Asher
School has been long these past three days. She hasn’t showed up once, and I wonder how much the whole thing affected her. She acts strong, but she isn’t, and I see that now.
I have no clue what it was that set her off, but I blame myself. The plate of food in front of me is all I am focused on, even though I don’t want to eat. The guys are quiet today as they wonder what is wrong with me, but they can’t possibly understand the pain. It’s like losing her all over again.
“Mate, where are you up in that big head?” Brady asks with a concerned look in his eyes.
“You are brooding.” Adam comments, agreeing with Brady. From the looks on their faces Chandler and Max are worried too.
I sigh and rub my eyes with my fingers. They ache terribly and I wish I could just scoop them out of my skull. I know what this feels like, it feels like depression. I have a lack of appetite so I’m not going to eat even though I know I should. My family looks at me like I’m either insane or sick. They don’t know the feeling of being the reason you lost someone you love.
“Asher, how about you eat.” Max prods, gently pushing his plate of macaroni towards me as he takes my potatoes “Look, here is some of your favorite pasta, all yours to scarf up bud. My mom made it for you”
I don’t even want to look at the food “No thanks,”
“We have soccer practice this afternoon. Want to skip the rest of our classes to hang at the field?” Adam suggests the only idea I even remotely want to do right now.”
“Yes,” I sigh, standing up from the table “let’s go.”
It doesn’t take too long but we have some difficulty slipping by the office lady’s harsh watch over the front door. The other doors are rigged with alarms and we have already experienced that horror once and now we are smarter about our escape plans.
Max goes to the woman’s desk to distract her for the rest of us and to get himself out legally. While we slip under her radar I hear Max’s voice dripping with charm about how he forgot his science project in the car. The lady has always had a soft spot for Max, don’t ask me why but in the long run she lets him out so he can retrieve the ‘assignment’.
We are all waiting just behind the door for Max to meet up with us. He comes out with a wild smile on his face and Adam starts laughing while he runs towards the fields. We all follow suit and scream loudly, knowing that we might get caught, but having fun because none of us really care.
Once we get to the large, empty fields I drop kick the ball onto the field and we start a fun little scrimmage. The teams are Me and Adam against Brady, Chandler, and Max. In pursuit of the win I dribble the ball down the field, occasionally passing it to Adam when one of the other three start to get too close.
Adam and I score one goal after another until the losers surrender at a score of 12:2, and we have won. After the small game we work on some of the drills that coach told us to oil up on so we aren’t rusty for the next game. On a spurt of adrenaline I decide I am going to try to do the flip-kick.
I charge at the ball sitting in front of me and when I get close enough I kick it up into the air and then propel my body into a spinning motion so I flip around and land on my feet again. It helps that when Mom was around she forced me to go to tumbling so I could learn better agility since my brother turned out to be a complete dunce with no balance. It was fun at first but I got tired of it quickly, especially when the guys at school started making fun of me to my face.
When I retrieve the ball and kick it to Max he kicks it down the field but steps on the side of the ball to keep it in front of him as he spins around and is going down towards me again. Using technique, Chandler steals the ball from Max and then kicks it so hard it gets almost even to Brady’s head. Brady, being the idiot that he is, doesn’t expect the blow but instead of backing up he attacks the ball with his head so that it comes directly to Adam’s feet.
Brady stumbles around and falls to the ground in a fit of laughter.
“That was awesome!” He cheers as he holds his sore head in his gloved hands
“You okay?” I call towards him but he quickly shakes his head yes.
The rest of our private practice and whole team practice goes smoothly and finally around eight I am walking towards my house. It doesn’t take me long to decide but I find myself moving past my house and towards the direction of Her’s.
I get there within five minutes and find myself awkwardly standing in front of the front door, trying to decide what to do next. It takes me a little bit to build up my courage but pretty soon I am knocking on the door with my knuckles. I hear someone moving around the house and it isn’t long before I am standing face to face with Ali. Her cheeks are pale with many mixed emotions as she stands watching me. Instantaneously she slams the door in my face but no way did I come here just to be shut down by the fact she wanted to shut the door in my face instead of face me and talk it out.
“Alice, please just listen. I need to talk to you. I am really sorry for the other night at the fair.”
I apologize, even though I’m not so sure what I am apologizing for exactly but I do know that whatever is making her sad is my fault.
The door creaks back open, revealing her face. Now I get a better look and I can see that she looks very sick. “Really?” She whispers, barely audible.
“Yes,” I reply and her lifeless gray eyes have a spark of their old emotion in them again.
Her hair is stringy and plastered to her head with greasy grossness. She isn’t wearing any makeup so her uneven skin tone that is covered in oil is what shows through right now.
“I’m nasty,” She states like she has just realized it
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter. Can you just tell me why you were sad? Or why you are currently sad? I just need to know.” I push
“No, Asher.”
“Please just tell me! Why can’t you just tell me? I have secrets too! I will tell you them because that is what friends do for each other. Why won’t you tell me?” I yell at her
“You don’t understand! No one understands. I can’t believe I even trusted someone as arrogant and stupid as you. Just go away Asher I don’t want you here anymore and I certainly don’t want you talking to me or coming near my house again.” She retorts emotionless at me. She closes the door in my face.
I was starting to feel a little better but this setback put me into the pile of depressed guy teenagers. The walk back to my house is slow and boring. I just have to let the pain overwhelm me because there is nothing else right now. It’s just a repeat of the past.
