Ashley ✓

Forty | Summer Greenland

SOTC: Patient by Chris Heria

Francesca gestured to the orange gems scattered on her cheeks. "Ashley, are the gems still on?"

"Yeah, they're on," I responded.

"Trust me, Francesca, they'll be on for the whole night," Sienna added after quickly glancing back at her and making a left turn. "I put that shit on for the game last year and I had to shower that shit off."

"Babe, can you help me with this glow stick wrist thingy?" Fedor suddenly announced.

Ooo, yes!" Francesca grabbed the orange glow-stick wristband, her petite, ring-covered fingers wrapping it around the slight veins of her boyfriend's wrist. "Just tell me how tight you want it."

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!" Sienna and I shouted in sync.

On Friday night, the whole population of West High School attended a stadium for a euphoric reason: the third basketball game of the month. From what I heard because I never thought to go, West High School had already had two home games. Both games only had a third of the school in attendance, and most of those individuals showed up to purely out of seeing whether we'd win or lose.

This time was different.

The traffic of students from West and the opponent team clogged the two streets leading to the destination of the game. Multiple cars in my line of sight were decked out in their owner's home school's vibrant theme, with orange being West's time and an ivy green color for the opponent school. There was a Starbucks attached to the stadium near where Sienna was set to park us at, which was clogged to the max with early attendees.

It was different because the all-star player set for scholarships would be competing for the central L.A. high school tonight.

Mustafa Fadahunsi.

Since the events after meeting his parents, we had only spoken through small talk. By that I mean different variations of an in-person hi, then a how are you, a response of good and then the same question back, and then a couple seconds of silence before resuming whatever we were working on.

Then at night, hours after our short interactions, I lied awake with a head only filled to the brink with him.

Just him.

That was how it went from Monday through today, Friday.

"Oh my god, did y'all hear about who got out of prison last week?" It was Sienna who tore me from these thoughts.

Sienna's ears visibly perked up. "Oh that's tea, who?"

"Summer Greenland."

Sienna choked on her coffee at such a speed that I thought she'd vomit it all over the steering wheel. "WHAT?"

"Girl, I'm being so for real, look!" I watched Francesca pull up a picture on her phone and give it to her.

"Holy shit, she's actually out," Sienna whispered and handed it back to her.

"Who's Summer Greenland?" I asked.

"Girl, that is someone you never wanna cross paths with!" Sienna exclaimed.

"YO, CAN I TELL ASHLEY?" Francesca yelled.

"Bro, do you even gotta ask?" Sienna exclaimed. "She gotta know!"

Francesca whipped her head to me. "Summer Greenland is literally the most violent, unhinged bitch who literally snuck onto Earth from the deepest part of hell!"

"Which is a fucking understatement," Sienna added, inching the car forward. "That girl was the devil!"

Francesca continued. "Like we're talking about this girl drugging the math teacher, smashing the passenger window of the former principal's car with a bat, clocking girls for looking at her the wrong way—"

"Holy shit, remember what she did to that one Freshman?" Sienna exclaimed.

"OH YEAH!" Francesca whipped her head to me again. "There was a Freshman girl who pissed Summer off by flirting with the guy she was with. So when she overheard the girl say she might've pregnant to her friend a week later, Summer sucker-punched the girl in the stomach."

"Apparently she broke two of the girl's ribs and burst her appendix," Sienna added.

Francesca continued. "Then it turned out she was pregnant because a couple months after she dropped out, they found her in a crack house with like five other dudes, another girl, and a baby in the tub."

I felt my soul drop into the center of my rib cage and the inside of my limbs twitch uncontrollably.

"You've gotta wonder who the dad was," Sienna breathed out, inching the car forward.

"But yeah apparently she's out of jail now." Francesca handed me her phone. "That's her."

I looked at the photo of a girl behind a mugshot screen. When I say enviously attractive, I'm not lying. Large, noir curls bordered her tan, square face, thinner lips, and the internal sections of my limbs twitched when I saw them. Because there they were: the same feline-like cat eyes that I had seen consistently on a much younger human being.

That was her.

That was actually Xavier's mother.

"Fedor, you good?" It came from Francesca.

I turned around just in time to find Fedor's eyes snap wide open. "What? Oh yeah. I just didn't know she was out, you know?" His voice trailed off as he proceeded with, "Of course, y'know, until just now."

"Alright, y'all were here!" Sienna announced, stopping the car and turning to me. "By the way, Ashley, make sure you stay in your seat through the whole game. Especially the end. Don't even move."

"What?" I asked. That's oddly specific...

Sienna smiled. "You'll find out what I mean later, trust me."

And find out later I did.