The Thief

13. Changes

Evane

"Hey Evane."

I turn around to see Asher behind me. "Hey." I pat the seat next to me at the lunch table.

"How are you?"

I shrug. There's a silent tension between us for a few seconds. We haven't spoken at all about how we almost kissed and neither of us want to be the one who brings it up.

Luckily Ember sits down across from us with her food a minute later. "Hey Asher! Hi Evane!"

"Hey Ember," we say in turn.

A group of boys walk past. "Hey Asher come sit with us, you don't want to be associated with the wrong crowd," one of them says.

"Come on Ben, you know those rumors aren't true."

"Actually I don't know, man, they seem pretty plausible to me." He glances my way and continues to the other side of the cafeteria.

"I'm sorry," Asher says.

I shake my head. "I'm getting used to it now."

He places his hand on my arm. "You shouldn't have to." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "I'm going to fix this, I started it so I have to."

"No, you didn't mean to, it's not your fault."

"I don't care." He stands up, wincing slightly as he does. He puts a hand on his stomach and gets on his chair and then the table. "Hey everyone, listen to me!" Whispers travel through the students and soon the lunchroom becomes eerily quiet. "I'm sure you've all heard of Evane by now, although that isn't what you call her. There's been some rumors going around about Evane, but they're not true." I stare at the table and wonder if it's too late to crawl under it.

"It's my fault the rumors started," Asher continues. "I was joking around and I called Evane a Potthead because she likes Harry Potter, which is great by the way. She isn't a druggie, she doesn't smoke pot and the next person that suggests such a thing will deal with me." He steps down and winces again.

"Are you okay?" I stand and put a hand on his shoulder as he sways back and forth.

He shakes his head. "It's nothing." But it's not nothing, Asher collapses onto the floor.

I grab onto him making sure he doesn't bang his head on the floor. "Someone help me get him to the nurse!"

To my surprise Tom is the first to reach us. He grabs one arm and I grab the other and we carry him through the halls.

"Don't think this changes anything, nerd," Tom says just before we reach the nurse's office. I can deal with nerd. Heck, I can embrace nerd.

The nurse asks us what happened, then once we tell her, she makes a huge fuss and doesn't let me or Tom in the office once we put Asher down. I sit in a chair outside and Tom surprises me again by sitting next to me.

We sit in the quiet until Tom says, "I'm sorry about the whole pothead thing. I'm afraid now, that it's too late to stop it."

I don't say anything, I don't know what to say.

"Did-" he hesitates, "did I hurt you?"

I count to five. "Yeah," I whisper.

He turns toward me slightly. "I'll um... I'll just stick with nerd from now on." He gets up and starts walking away.

"Hey Tom," he turns around. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me for anything. Let me know if anything happens to him." He leaves.

The bell rings, but I don't go to class. Eventually a paramedic comes, but won't answer any of my questions. They wheel Asher out of the school and tell me to go to class, but I don't. A few minutes later Ember shows up.

"There were so many students," she says out of breath. "And then the bell rang and there was even more. What happened?"

"The paramedics came, they're taking him to the hospital."

She nods. "And what about Tom? Was he..."

"He... he apologized."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

"Yeah," I chuckle. "I can't believe it either."

She sits down next to me. "It's a strange day."

I nod. "You can say that again."

"Are you worried about him?"

I chew my lip. "Yeah. We don't even know how he got hurt and now I don't know what's going on." I stand up. "Come on."

"Where're we going? To class?" She stands too.

I smile and shake my head. "The hospital."

We walk to my car. "They probably won't let you see him."

"That's okay. We can visit someone else too."

We drive to the hospital and go inside. Sophie gives us a suspicious look, but doesn't say anything about how we aren't at school. She tells us we can't see Asher right now, but we're welcome to wait outside his door and look through the window.

There aren't a ton of doctors scurrying about his room and I take that as a good sign. If he were in danger of dying they would move more quickly and there would be more of them. They do move around the room, hauling equipment with them, it looks like they're going to x-ray him.

After a while we sit down, tired of watching. I'm just about to suggest the food court when a man comes down the hallway talking to a doctor in a harsh whisper. He approaches the window and looks inside. "I don't care about that stuff, how much is this gonna cost?" The doctor replies in a calm tone, but the man waves her away. "Never mind, I'll deal with it later."

"Would you like to go in and see him?" the doctor asks, but the man gives her an incredulous look and then continues looking through the window. She leaves without another word.

"Excuse me." I stand and approach the man. He gives me a glare. "Are you Asher's foster dad?"

"Who are you?" His voice is unpleasant.

"I'm... a friend of his."

He chuckles. "Asher doesn't have friends."

I decide not to correct him, who knows how he'd react to finding out that Asher's actually pretty popular. "Right."

"What do you want?"

What did I want? "Um... nothing I just, you know never mind." I return to my seat next to Ember. "I hate this," I tell her. "I'm sick of waiting for people in hospitals."

Wow some exciting things are happening! What did you think of Asher standing up for Evane? Do you think she'll find out the real reason he's hurt? What do you think will happen when he wakes up with Todd? Let me know in the comments and please give this chapter a vote! Thanks for reading!