Dissipation Of Kassidy

Chapter forty eight: You Kept This From Me

Taking the speed limit more as a flexible guidance than a law that should be followed, we made it to the entrance of the Maple Oak Forest far faster than we should have. Not speeding so much that I'd get pulled over. Ashford remained nervous in the passenger seat. Driving through the green gates, I pulled up by the entrance to the footpath. Putting the car in neutral, pushing down the handbrake and ramming the car keys into my inside pocket. Just as I pried open the door, Ash leant over me, pulling it shut.

"What are you doing?" I cried.

He lowered his head, nauseous from my impeccable driving, "Delancey, please calm yourself down. You are not okay."

"Gee, thanks for telling me how I feel!" I hopped out of the car, going around to the boot with my eyes to the ground as the rain slashed against me.

Scurrying round to meet me, he rested his hand against it the boot. Practically forcing me to meet his eye. Piqued by his ignorance, "I'm freezing here Ash, let me see if her coat in the boot"

Jumping back as I knocked against him, the water ran across his forehead and down to his eyes, washing it back as he pushed the poofy hair back, it getting soaked in the downpour before he was able to put the rain mac hood up over himself. Upon opening the back of her car, I noticed that she had left one of her coats, thankfully. I took it from the boot and tossed it on as fast as I could. It was a soft off-brown fleece lined thing with a thin waterproof material on the outside, zipping it up, my hands threw back to the neck. About to flip up the hood, "Oh drat," I erupted, "This is probably the only coat she has without a hood"

Pushing as much of his hair into the thin hood as could, his bulky sausage fingers began to show damage of the cold. Rain still collecting on his glasses, "She broke her umbrella not long back," he told me, raising his voice in an aggressive manner, "the spare one she kept in her car is now in her school bag so I guess this is as good as we're going to get if you still insist on going right now in the pouring rain rather than waiting for it to clear up like normal people would!"

"Don't snap at me Ashford!"

"What else am I supposed to do when you won't listen to me?" He threw his hands up almost as if I had insulted him with the way that I had reacted.

Knowing that I wasn't acting rationally, "Look I'm sorry, just we're close. I know that we are"

"That's good then right?"

As the rain lowered back down to a light pattern, I found my escalated heart rate had lowered to a resting pace for the first time since Dray entered the house. I smiled, "We're going to find her Ash"

He grinned, closing the wide gap between us, "Then we get our friend back"

Giggling lightly, searching my mind for a reason behind his wording, "I get to have my best friend back, you get to have your girlfriend back. It's all I could ever dream of."

He looked down briefly, the smile sliding from his face, "Well not quite. When kassidy is back, I need to have a serious conversation with her"

"What?" I scoffed thinking it was just some poor joke.

"Don't act as if it's not obvious D"

"What's obvious?"

"How I really feel, how i've always felt? The song that I wrote, it was never for kassidy like I told you. Saying your name wasn't an accident, I just knew how you'd react so I lied"

Unconvinced, I bit down on my lip. Shaking my head, "But it's a song about how you love her isn't it?"

His voice was trembling, like he had been holding back for a very long time, "It's about having always loved someone. I loved kassidy and I still do but my feelings for you never went away no matter how much I tried to get rid of them. How can you stand in front of me and deny having any idea that-"