand" fills the air. Keeping the volume at a reasonable level, Evan and I make our way towards the mall. From the back seat, I can just barely make out Evan mumbling the lyrics to each song under her breath, keeping the majority of her attention on the road ahead.

It gives me a comforting relief.

I'd like to sit up with her soon, I really do. It's just still going to take some time for me to fully adjust to it.

Back when I was with Andy, I don't know why it was easier to sit up with him. I really did like him at the time, and did genuinely trust him a lot. I guess it was because of those two things that I pretty much did everything I could to ignore my anxiety; to push it away from me as far as possible so I wouldn't worry him. All he knew was that I was in a car accident that caused my father's death.