Soul Master

6. Asha

(Please note the uploaded narration will have errors due to being auto generated, involving names, sentences and grammar.)

I have seen her head to this room millions of times before. Every break, twice a day for the past five years. I never imposed on her, I never sat with her. I never kept her company. I remember when she first began to spend her breaks here, it was only a couple of months into her first year in the school. I had followed behind her silently, out of curiosity, wondering why she no longer sat in the canteen, I remember peering through the little window on the door, seeing her wipe her tired eyes and pull out a trashy romance book to read. She had no friends, partly because of me, and the guilt that hit me when I realised this, had hurt enough that I never followed her again. But I always made sure to wait at the end of each break to ensure she made it from there to her next class in time, without being a target for bullies. Normally she would be gone a few minutes early of the bell, preferring to avoid any human interaction, not seeing me as she slipped out of the building with her head bowed low. Today, the bell had rang and she hadn't came out, so I went to find her. She was still in her claimed chair, my hoodie flung over the back of it and her lunch half eaten, her face was relaxed, yet there was a sadness in her eyes as she worked at her art, smudging the pencil lines with her fingers. With the door left ajar, I was able to enter the room without her noticing, creeping behind her I looked over her shoulder to the familiar art work of a girl named Amber Maisy, a wolf fiercely towering over a girl, looking about to be mauled. And then cast a glance to what Amii was drawing. I squinted, I hoped I hadn't seen it right. At first I had hoped to catch her writing some goopy love letter that I could interrupt, now I wished she had. The picture she was drawing lay out bare for me to see without her knowing. I stepped back disconcerted and masked my expression as I got her attention.

Her shock was instant. In vain she tried to conceal the picture I had already seen. I could pretend otherwise though.

'Did you not hear the bell?' I asked her casually.

Her face so raw in embarrassment and sadness, it almost killed me not to reach out to her in any way at all. My eyes automatically darted to the artist pad she had been drawing on and was now obviously trying to hide.

'Sorry.' Her voice hitched, she sounded so frail, and scared as she spoke only slightly louder than her speaking voice. She was gonna make a run for it, I grabbed her, catching her wrist easily in my hand and stopping her. My shoulders taut as I battled the urge to embrace her, and tell her everything was alright.

Just a few hours to go.

I told myself.

'What's this?' I forced myself to sound both indifferent and amused, when really I was afraid that even after tonight, things between us would never be the same again.

She pulled harder, trying to rumple the page in her hand, not even realising she was revealing the page before, which looked equally troubling.

'I just wanna see it.' I said playfully. Fuck I sounded so pathetic.

She wouldn't even look at me, she shut tight her eyes, if she had looked at me within that moment she would have seen my own distress.

'Please let me go, Asha.' Her voice was small, so small it weakened me inside, yet in reflex, I tightened my hold on her wrist. The pad fell to the floor but I couldn't let her go, not when she sounded so vulnerable. Not when I was apparently the cause. Just as I was about to give in to my instinct to pull her toward me and hold her, the lights flickered on and Miss Dooly walked in, noticing what was going on between us. The teachers knew we were not related, this would look like a lovers quarrel, or worse, harassment on my part.