Simple Fantasies

Chapter 4- Hiding Pain

© mwuahaahaha

Author's note:

Have fun. I don't even know if my stories are nice. I don't really care either, if anyone reads this, I mean c'mon, I write for my own enjoyment. If there's no readers I don't mind at all. I shall just write~~~

Goodbye.

Chapter 4

  "Sorry, I can't make it for band. Uh, well, it's a legitamate reason, I think. Yes, I'm sorry. I understand," I mumbled as I paced around my room, phone to my ear.

  "I SWEAR it's not a date. C'mon Jonn, don't be ridiculous. Yeah, I will. Bye," I finally got to hang up.

  I flung myself onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling, pursing my lips. Curse you, Kurt Drakley. Jonn nagging was the last thing that I wanted to hear. (It still is)

  Bzzzzz. My phone vibrated beside me. A message from Ash.

Ash: u not coming?
Me: yeah. How'd you know?
Ash: Jonn's whining to me

  Right, real mature Jonn, real mature.

Ash: why?
Me: going to 'revise my fairytales' with Kurt
Ash: ah yes, the childhood sweetheart
Me: Ash.
Ash: KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR
Me: ASH.

  Ash is kinda like a big brother to me. Sure, he's playful and terribly stupid but he's cool. He listens and knows a lot about me. Of course there's still the incessant teasings and pulling of my leg. However, he is my best mate.

Ash: my baby Ria is growb up *sob sob*
Me: ASHHHHHHHH
Ash: *grown
Me: looks like little puny ASH hasn't learnt how to spell properly yet, aww poor thing!
Ash: OH YEAH? I CHALLENGE YOU TO THY SPELLING BEEEEE
Me: oh IT'S ON. Misspell or Mispell
Ash: MISPELL

  I burst into a guffaw. That idiot.

Me: WRONG you misspelt misspell!
Ash: What?! Spell Misisippi
Me: no. 1 You just spelt it out for me

        no. 2 You spelt it wrongly as well
Ash: damn, Ria.

  The rest of my Thursday night broke into a spelling competition with him.

###

  Ash and me have a lot in common. Together, we are the stupidest idiots in the world, according Deen. But she also did say, "You guys are the closest little shits in this world as well."

Even closer than Kurt and I are.

Ash is 16 (did I already mention?) and his parents were divorced as well. While he has his wild imagination intact, he doesn't have a pretty background. He hates his mother for leaving. His parents separated when he was 10. His mother comes back once a year on his birthday, and like my dad, brings back cool presents, trying to convince him that she still loves him. Then, she goes back to where she came from, never to be heard from for the rest of the year.

  Mr Henson was Ash's dad and I have to say, the greatest man I have ever met. I used to go over to Ash's with Deen when we were 10. Mr Henson would make french toast for lunch, most of the time soggy but he always managed to rescue the soaky oily bread with kitchen towels and lotsa whipped cream with blueberry jam. "There's nothing that whipped cream can't fix!" he would chuckle.

  After lunch would be music time, when Mr Henson would sometimes join us with his bass guitar and show us a few jazzy notes.

  Then we would take a nap in Ash's room, all three of us kids snuggled under a hammock with lots of cushions and pillows, into one big blanket, knit together by Ash's grandma. I remember liking to sleep between the other two, cos as we fell asleep, Mr Henson would strum a bit on his guitar from his room, and there was this crack at the bottom of the wall where you can perfect hear him singing as well. I always lay down just in front of it.

  Ash also always felt the need to protect me. He had this theory that girls who read a lot tend to have a weaker body, and he would always say, "I'll protect you from the evil shadow monsters!" Well, he used to.

  Mr Henson's passing was unexpected. "He chose to use the easy but painful way out- suicide," Mom told me when he passed away 4 years ago.

  How could such a cheerful man commit suicide? This question compelled me thoroughly.

  "It's hidain' pain, dear girl," Grandmama murmurred to me softly in her accent at the funeral. "It's what people do to make other think they're okay."

  Whatever the reason for his pain, I decided that he was being selfish. Leaving Ash behind to face the future himself is simply putting his son in more torture than he already has.

  And on that night of the cremation of Mr Henson's body, Ash didn't cry. He smiled politely at guests (I wonder if it's appropriate to call them guests when it's a funeral).

  He and Deen had come over to my house to stay for a few days, before his mother arrived to pick him up.

  As I lay beside him, Deen fast asleep, I softly whispered into his ear,"Were you really smiling?"

  And in the dark, as the crickets hum their tunes and the scent of rain evanescent, he hugged me tightly, the tears flowing down his face staining my pyjamas.