Fallen Ash

Chapter Five: Contradiction

"What is this feeling?" she muttered, clinging desperately to his left arm. "I feel like I'm going to erupt. I hate everyone here. I've never been filled with so much loathing in my entire life."

Freezers lined the wall beside her, where crushed ice had showered down on glassy-eyed fish. Ash turned away, wearing a grim expression. They were almost exactly the same height, give or take a millimeter, so whenever she turned to speak to him, he felt her breath tickling his ear. He preferred it when she was gloomy, her gaze darting from person to person with suspicion, so that he was able to focus on checking items of her hastily scrawled list.

Throughout his life, he had always had close female friends, so it wasn't her clinginess that was bothersome - it was the strange intimacy they shared whenever she leaned closer to confide in him. It was unconscious, on her part. She was like a child who didn't yet understand how male and female relationships could be construed by outsiders. He, however, knew exactly what it looked like. Given his situation, it wasn't something he could take lightly.

"It sounds like you don't like crowds," he replied, swallowing.

Austin couldn't believe how complaisant he was being - it was a character flaw of his that ran deep, apparently. Even in at most misanthropic, he couldn't bring himself to protest her proximity, partially because he knew he was anchoring her but also because he was plagued by same sense of responsibility he would have felt if it had been an unruly toddler in his care instead. It was his third encounter now with this unkempt, eccentric girl and her behavior was not only troubling, but becoming less surprising with each word she uttered. He didn't even have to brace himself for the absurdity she spewed - her worldview was reliably and consistently different - supermarkets were portals into hell and the presence of foods she deemed redundant caused outright offense. Imported tropical fruits and out of season vegetables were especially egregious in her eyes.

He had never met anyone so unbelievably pedantic.

"I bet you didn't grow up in a city," he said to her casually as they perused the seasonings.

She let out a triumphant noise, which startled him, and raised her index finger. He had a feeling he was about to be subjected to a lengthy, uninteresting rant - likely prefaced by "well, actually" - but her reply was thankfully quite brief.

"I'm not from the mainland," she told him teasingly.

She stopped there abruptly and turned back to the display of herbs and spices, nudging the tiny glass jars one by one so that she could read their labels. He waited a few seconds for her to continue - if he had been her, this is where he would have elaborated, but her focus had dramatically shifted. She deemed the conversation over.

"I think garlic salt has a green lid," he corrected, pointing to the shelf beneath where her gaze was focused.

She threw him a sour look but said nothing. 

While he waited for her to find the garlic salt by herself, he mulled over what she had said. He was getting tired of her meandering, but he had never met anyone who wasn't from the mainland, as she phrased it, before. Although he understood the words she was saying, the odd way she seemed to equate being from an island with not being from a city had momentarily confused him. He knew none of the islands were likely to be densely populated, but there were towns and villages like that all across the country.

"So," he started, as she finally pulled a jar out from the display, "if you're 'not from the mainland', where are you actually from?"

For some reason, she found the label of the jar incredibly fascinating. "Oh," Ash replied dismissively, "just some island southwest of Cornwall. You could get there by boat if you really wanted to, but there isn't really anything there. Not even a hotel."