A Queen Strong in Herself

The One With The Realization

I'm starting a new thing. Every chapter is different, but the theme is the same- Ash and Dru conflict.

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She didn't know when it happened. She didn't know when his smile became the most beautiful thing she'd seen. She didn't know when his laugh became music to her ears, almost as if the angels themselves played it. She didn't know when she started looking for him. She didn't know when her day became sour because he wasn't around. She didn't know when she truly cared for him. She didn't know when, she didn't know how, and she didn't know why. She just knows that she was in love with him.

Some days she welcomed the love she felt for him, because she thought she would never understand what it was like to be in love. Some days she hated it, because she knew that it wasn't reciprocated. And why would it be? After all, she was the one who broke his heart. But that was never the intention.

Their relationship was new to her. Drusilla never spent much time socializing, let alone dating. Ash was so outgoing and he seemed like he was ready to show the world that he was dating Drusilla Blackthorn. But Drusilla was not ready to take on the world for herself. So before anything got too serious, she broke up with him. And she meant to do it kindly, she really did, but Ash wasn't making it easy. He tried to make solutions; he tried to change himself because he believed he was the problem. Dru never told him why she broke up with him. At least, she never told him the real reason. For a while after, he wasn't himself, Dru learned. She never noticed much about him during this time because it felt too weird. Emma was the one who had told her. Dru was so surprised; she didn't know that she had such a big impact on him.

All the unanswered questions and heartbreak and confusion changed Ash into the worst possible version of himself. He began to hate her, and he went to no lengths to hide that hatred. He started to berate her, picking on everything he noticed about her. Every single thing that Dru hated about herself, he spoke of. He made fun of. He exploited her fears to everyone as if she were just a big joke. He even went so far as to call her out personally on her size. Thankfully, no one had ever joined him because they knew the history and didn't have any problems with Dru themselves. Even though no one at school joined, no one stopped him either. They awkwardly laughed it off or ignored it altogether. Even his closest friends made no comments about Dru.

Now though, years later, Ash is much better to her. At first Dru was relieved, and a little suspicious, but embraced it nonetheless. Later, she started to resent it. Even though Ash was nicer, he distanced himself from her. He stepped around her, he sat the farthest he could from her, and he avoided her. At least before he was around her, talking to her, looking at her. This time, she barely saw him. There was a hole in her heart where Ash used to be, but she never realized it was so deep. She knew she missed him, they were alike in so many ways that it physically hurt her that she couldn't joke with him. He was a bigger part of her than she thought.

Ash is okay, to her knowledge. It's not as if she can go around asking about him because everyone gets suspicious and starts assuming that she likes him again. Dru hates when it happens because in her mind, that makes her a hypocrite. She broke up with him yet she wants him back? She knew it was stupid so she denied any feelings for him. Now, looking back, she realizes that maybe she was scared of admitting it to herself.

Ash on the other hand seems to be thriving without her. He's dated so many different girls, and with each of them he always showed them off. Not to her, but to everyone, because he was happy. Ash is always happy when he's in a relationship. He craved that romantic love so deeply because everyone else around him seemed to have it but him. Of course, no one saw that but Dru. That's why it never hurt her much whenever she saw him holding hands with a girl at the pier or when he came to school with hickeys all over his neck.

He's been on her mind the past few months. She didn't know what it was but she knew she missed him. She had always missed him but something was different. It wasn't until one day when they were left alone in a room that she finally realized what it was. It was a small room, where the brainstorming for the school newspaper occurred. They sat at the desk that centered the room, Dru sitting at the end and Ash sitting next to her on the side. By now he was comfortable making small talk with her, but they weren't friends. Dru was working on a paper, and every so often Ash waved in her face or covered her paper, teasing her and playing. Each time their eyes locked, she felt her heart flip inside her chest and she couldn't help but smile. Whenever she laid her hand on the table, she hoped that by some chance he would take it. The nerves in her fingers tingled endlessly and she wiggled them to try and relieve them. He laughed every once in a while, and she loved it when he laughed. When she couldn't take the waiting anymore, she sat up a bit straighter and looked at him. And then it hit her. She didn't just miss Ash Morgenstern. She longed for him. Somewhere along the way she fell for him. She was deeply and truly in love with him.