To be or not to be? (Book #1)

Chapter 8

Ashley woke up on Saturday morning, still in her dress, and tears still lingering in her eyes. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night. She didn't get home from the dance until almost midnight, silently riding in Alex's car while he periodically glanced at her in worry. She still couldn't bring herself to tell him what had happend. She just got out of the car without saying goodbye and walked into the house, shoes in hand and shut and locked the door behind her, finally letting her tears overflow again. She flopped on her bed when she got into her room and cried herself to sleep, woke up and cried herself to sleep again, multiple times. Now, at 11:30am on Saturday morning, she just laid there, curled in a ball, staring at nothing in particular. There was a gnawing pain in her chest. She wondered how she had let Tyler get to her so easily the past 2 weeks. He had so easily worked his way into her heart, and now he had broken it.

Well, that will never happen again. I shouldn't be so trusting anyway.

She scolded herself for letting him in and a small tear escaped from her eye and rolled down her cheek onto her pillow. She sat up, wiping it away, and picked up her phone. What she saw wasn't surprising. 10 missed calls. 8 from Tyler, and 2 from Alex, 3 texts from Alex, and 2 voicemails from Tyler. She didn't want to listen to them. She couldn't bear the thought of hearing his voice, but she wanted to know what he had to say. She slowly pressed play on the voicemail from last night, and lifted her phone to her ear. The message began to play.

"Ashley, I know you hate me, and I know you have every reason to. I really am an idiot-" Ashley nodded in agreement as more tears fell from her eyes. "- but I just wanted you to know that I know how big of a failure I am. I shouldn't have been so dumb... I care about you, Ash. I just want you to know that I never wanted to hurt you. Um. Okay. Bye"

Ashley pulled the phone away from her ear, pushing play on the next message.

"Um, hey Ashley.. It's Tyler." He sounded more sober in this message, and tired. "Um, I know that I'm probably the last person you want to talk to right now, but I kind of need to hear your voice. I know that probably doesn't matter at all, and I understand. I just.." He sighed "Just call me if you want to. Bye"

Ashley shook her head. No, I do NOT want to call you. She looked at Alex's text messages next. The first one read:

hey ashley, call me when you get a chance. i want you to tell me what happened tonight.

Ashley half laughed and shook her head. Probaby never going to happen. She opened his second message and it read:

hey, im really worried about you ashley, please call me and talk to me.

Ashley's heart skipped a beat. He's worried. She smiled to herself. Before she could open his last text message, her phone rang again, showing Alex's name on the screen. She answered it.

"Hey" She said.

"Ashley! Thank God. How are you? What's going on with you?" Alex asked, the worry extremely evident in his voice.

"I'm fine. Nothing is going on, Alex, what would be wrong?" Ashley asked, trying not to sound sad.

"Whatever happened with Tyler last night was wrong, Ashley. Why won't you just tell me? I can help you."

"Exactly, Alex, I don't want your help with this. Your idea of helping is going to confront him about stuff and then it just makes it more difficult." Ashley didn't mean to snap. She just needed to take her anger out on something, and here was Alex, being difficult as usual, so she unintentionally used it as an opportunity.

"Yeah, that is my way of helping. Because it works. He needs to apologize for whatever he did."

"He already has, Alex."