Born Immortal

Born Immortal Chapter 13

Astyr was waiting downstairs the next morning at seven when Randy pulled up on his motorcycle. She was wearing black jeans with black ankle boots and had a jacket on over her frilly sky-blue blouse, and she added Randy's spare black helmet to this ensemble before climbing on behind him with her bag slung over one shoulder. He drove slowly once again while they were on the dirt road and sped up quickly once they reached the pavement. Astyr was coming to enjoy the feeling of riding on his bike and was a little disappointed that they reached the school so fast.

He pulled up to the curb beside the student parking lot to let her off and dozens of eyes turned in their direction. Astyr pulled off the helmet and thanked him for the ride as he strapped the helmet down. "Maybe you can come over tonight?" Astyr kind of asked him. But he had to refuse saying that he was busy on weekday evenings. "But I'll definitely pick you up tomorrow, if it's okay."

"It's definitely ok, Randy. I really enjoyed this."

"Good," Randy said, "Because I like having you on my bike with me."

He said goodbye and pulled away and Astyr headed to the courtyard to meet her friends in the gazebo. Before she got across the street, however, she felt someone pull on her arm.

"Who was that and what were you doing on that motorcycle?" She looked up to find Hakon scowling down at her, with his hand holding her arm in a vice-like grip.

She jerked her arm to get him to let go and said, "Good morning to you, too, Hakon. Yes, I had a great weekend, how about you? And how's Gunnar."

Hakon sighed in frustration. "I'm sorry to be so gruff, Astyr, but you can't just ride around with a stranger on a motorcycle and not expect me to be concerned. And Gunnar is fine for now, thanks for asking."

"I'm glad Gunnar's okay; maybe you can take me to see him later." Astyr said. "But Randy isn't a stranger. He's my date for Homecoming and he lives right down the road. If Grima says it's alright, I don't think you have any room to make objections."

They were getting close to the gazebo but Hakon seemed to be taking smaller and smaller steps. "I still don't know why you had to agree to go with him." Hakon said fiercely. "You know I would have taken you if you had told me you wanted to go."

Astyr just rolled her eyes at that and said to him, "Maybe the point is that he did ask." Then she walked off to catch up with Jenny and Ginny to go to class.

Later at lunch she was sitting at the usual table answering questions about her mysterious biker friend when Hakon came and sat down between Astyr and Gwen. He didn't say anything to anyone and just waited patiently for Astyr to finish telling the rest of the cheer squad about their trip to the beach the previous day. When she was done, he turned to Gwen and said, "Gwen, I need a date to homecoming. Are you going with someone else or would you like to go with me?"

Gwen lit up and assured Hakon that she would love to go with him. He got up and left the table before she could say anything else and the girls all started talking at once to congratulate Gwen on getting him to ask her out. Astyr grabbed her bag and left since she knew that Hakon's asking her out had nothing to do with Gwen and she didn't want to have to lie and say that she was happy for her.

She kept to herself all through the rest of her classes and even during practice after school. She wasn't jealous; she and Hakon weren't going out, after all. And Astyr was seeing Randy. She liked Randy, he was warm and gorgeous and he understood that Astyr had a lot of sadness in her life. He was easy to talk to and she felt good when she was with him. No, she told herself, she really wasn't jealous. Hakon was nothing to her but a friend, or the older brother of her friend, really. There were no feelings between them, at all. But there were no feelings between Hakon and Gwen either. At least, not on Hakon's side, Astyr knew. Maybe that's what was bothering her so much. She knew that Hakon had nothing but contempt for Gwen; she was nothing but a human, after all. But he had asked her out anyway and Astyr didn't like that side of him that would use someone so coldly.