Unwanted (Editing)

3. A pang of jealousy

3. A pang of jealousy

I stood there gaping at the classroom a further five minutes, even after the door was closed and the hallway was deserted again. Unbelievable: how could he reject me like that? Not so long ago if I told him to jump off a cliff he would do so and now he wouldn't even ditch a class for me. His priorities have averted from me to Jessica and am I jealous? Hell yes.

It was the light tap on my right shoulder which alerted me to my senses and almost immediately I twirled around to view the tapper.

"Oh gosh! How long have you been standing there? How much did you see?" I narrowed my eyes at the figure that smirked at me with an amused face.

"Long enough to want to ask what is so fascinating about that grey door?" Ashley responded, the amused look planted to his face.

"Err, that doesn't matter. Shouldn't you be in class? It's in the other side of the school, what are you doing here?" I gestured towards the direction of the door leading outside to this building.

"You should be in English right now, what are you doing here?" Compared to my voice, his was overwhelmingly calm.

"Well, err I was just..." I began.

"Bunking?" He finished of for me.

"No, not at all." I attempted to sound confident but as I did so, I felt my cheeks burning up.

"You're such a bad liar!" Ashley chuckled, his face creasing up.

"Stop, you're making me feel like such an idiot." I moaned and he instantly composed himself.

"C'mon then, let's go." He placed one of his hands on my shoulder and led me towards the outside doors.

"Where are we going?"

"It's a nice day; if we're not going to class why stay cooped up inside."

We sauntered our way into the training cage where fairly short grass naturally wavered about by the wind, circled by the racing track. I followed Ashley the far end of the cage until we reached a rather large tree. Ashley sat down on the grass, leaning against the trunk of the tree, then gestured a spot on the ground next to him by patting the grass. I sat down and automatically placed my head on his shoulder through habit, and then he wrapped an arm around mine. A brown leaf gently landed on my lap and a forgotten flash of memory flooded back into mind.

"Don't you just love the autumn?' Ashley sighed.

"This place was where we first got together, I bet you spend a lot of time with Hannah here." I gazed at his face, his glasses slipped down his nose so I pushed them back up.

He smiled, revealing his shining, white even teeth, "nope, not once."

"How comes? This is your special place, well kind of, a lot of pupils spend their time training here but when we were together we'd always come here whenever there wasn't a teacher around." I swivelled onto my side so I could look at his face.

"This was more our special place, we had some good memories here wouldn't want to change that and besides she wouldn't like it. It's too...outdoorsy?" He winked.

"Yeah true: she's more the party type and doesn't like nature anyway." I agreed and swivelled back to my original position. My tummy then rumbled so loud that Ashley let out a chuckle.

"I got Kit Kat, want some?" He opened his backpack and took out the bar of chocolate.

"Oh my God! Of course, they're my favourite.' I clapped my hand with excitement.

"I know."

"You're the best." I forced a hug, where at first Ashley tensed with surprise then relaxed and returned the embrace. I placed small chunks of the chocolate into my mouth, allowing it to melt before crunching down on the biscuit part, enjoying every single bite of the chocolate.

"You look really cute when you're happy,' he commented.

"I'm always happy," I replied in a very high-pitched voice.

"Exactly." He winked.

"Ashley, you're extremely sweet. Hannah is lucky to have you." Ashley became silent suddenly and just stared at me. "What?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. I pinched his cheeks for no apparent reason with my chocolatey fingers. "Err, Taz! You've got chocolate all over my face."

"You're a great observer," I commented in sarcasm.  

We laid there in silence as he wiped his face, the sat in further silence until I broke it.

"Ashley?"

"Mhm?"

"You spend a lot of time with Jay right?"

"If you haven't noticed, you spend the most time with him out the all of us Taz." He rolled his light brown eyes at me.

"Just answer the question!" I playfully slapped his bicep.

"Fine! Yeah I do."

"Does he talk about me?"

"All the time, sometimes I think that boy is in love with you or something."  My heart jumped as the words rolled out of his tongue and I internally jumped in joy until he added, "but he's got Jessica, he told me that he loved her only yesterday but is looking for the right time or whatever."

"What? He loves Jessica?" I jerked up, disappointed.

"That's what he told me. Taz, you look like you're about to cry. Are you okay? You know, you shouldn't worry, he isn't gonna ditch his friends for her. You'll always be his best friend; he won't disregard you or anything." He struggled to comfort me having misunderstood my reaction.

"Yeah I guess your right." I dismissed the idea of informing him about my true feelings so I agreed with him instead, settling on the fact that it would be easier. "How comes he hasn't told me?"

"Don't know." He stood up, throwing his bag over his shoulder, then stretched his hand out to help me up. "C'mon, we've got class to get to. Don't think you'd want to miss PE. Jay's in your class, just ask him then."

The bell rang for next period just as Ashley pulled me up. Instead of proceeding to the changing rooms to get ready for PE, I advanced towards Jay's previous class. Ashley headed to the other end of the school so I was left alone walking towards Jay. Jay had just left his class with Jessica clinging onto his arm when I got to the door, so I was able to greet him at the door.

"Hey hot stuff how was class?" I greeted.

"Good. How was your bunking hour?" his face glowed at me as we strolled to the changing rooms together.

"Relaxing." I smiled, "but could've been better if you were there."

"Guys, am I invisible or something?" Jessica interrupted, swishing her hair out of her face.

"Course not babe." Jay answered and gave a peck on her cheek. We paused outside her classroom, "have fun in maths!"

I gawped at the both of them as they kissed goodbye before she entered her class and we both walked on. He placed his arm over my shoulders, instinctively, I leaned further onto his body.

"So have you been training fatty? I'm gonna beat your ass at the two lap warm up again, you owe me five pounds." I said while patting his stomach precisely when he tensed his belly so I was able to feel his packs.

"Hey! Do I feel fat to you? Those packs aren't fake you know. And why do I owe you five pounds?" He tried to defend himself.

"Because if I beat you your gonna give me the money but we all know I'll finish the laps before you anyway, might as well give me the money now," I teased.

"We'll see," he replied as we approached the changing rooms. "See ya' in a few." He detangled himself from me and pushed open the male changing rooms before disappearing into it. Excitedly, I walked into the girls changing rooms.