The Fault in Our Tumblr

Chapter Seven

It took me a moment to respond, slightly taken aback by his manner of greeting and his overly infectious smiley nature. But I regrouped myself just enough to get out a hello. "Yes, Henry Langston. And you must be the legendary Ashton Catsup. Correct?"

"Correct, Sir Langston." Ashton smiled at me before hopping over the back of the bench and taking a seat beside me. He extended a hand in a cordial shake and I met him in the middle. "Nice to finally meet you face-to-face." He said, still smiling.

I smiled softly and nodded. "Touche." I slipped my hand out of his and folded both of my hands together on my lap.

"Are you curious?" He asked, tilting his head to one side as he stared at me through dark, hazel eyes. They sparkled with mischief as he stared at me, waiting for my reply as patiently as was humanly possible.

"Am I curious about what?" I asked, looking up from my hands for just a moment to meet his eyes.

He blinked somewhat harder than I thought was normal before speaking. "Are you curious why I asked you here?"

"I figured it was for face-to-face confrontation or something. Or, perhaps, to persuade me, as you were so set on doing." I suggested, leaning back a bit on the park bench.

"Ah! Smart little Henry, very smart. But there is more!" He congratulated me before turning more to face me and rubbing his hand against ear in a kind of nervous tic fashion. "I brought you here to tell you that I want to go to the Rockies with you and meet Patrice Humphrey. But you see, it would have been odd to just ask you that having not seen you face-to-face." He continued before again moving his hand in a nervous tic kind of way to scratch his jaw.

Slowly, I nodded. "Yeah...I suppose we established the weirdness of that over the phone."

He nodded kind of twitchy like but I took it as he was agreeing with me. "Correct, correct! So, I mean basically we have very similar interests, you've read my books and I've read yours. We equally enjoy both sets, so why don't we just go see Patrice? We have now met in public, why would it be weird?" He tilted his head at me, as if demanding an answer.

"Ashton, listen, you seem like a cool guy and all, but this is just crazy stupid! We can't just go fly to the Rockies after just basically meeting and exchanging a few hellos and then expect our parents to be okay with it! For heaven's sake I met you on Tumblr like four weeks ago!" I tried to explain my point, finding this wish/dream to be exaggerated and heavily complicated on more levels than what Ashton saw.

His head twitched to the one side and he frowned slightly, as he sat back on the bench and stared out over the playground set. "I see. Well, I thought maybe...maybe if I could persuade you...."

"Enough persuading! This is ridiculous and you know it. Why are you so keen on going anyway?" I asked in an exasperated tone, moving to the edge of the bench and crossing my arms to make some sort of statement or point.

Ashton looked up at me, his hazel eyes hinting sadness. "I thought...well, I'll be frank with you Henry, I don't make friends very easily." He replied softly, his hand going to flick at his ear again. "I'm...different from most people and that kind of freaks some people out. I just thought...you seemed really cool and stuff. So I thought maybe we could have a connection or something, like be good friends. It was kind of a long shot. I get overly zealous about things too quickly I guess. Get that from my dad." He sighed, his hand flicking at his ear once more.

I was starting to wonder -- all those Facebook messages, these tics, this mysterious friendship difficulties. What did it all mean? I should have been more courteous but the words flew out of my mouth before I had time to retract them. "Is there something wrong with you?"