Tales Of The Broken - Watty Award Story

~*3*~ I Pray Thee Good Mercutio

Chapter 3

Izzy's POV

She watched him as he once again, disappeared from her sight. Only this time, she didn't go after him. Izzy knew something was wrong with that kid. He had a strange aura around him, it radiated off of him. No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn't get the image of Asher paling as white as a sheet when his eyes had landed on Star out of her head. It was like she was death itself and he was sprinting away to live. It was strange and it confused her.

Izzy walked inside and absently twirled a piece of her hair. There were so many strange things about Asher that she wanted... no she NEEDED to know. She may have only met him, but she knew he had a troubled past and it wouldn't be easy to get it out of him. For one thing, why did he have stripes like a tiger framing his face? And who was Ab-

"Isabelle Louisa Berkley!"

Izzy turned around to see Star was storming over to her, looking flustered. What was wrong with her?

"I've seen him before!" Star gasped, leaning heavily on Izzy as they lazily made their way through the emptying halls. Another late wouldn't kill them.

She looked at her bewildered, and said in disbelief, "You have? How?"

"He was my cousin Abby's boyfriend." Star remembered Abby. Abby and Star had been great friends, but had distanced themselves some time after she had started dating some guy. Star had been crushed slightly and rushed to Izzy's aid. And then Abby had gone missing, as well as Asher. Star's family had believed they ran off together because he had gotten her pregnant or something silly like that, but as it turned out, they were attacked. Star told Izzy that she didn't know how Abby died. All she knew was that her cousin had been dead and her boyfriend, Asher, seriously wounded and in the hospital for like, a year and a half or so. The funny thing was they lived in Alabama. What was he doing in Los Angeles? "I've never met him personally before now, but she's shown me so many pictures of him, I'd know him anywhere. After Abby had died, no one really saw him again, and now I know why! His parents moved here because of his illness."

"Illness?" So that's why Asher had seemed so strange. He had some kind of illness. "Do you know what kind?"

Star shook her head sadly. "No, I don't. But I do know it's something that really fudged up his brain. I also know his brother's autistic; I'm not sure why I remember this and not other things. In less they hadn't told me. Or maybe they had and I hadn't been" -

"Star! Starry, you're babbling," Izzy interrupted, smiling.

"Whoops," she giggled, as they reached Izzy's first period. Star's was just a few doors down. "If I remember anything more, I'll tell you at lunch."

Izzy nodded and opened the door, then slipped in and looked at the teacher, who was glaring at her. Mr. Roger hadn't it when people interrupted his boring literature lecture.

"Ms. Berkley, I assume you don't have a late pass?" he asked in his old, withered bitter voice.

"Nope," she said gleefully, popping the P. Mr. Roger glared at her.

"Detention with me after school," he barked, writing out a slid and handing it to her. She accepted it and turned around to go to her seat, when she noticed someone sitting in her window seat, staring sadly out the window. She knew who it was immediately by the heart chained up tattoo on his right arm and paused. "You'll be partnered with Mr. Foxx, Ms. Berkley."

Cautiously, Izzy continued towards the aisle seat beside his and sat down quietly. As soon as her chair moved from its place, Asher's head whipped around to stare straight at her with a blank expression. He blinked a few times, and then grimaced, before staring out the window and tapping his pen on the desk.

"Mr. Foxx, could you please recite a line of Romeo and Juliet? A powerful line, please." Mr. Roger smirked. The class was supposed to read the book, and since Asher had never been here before, didn't know that. But what he did next shocked him.

"These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder. Which as the kiss consume," Asher said absently, still staring out the window, his drumming on the desk getting faster.

"Thank you, Mr. Foxx," Mr. Roger said irritated, but Asher continued.

"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire: The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl; For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

"Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.

"Am I like such a fellow?

"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

"And what to?

"Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarreled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!"

Izzy smacked him on the arm, which caused him to stop spewing out the old time junk from the book. But she had to admit, she was impressed he could memorize that. He must have read the book. Asher looked away from the window and at Izzy, then at the teacher, and then around the stunned silent room of teenage kids who had no clue what he had said.

Asher shrugged. "I've read it a few times," he said in a monotone voice, looking once again, out the window.

Mr. Roger shut his gaping jaws and managed to stutter, "A-A plus, plus for Mr. Foxx. As I was saying..."

And the droning continued. Bored within the first few seconds, Izzy ripped out a sheet of paper and wrote on it.

*I know you have an illness...

She folded the paper into a tiny square, tapped him on the shoulder, and placed it neatly in front of him, before quickly looking away. She didn't want to see him when he read it. It almost felt like she was intruding his personal life on his first day.

The paper landed back in front of her, wide open but upside down she flipped it over and read his surprisingly neat, almost calligraphy writing.

*No need to fold the paper. And that's bon pour vous. Laissez moi l'enfer seul.

She was majorly confused with the writing and couldn't understand it. It was in another language, she realized with a shock. French, maybe. Izzy didn't known French.

She wrote back: *WTF!!?? I don't speak another language.

*Bilingual. And it says "Good for you. Leave me the hell alone."

*Fine, be that way.

Instead of getting the note back, there was a loud sheering sound coming right from beside her, followed by a few more. Izzy looked up to see Asher had the shreds of their note in his fist, and he dumped it in a pile on her desk, staring angrily at the table top. He must really not want anyone to mess with him, she thought, looking at the brutally ripped paper.

The paper never had a chance...