"Ash, someone's at the door!", Evelyn shouted. Ashley groaned and glanced at the time.
8 am
Who in their right mind would visit at 8 in the fucking morning? The brunette groggily got up and shuffled to the front door. She swung it open, rubbing her eyes and holding back a yawn.
"What?", she snapped. Ashley was met with the all too familiar stormy grey eyes she despised. Emery didn't spare her another glanced and, instead, opted to stride past her into the house. Uninvited.
"Where do you think you're going?" Ashley scoffed.
The unwelcomed girl payed no heed to her. "I'm hungry." she announced.
Evelyn pranced in from the living room, curious to see who bothered to drop by at these ungodly hours. She was wearing a light blue bath robe, her lively green eyes surrounded by crows feet. Emery couldn't help but notice the woman's striking resemblance to her daughter. The only difference was her hair. While Ashley's was mousy brown, her mother's still damp hair seemed to be more of a dark blonde color. Another difference was the bright smile plastered on her face in oppose to Ashley's scowl.
"Hello there, dear, I'm Ash's mother. You must be..." the woman trailed off and raised a questioning brow at Ashley.
"I'm Emery, ma'am"
"Nice to meet you, Emery. And please, call me Evelyn."
Emery nodded. Then all three of them just stood there, staring at each other in awkward silence. It could be compare to the silence after a person accidentally makes a joke about someone else's dead mother.
Evelyn cleared her throat. „I'm just gonna leave you guys to it then...yeah." She glanced at Ashley. „You know where to find me." Evelyn winked and hurriedly shambled off.
Ashley sighed defeatedly and motioned for Emery to follow her into the kitchen. She didn't have it in her to fight right now, Hell, she hasn't even brushed her teeth yet. She pointed at the fridge, grumbling „Just, help yourself to whatever, I'll be back in a minute."
And just like that, Emery was left alone in the kitchen. Great hosts. She decided to have some cereal, but when she looked for anything akin to those crunchy delights she only found boring raisin muesli. Emery rolled her eyes. Of course Ashley would be that person. Emery would just have to deal with it for a day. It's not like it doesn't taste good. She sat down at the small wooden table and took in the room. The walls were painted a light beige colour that went really well with the sage green cupboards. The room, just like the rest of the house it seemed, was small but cozy. Wooden shelves lined the wall next to the table. Between all the books on those shelves were all kinds of plants. Emery noticed a picture right next to what looked like an Aloe Vera plant. She stood up to examine it from up close, leaving the half eaten bowl of muesli insulted and dejected on the table.
The first thing Emery noticed was Ashley's hair, which resembled Will Byers' haircut to a point where it got scary. Emery chuckled at the picture. Ashley was glaring at the camera, a bored expression on her face. She looked to be around ten, but aside from her hair and height, she hadn't exactly changed much. Next to her stood an older boy, probably sixteen, with blonde hair and brown eyes. Unlike Ashley, the boy was grinning brightly, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Behind them stood a younger Evelyn. A man had thrown his arms around her shoulder and was kissing her cheek while she swatted at him, smiling.
"That was my brother, Alex."
Emery jumped and turned around. Ashley had somehow snuck up behind her and was also looking at the picture, her green eyes glazed over. She had changed into a grey sweater and leggings. Emery noticed that she smelled really nice, a light and comforting flowery odour that didn't suffocate, but rather seemed to flutter in the air around her.
"Was?" Emery asked dumbly.
"Committed suicide three years ago."
"Oh." She never knew what to say when someone started talking about their dead loved ones. "My Hamster jumped into the toilet when I was six. It wasn't pretty."
Nope, that's not it. Emery prepared to run. At that moment, jumping into the toilets really did have its appeal. She relaxed when Ashley only snorted and lowered herself onto a chair. She took a laptop and a notebook out of the bag she was holding and placed them on the table.
"Coffee?" Ashley asked, standing up again.
"Ew, no. I'd like some hot chocolate, please."
She heard Ashley mutter "Spoiled child." under her breath as she lumbered to the coffee maker. "Could you start looking up the Banach-tarski-paradox. I think it's something about cloning balls. I'm pretty sure I watched a video about it a few months ago."
"That's nerdy." Emery remarked.
"Says the mathlete."
"You're re also a mathlete."
"Shut up and do the research."
Emery complied. Apparently, it's a geometric theorem that one could duplicate a three-dimensional ball by dividing it into finite parts and rearranging them. It's basically creating an infinite number of identical balls with identical volume out of one ball, without adding anything to the original ball.
"We can't simulate that!" Emery whined defeatedly.
Ashley slid into the chair across from her and handed her a mug filled with the chocolatey drink she asked for while taking a sip from her own drink.
"Let me see." Ashley reached over the table and grabbed the device. "It's not impossible, you know. That guy on YouTube did it."
Ashley snatched the notebook and started scribbling something Emery couldn't really decipher. "You see, if we used a computer program to..."
Emery wasn't listening. Partly because Ashley was murmuring unintelligibly to herself rather than explaining her idea to her. And partly because Emery was too distracted by the excited gleam in the girls eyes. Emery could practically see the gears turning in Ashley's head and, as much as Emery hated to admit it, it was oddly enchanting. At this point Ashley seemed to have forgotten the other girl's presence and was leaning over the notebook, her messy hair forming a curtain around her head. She was tugging on the short strands on the back of her head, rocking back and forth like a mad scientist with herpes.
"...and just like that, we'd have the perfect illustration of the Banach-Tarski-Paradox."
The notebook was shoved towards her, breaking Emery out of her trance. She glanced at it, trying to decode the hieroglyphs in front of her.
"Uh, yeah. That's a pretty good way to do it." Emery half heartedly agreed, hoping Ashley wouldn't noticed that she had absolutely no clue what the girl was suggesting.
"Cool, we can meet sometime after school for that."
"Okay."
They sat in silence after that. Was it still too early to leave, Emery pondered . Ashley had rested her head on her palm and was now doodling on the notes she had made. Screw politeness, Emery thought, I'm leaving.
"I'm bored, bye!" Emery stood up, intending to do just that.
Ashley perked up. "Wait. Let's watch a movie."
"It's 9:30."
"So what."
The girl sighed in resignation. "Fine. What do you want to watch?"
"John Wick."
"Nope. Goodbye Ashley."
Ashley flipped her off. "Fuck you."
"Please don't."
And with that, Emery darted out of the house. No matter how nice Ashley might act for a few hours, it didn't change anything. Being shoved into the pool, the incident, all the insults and fights. It all stilled happened.
No, it didn't change the fact that Emery hated Ashley Greene.
The Banach-Tarski-Paradox, explained really well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA
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Inconvenient Things
Fiksi RemajaAshley was pretty sure that shoving her fellow mathlete Emery Hart into the pool wasn't what her Psychologist had in mind when she told her to try and "make some friends" She was also pretty sure that butterflies wasn't what she's supposed to feel w...
