Lakeside

[13] The Store

Tears seemed to be recurring here at the lake. I always found myself crying about something, and even worse I always cried about it in front of the guy I had a crush on. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't want to date me because of how much responsibility he'd have to take on. Maybe I should remove my tear ducts or something.

When I finally manage to get my eyes to stop watering, I lift my head from Ash's shoulder and look at him. His face reads of sorrow, and I feel guilty for making him babysit me.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I cry so much. I never cry this much. Before Brooke died, I don't think I had cried in a year. Now everything is just spilling out." I explain. I felt the heat of his neck radiate onto my hands as he held me up.

"Don't be sorry. We all need to cry. And I get it, I haven't cried since my brother died."

"Seriously? That was seven years ago."

"I know. Believe me, I've tried to cry. I even got hit in the head with a brick in Sophomore year and I didn't cry." Ash and I both chuckle.

"How did that happen?"

"Couldn't tell you. I got knocked out so I don't really remember much of it, just a few stitches in my head and having to clean the blood out of my hair." He describes to me and I gag.

"Please don't go into depth even more with that." I plead, and he laughs in my face. I can feel his warm breaths on my face.

"We should draw. I've been practicing." He says.

"Have you really?"

"No. But we should draw." I laugh at him, and he puts me down on the ground. I don't like the separation of our bodies. I want to be close to him again.

I walk to my desk, searching for another chair that might be lying around in my room. But there's only one at the desk, and I don't know if we'll sit together or one of us on our knees on the ground. I hope it's the first option.

Before I can sit, Ash sits in the chair and I raise an eyebrow at him.

"What? You can sit between my legs, it'll be fine." He smirks, and I feel like he's resorting to his player ways. Nonetheless I sit down between his legs before he has a chance to see my cheeks flush.

As I sit, I can immediately feel his body heat from his legs onto mine and my body breaks out in shivers. It was like that feeling you get when you use a head massaging tool.

I shuffle through the papers on my desks, looking for a blank piece.

"What should we draw?" I ask him.

He leans forward to grab a pencil, and his torso is pushed up against my back. In my stomach there is a volcano of butterflies erupting.

"Let's draw a raccoon digging through a trash can."

"That's oddly specific."

"I'll draw the trash, and you draw the raccoon." He directs.

"Got it."

So about fifteen minutes later, I finish my cute raccoon and look at the "trash" beside it. The raccoon is cute and drawn artistically and shaded in black and white. Then, you look at Ash's pile of trash and it's a whole bunch of squiggled lines that doesn't have much dimension.

"Ash, what is that?" I ask.

"Trash." He answers like it's obvious.

"It looks like a bunch of lines to me." I tell him, but I know it won't pierce his ego because that's just not who he is.