Ashley ✓

Twenty-Six | Football Boys

SOTC: Pressure by Machine Gun Kelly

According to roughly a thousand people, punching Lindsay Alan was the best decision of my middle school career.

Gratitude morphed into an understatement upon my face as soon as I waltzed out of the principal's office. For weeks, seventh and eighth graders praised me in the aggressiveness of wasps, professing their hatred for the girl I cracked with an impulsive punch.

That's when whispers besides the ones in my head began circulating around the school.

"Who's the babe who punched Lindsay Alan?"

"Do you guys know the girl who punched Lindsay Alan?"

"She literally smiled when she cracked her. What's wrong with her?"

"I heard that she fucked up Lindsay Alan's nose surgery."

"She could use a glow-up, but she looks lowkey hot."

"Is she fucking stupid? Like who punches the shit out of that girl in broad daylight?"

But instead of caving in like I thought I would've when I heard the worst side of the gossip, it was only fucking money to my ears when someone would then go:

"I heard her name was Ashley."

Because every time I heard that name coming out of another's mouth, all I'd become was happier.

And with the fame thrusting me into the dopamine-inducing spotlight came a clique of girls who wanted me to sit with them during lunch. All I really heard about the three girls were that they were upper-middle in the clique hierarchy and their names were Adrianne, Ellie, and Lexi. According to the voice in my head, that's all I needed to know. Eventually, it turned into an invite to go shopping with them every Saturday.

On this particular Saturday, the four of us were doing just that in the mall.

"Do these shorts make my ass look fat?" Lexi asked in high pitches, hopping out of the dressing room to pop her backside near the Hollister mirror.

"Not in a good way," Adrianne said upon taking one glance at her new denim.

Lexi scoffed, a high pitched whine ringing throughout her. "You bitch!"

"Literally stop asking then!" Ellie exclaimed, slamming the hanger of her T-shirt on her thigh. "Because literally every fucking time you ask, you always project anger on us, and that's bad for karma!"

I turned to face Ellie from the swimsuit rack. "Are you guys still using crystals?"

"Ashley, those crystals are going to work!" Ellie snapped at me, turning back to Adrianne. "They, like, work, right?"

"I LITERALLY SAID THAT!" Adrianne slammed her acrylics against the mental rack, her long ash-blonde ponytail whipping to the right. "Why do you literally always have to be so stupid? This is totally why Jason broke up with you— you probably think giving head means salivating the D-I-C-K!"

Even with our hostility ascending to the brink of us getting kicked out, considering this was about the billionth time shoppers and a few workers glared daggers into our heads, I just wasn't entertained. A hollow feeling just suddenly ate out my core, weighing me down with hints of boredom.

"Have you guys ever like..." Lexi's voice trailed off, her eyes fixated on the necklaces by the cash register.

"What, you stupid whore?" Adrianne exclaimed.

Lexi lowered her voice to reply, "Like stole something?

"Oh my god, I heard Jillian Axelle did it last week with her boyfriend!" Ellie's eyes surged in brightness as she exclaimed it.

Adrianne sucked her bottom lip under her teeth as she gazed at the array of items in her vicinity.

Ellie faced Adrianne. "If one of the football boys heard you stole something, they could totally set us up with Jax and Aiden!" she gasped. "Or Liam!"

"I can't!" Adrianne squeaked.

Ellie gawked. "Why not?"

"Well- well how would you have proof that you stole it?" Adrianne scoffed, crossing her arms over a non-existent set of boobs.

"You have to leave the large gray ink thing still attached to a shirt!" Lexi cut in immediately.

Ellie cocked her head, facing Lexi. "Attached to the thing?"

"Yes!"

Adrianne scowled. "Guys, we're not going to do it! I get that it's like, the reason we're not getting with the football team, but literally everyone here is clearly too much of a pussy to go and do it! Plus we have to get to Starbucks in thirty minutes!"

That's when I got the greatest idea in all of humanity.

"Come on, let's go," she then sighed, directing Lexi and Ellie to follow her before looking at me. "Ashley?"

I made sure to give Adrianne a smile as I said ever so sweetly:

"I'll meet you guys at the car in thirty minutes."

Once they paid for their stuff and graced the shoppers and staff at the Hollister with their departure, I took a steady, deep breath as I bore my eyes into a baby blue crop top on the rack Adrianne touched.

Let's do it.

"What the fu— KID GET BACK HERE!" a teenage staff member screamed two seconds later.

But by the time each alarm within the Hollister screamed out, I was already bolting out of the store with a blue crop top clutched in my hand.

Every bystander caught within a foot of where I sprinted pleaded for a casualty as I drilled my way past them. My hands shoved a petite high school girl to her knees, her head slamming against the glass under the railing protecting a fall to the second floor. A boy's shin fell prey to the front of my sneaker upon me kicking it like Messi to a soccer ball.

"STOP!"

It had taken a fraction of a second to register the booming footsteps of a mall cop upon her authoritative pitches cutting through the loud atmosphere I created. I felt her nearly get the edge of my hair feet away until I flew down half the escalator, jumping the rest of the way to the first floor tiles. Even so, the cop could've caught me there.

Well, if the bitch hadn't football-tackled a family while trying to reach for my hair.

"KEEP THE CAR THERE!"

Once my shout seemed to echeo throughout the Californian skies, Adrianne's features defining confusion met my crazed state as I charged toward her Mercedes. Ellie and Lexi shrieked out with identical dropped jaws when I lunged my full body into the backseat between them, screaming:

"NOW GO! GO! GO! GO!"

It was only as the lady mall cop stumbled out the doors did Adrianne slam her heel against the accelerator away from the Beverly Hills Shopping Mall.

"Wha-wha-wha—" Lexi stuttered out.

"ASHLEY, WHAT THE FRICK?" Red pigment surged into visibility onto Adrianne's face as she then screeched, "Why am I speeding down the highway— WHY ARE WE RUNNING FROM COPS?"

I held up the stolen blue crop top, my smile illuminating of my highest high yet as I announced:

"We getting some football boys, bitches!"