Oliver's Home For Story Ideas

10 Reasons to Fall in Love

The day was Thursday, May 13th. It was hot. Ash remembers this because he was busy sweating by his locker, when his best friend Jill was suddenly at his side. "Okay, don't be mad." She said. Jillian Lockhart had her red hair braided to one side, tossed over one shoulder. She was dressed in her normal wacky style. A red, white, and blue short sleeved shirt under red overalls and brown work boots covered in paint. Ash blew a piece of his blonde hair out of his eyes and adjusted his glasses on his face. Shutting his locker, he turned to Jill, who was grinning with a book in her hand.

"If you start a sentence with 'don't be mad', how do you think I'm gonna feel?" Ash adjusted his backpack on his back and began to walk to the exit of the school. Jill followed at his side with pep in her step. It was times like this, and weather like this that made Ash wonder how the hell his best friend could withstand the atmosphere.

"So, do you remember when I joined the book club at the beginning of the year?" Jill's voice was quiet. It was the kind of quiet that would only get louder as she got more excited and then became astronomical as she finally dropped the bombshell. Ash grunted. Unlike him, Jill had a deep fascination and love for books. She described the experience as being apart of a whole other world. Worlds where dragons existed, problems were solved, and romances blossomed. Ash had never understood the whole concept. Nothing that happened in books couldn't happen in real life, aside from the impossible. But those things never happened in reality. Reality was always harsher. Dragons didn't exist, heartbreaks were inevitable, and the bad guys won all the time.

"Well," Jill continued. "I met this guy, and-"

"You met a guy?" Ash interrupted as they walked on the blacktop towards the buses.

Jill's eyes narrowed. "Will you let me finish?" She huffed in frustration. "His name is Justin Marks-"

Ash frowned. "Jill, you know how I feel-"

His best friend put up a hand to stop him. "I don't care, Asher Chris Walter. You can't seal yourself off from the romantic world forever. Justin is super nice and I kind of... um-"

Suddenly, Ash stopped. He allowed the fact that she had used his full name slide as another problem ballooned entirely. "You already set up a date haven't you?"

Jill pursed her lips and nodded slowly, her hands clasping together in front of her. "The date is set for tomorrow at seven. At Torino's." Ash groaned and lumbered off again, faster this time. She followed him. "Oh come on! It's just one date. There's really no harm in it."

He didn't even bother to look back at her. "You know there is."

"Ash-"

"I'll go," he decided. Ash stopped just outside his bus and finally turned to face Jill, who was still frowning, her face red. "if only to turn him down."

"You're impossible."

"I know."

Tomorrow did inevitably come, much to Ash's dismay. He woke up, threw off his covers and stretched. Sunlight streamed in through his window in delicate rays that cascaded on his peach colored walls. Ash dragged himself out of bed, threw on a simple tee shirt and a pair of jeans, and without a moment's hesitation, inserted his earbuds in his ears before exiting his room to do the laundry. Thankfully, his parents weren't awake, so the atmosphere was lighter as he worked his way through the morning chores. He tied his hair back in a half ponytail and hummed to the music that blared in his ears.

Once the clean laundry was folded and sorted and a new load was in the washer, Ash went out into the kitchen to grab a granola bar for breakfast. The hot weather depleted his energy too much to be able to cook even something so simple as scrambled eggs. After the chores were done, his parents still weren't awake. Ash checked the clock. It was already 10:30. So, as the only proper solution, he grabbed his skateboard and left the house.