Chasing Blue

8. Shut Up, Ashley

The guys, me and Mary have planned to see a movie together today. I'm early because I'd another thing to do nearby.

With time to kill, I decide to have a cup of coffee first. When I'm near the counter, my feet come to a hasty stop. Ashley is standing there with two other girls.

She sees me.

I turn to leave when she calls me, "Dayna!"

I'm startled she knows my name. I know deep in my heart that my intuition is ringing a very loud alarm that's asking me to run, run away from her.

But I turn back and face her.

She comes near me and asks accusingly, "why? Why is it you?"

Puzzled by her out of the blue questioning, I ask, "what are you talking about?"

"Why did he chose you?"

The tube light switches on.

"You're mistaken, Ashley. I'm just his friend."

She snorts, "friend? do you know how many girls he has for friends?"

I don't answer.

"None. And there's you, always hanging around him, and he lets you. Why?"

"I told you, it's nothing like that," I tell her. I'm not sure how she even knows I hang out with Blue and the guys — and my name! — when this is only her second time seeing me.

"You're lying. You took him away from me. I saw the way he looked at you when you saw us at the front of his apartment building."

I'm thinking she's delusional now.

"He panicked seeing you there looking at us," she says.

"He was just surprised," I tell her. And who wouldn't panic when someone catches them in a compromising situation with their brother's fiancé?

As if she knew what I was thinking, she says, "No. He didn't look like he was afraid of being seen with his brother's fiancé, no, he was afraid of being seen with a girl, with another girl, in front of you."

"You're imagining things," I tell her, trying to put some sense back into her.

"I'm not. How did you do that? Tell me."

She takes a step forward and I take a step backward.

A part of me really wants to break into a run but another part of me is scared that she might chase me if I do that. Like how a predator chases its prey.

So I don't know which one is scarier: facing her like this? or her chasing me?

"Tell me, Dayna. How did you make him fall for you?"

In a blink of an eye she came closer and held my upper arms by her hands. She shakes me and yells, "Tell me, Dayna!"

I feel excruciating pain in my arms where her grip is. Honestly, at one point, when her eyes started to turn crazy, I thought I could take her if she gets physical with me. She and I are about the same build.

But now, her strength baffles me. It's as if her insanity made her body stronger. Panic sets in me.

"L-let me go, Ashley. It's nothing like that. I swear, there's nothing between us."

"Don't!" she shouts and shakes me again. "Don't lie. He loves you. Why? How did you make him love you?"

She pulls me closer to her. "Is it those green eyes? Huh? Did you get him with those green eyes?"