Ink Stains

Chapter 2

I wished that my life didn’t incorporate Asher Harrison past American History, I really did.

               Upon entering my Spanish class, I had this sinking feeling in my gut. Sure enough, Senorita Smith assigned a video project with preset members. Asher Harrison ever so conveniently happened to be in mine.

               My friends were going to have a field day.

               I felt a finger brush across my shoulder briefly. “Hey, Clara.”

               Speak of the devil. “Yes?” I answered quietly, my attention refused to divert to him. It’s exceedingly difficult to just stop in the middle of a chapter where I’m finally getting all of my ideas on paper. Authors have always had tendencies to make it look so easy, the act of pouring our deepest beliefs into characters and plot lines. I had a million ideas, but only so many words to describe them.

               Asher fell into the seat next to mine, his athletic shorts making the most obnoxious noise as it rubbed against the plastic. “Debemos hablar in espanol. Quieres practicar?” We should talk in Spanish. Do you want to practice?

               “Tenemos un proyecto,” I reminded him. We have a project. “Podemos hablar en ingles.” We can speak in English if we want to.

               “She takes participation points off for speaking in English,” Asher leaned in nervously, cautious of Senorita Smith’s ear. “I can’t take that risk.”

               “We should be focusing on the project with our other group members rather than worrying about speaking in English,” I told him, craning my neck to see the location of Ben Reyes, the school’s famed soccer player who had a knack of never completing his work, and Jan Everts, the girl who rarely showed up to class. Neither of them was present on that given day.

               Asher sighed. “Our group is awful besides us,” he complained, burying his head in his hands. “I really can’t afford to screw up this project. It’s replacing a test grade that I could be getting an A on.”

               “Don’t be a pansy,” I muttered, getting annoyed with his whines. Normally, I was the one who always had convenient whines on the back of my hands. Nobody takes my place. “Besides, how do you know I won’t bail?”

               He lifted his neck, daring to look me straight in the eye. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

               “What do you mean?”

               Asher’s gaze seemed to possess some sort of power over me; my muscles tenses and I couldn’t move. “I mean that I trust you.”

               “You probably shouldn’t.”

               He chuckled briefly under his breath, amused by my self-deprecating comments for some odd reason. “Well, I do.”

               Miraculously, we completed a large portion of the script for our video project and exchanged phone numbers. I would have died at that moment when I was a freshman, but I only felt a wave of gratitude. That was one of longest times I’ve spent away from my stories. Even during class, I would’ve scribbled a few words down on my fingers to distract myself from the bags I carried.

               For the first time in a while, I was whisked away from reality by a person different from myself. It was only a silly project, but somehow I knew it would turn into something much more important.