Ashes, Oh Ashes

chapter 8

“Matt?”

“Hm?” I watched her feet dip in and out of the water gently as we sat at the edge of the creek.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“About the elusive Ashley?!”

She laughed, lightly smacking my shoulder. “Cut it out!”

“Okay, so tell me.” I grinned.

“I’m glad I was sent to juvie.”

I couldn’t help but stare at her. The only thing I could think was ‘why?!’ It seemed such an odd thing for her to say. I think that at a normal high school, she’d fit right in. Maybe not be popular- she was too shy for that- but she’d have a mass of friends. Maybe even people like Lucille that shared her passion for art.

She noticed my stare. “You act like I’ve tried to assassinate the president or something.”

I shook my head.

“Then quit staring at me like a dumbass.” She giggled. “You look really silly.”

I closed my agape mouth.

“It’s nothing really,” she shrugged. “At least, how I’ve been told to perceive it.”

“And yet you still refuse to tell me what happened to land a girl like you in juvie.”

Once more, like the numerous times before, she shrugged and stayed silent. Sometimes I debated whether her silence made me give up or propel my curiosity. I wasn’t sure which. I wasn’t kidding about the elusive Ashley. I had known her for a year now, I could name all her favorites and dislikes, yet had no clues as to her background, other than her father wasn’t in the picture and she was a single child.

“What was it like when you got high?”

The question was so random that I was startled into hesitation.

“Horrible when I came down.” I answered carefully. It was a past that I repressed with every bit of my mental strength. “It was like I didn’t have to worry about anything else. Like I could just forget and release myself into something that was an empty oblivion.” I shrugged, staring at eddies on the water. “Like a temporary safe haven that caused more problems than it did fix. It’s like erasing your emotional state bit by bit, blow by blow, line by line, shot by shot. I realized how it was tearing me apart in more than one way, so I quit before things got too heavy.”

She took this in silent consideration. “Were you happy?”

“Only when high. It was a fake mentality, so to speak. It made me perceive things that weren’t real. Which would only hurt more coming down as I realized things in life wouldn’t get better that way.”

She changed the subject. I wondered for a brief moment if she as was ADD. “Sometimes I feel that way.”

“High?”

“No, all that other stuff. I’ve never done drugs.”

“Don’t.”

“You want to swim? Or wade, rather?” she was already stripping down to her skirt and shirt alone.

I shrugged, tugging off my shirt. I hopped in first and held out my hand to help her down.

I listened to her babbling about random things faintly as the words she said earlier bothered me. It was the way she didn’t question my habits that made me wonder about why she had asked. It was strange, thinking about how analytical she was without anyone realizing. I knew she was asking me to compare something- but as usual, I didn’t know what.