The Silent Song

Chapter 11

"Well this is going to be interesting." Ashton says with a weird optimism. Even in the dim light I can make out from his voice alone that he is smirking.

It is dark considering that the one window present in his room is shut but it is not dark enough to make it impossible to see. I can see Ashton. Well not him but neither his silhouette. Its more of an in between view.

"Why?" Is my response to his earlier musing.

"You and me in a dark room..." I flush for no reason and thank the darkness of his room because he can't see face right now.

"I'm starting to think that you are a pervert. And unfortunately I got stuck with you." I roll my eyes at him.

"Too bad you are my German partner and there is no one in this school who can help with your German as well as I can." With that said Ashton gets up and pulls up the previously drawn window blinds. The room is illuminated. Not much though but now I can see his face properly and not the in between view I had earlier.

I say nothing to that because unfortunately I can't come up with a response that would top his.

Ashton breaks my silence. "So now that we can't study and and it's not safe to drive in this pouring rain, what do you wanna do?"

"Umm..." I absolutely have no ideas nor do I get to ponder on it for long.

"You'll take forever to decide. Let's go and bake something." Ashton suggests.

"I don't know how to bake." I state the truth. The one time I tried to bake something I ended up blowing up the oven.

"Well then today is the day you'll learn then." He says as if he is saying that the earth is round.

Before I can answer him he is already out of his room and walking downstairs. I have nothing better to do so I follow him to the kitchen.

"Ashton."

"Hmm"

"There is no electricity." I state. Obviously we can't bake if there is no electricity.

"Thank God that I'm great and I know that I just have to rotate a plug present in the fuse box and we'll have the electricity running again." He gives me a boyish grin.

"You just got tired of studying, didn't you?" I can't help but smile at his boyishness.

"Yeah." He says making his way towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I question him. He is not leaving me, is he. I'm not exactly a fan of dark places. Especially being in the dark alone.

"Garage. That is where the fuse box is." He explains before making his way out of the house.

Minutes later the lights come on and then Ashton enters the house with his hair dripping. I guess it must be raining pretty hard. I can even hear the pitter patter of the raindrops inside the house.

"Umm...I guess you should change first. You'll catch a cold otherwise." I say trying not to gape at his well defined muscles that were very visible now since his T-shirt was wet and clinging to his body and all.

"Admiring my hot body, are you Adams?" He says making his way towards his room. A few minutes later Ashton returns wearing tracks and a Nirvana's vest.

Thankfully he doesn't comment further about my shameless gawking. Also I am very glad that he decided to bake cupcakes and he already has the mixture. We just have to add milk and stir.

After that is sorted we place them into the oven and wait for it to pinge. I am leaning against the table placed it the middle of the kitchen when suddenly the sound of thunder booms through the house. And me being the girl I am jumped from the sound and grab what is nearest to me. That object being Ashton's hand.

Much to his amusement he starts. laughing.

"What?" I mutter a little embarrassed.

"Nothing. I just never thought that you'd be afraid of thunder." He explains not even attempting to stop laughing.

"A girl is allowed to be scared of some things, isn't she?" I snap back looking directly at his face.

"Yeah. But you know, grabbing my hand and all. If you wanna touch me, we can always cuddle." He says and then winks at me. What is it with this guy?

"Did I tell you that you are a pervert?" I question him even though I remember telling him that some time ago.

"You might have mentioned it." He says, his eyeballs moving upward as if trying to recall it.

"Hmm..glad I did." I reply just before the the oven pings.

"Cupcakes are ready." Ashton says and then proceeds to take them out of the oven.

Once that is done he offers them to me and I take one. I take a bite of the not-so-good-looking cupcake and almost vomit.

"What are these? Fire balls?!" I spit. They were burnt badly.

"They aren't that bad." Ashton says taking a second bite of his cupcake. His expression slowly changes from that of inspection to that of doubt. "On second thought, maybe they are." He adds.

We dump the remaining ones in the bin and go back to his room.

"I have a stash of cheetos here somewhere." He says opening his cupboard and rummaging through it.

"Here it is." He brings the cheetos to his bed and plops down on it. "Care to share."

"Nope."

"Trying to stay slim, are we? You know I won't cuddle with a stick, Querida." I've got used to him calling me Querida now since he's been calling me that for the past couple of days so I don't mind that much. I've actually grown to like the way it sounds.

His reference to the earlier situation makes me blush but I choose to ignore it and silence follows while Ashton munches in cheetos. After he is finished we still remain silent until I decide to break it.

"So what are you afraid of?" I question him concentration perhaps a little too much on my lap. Could you blame me?

"What do you mean?" Ashton asks his full attention on me. Even though I am not looking at him I can feel him staring at me.

"Well you know...like lightening freaks me out so there must be something that freaks you out as well." I explain.

I doubt that he will answer my question. Surprisingly he does.

"Nothing freaks me out like that. But I have a few fears though." He says.

"Huh...like what?" I question him, curious.

"For example I fear losing time." I give him a puzzled look.

He stares at me as if willing my a bit slow brain to get what he said. But right now it's working slower than usual. He finally sighs and explains.

"Well I fear that I am not using my time wisely. I fear that if I do something stupid I'll waste precious time and it freaks me out because no one has forever. I don't fear oblivion or something. I fear wasting my life." He says. That makes sense. At that moment it suddenly hits me that besides being the carefree and fun guy he is, he is also a deep thinker and everything I'm his life is connected to some deep thought that he has. I am broken from my reverie when Ashton breaks the silence.

"I used to wear a wristwatch earlier." When he says this I immediately flashback to his first day at Coldwater High when I thought that he must have forgotten his wrist watch and then I'm surprised that I even remember it.

"So you stopped wearing one because of this fear." I ask him almost sure of his answer.

"Yeah, about a year back I stopped. Looking at it made me think that I was losing time."He explained.

What I notice is that I didn't ask anything about it and yet he told me the reason why he stopped wearing a wristwatch. I feel that he has started to trust me because earlier he used to hesitate before sharing information and now he did that without asking.

And for some reason it makes me smile. I smile thinking of the fact that Ashton trusts me.

And I'm glad that he does.