I had to control myself and try not to look over to him but he had a force that kept dragging me in.
“Hey, I’m Andy.” Even though he whispered, I could still hear his deep raspy voice.
“I-I’m Ashley.” I whispered in return.
The lesson continued in silence, Mrs Leigh droned on about moral issues; suicide and abortion just to name a few. As Mrs was wrapping up the lesson when the buzzer sounded, 4th period was about to begin.
“Hang on a minute; I want you guys to read pages 120-130 for homework by Monday. Goodbye!” She raised her voice slightly to overcome the rustling of people packing up their stuff.
I was finishing another of my batman drawings when Andy stood up and approached my desk.
“Hey that is really cool! You’re into Batman too?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Yeah, he is one of my favourite superheroes.”
“I want a batman tattoo when I’m older.” It began to get awkward so he started to talk again. “Ashley, will you show me to my next class?”
He seemed like an innocent child when he asked “Yeah sure. I’ve got math now. What do you have?”
“Math, Mr George?”
“You’re in the same class as me!” I said, maybe too excited.
We walked down the hall and straight towards the math corridor and again I was faced with Adam and his friends.
‘How do I handle this without making a fool out of myself in front of Andy?”
Andy’s POV
As we walked down the hall, we encountered a problem. By the looks of it, it may be bullies, Ashley’s bullies. I saw him start to shake.
“Hey faggot, who’s this? Your boyfriend?” Adam teased.
“No, he’s a friend. I’m showing him around, he’s new.” Ashley looked down to the floor.
“Hey, new boy, how do you fancy hanging around with us?” Mike questioned me.
“Umm…no thanks, I’m happy here with Ashley.” I smiled.
“Why? He is a freak and we could make you popular.” Adam explained.
Ashley’s eyes started to water. “He’s not a freak, he is cool. Can you leave?” I asked while I dragged Ashley away.
Once we were past them I turned to Ashley, “Are you okay?” I wiped a tear that trickled down his face. He smiled at me, it was very comforting.
“Yeah I’m fine, it happens all the time.” He told me,
“Why? You are cool, funny, brave and cute and argg…it makes me so frustrated that these jerks pick on the nice people. Like what did you ever do? Oh, I should go back there and give to him what he deserves!” I got worked up over this issue.
Ashley’s POV
‘Did Andy just call me cute? Please say he did, he is so adorable!”
I calmed him down and led him to math.
-1 hour later-
The hour of math dragged by as we learned about circle theorems, yet again, I question all the time, ‘where are we going to use this?
-1 hour 40 minutes later-
The final buzzer sounded; the end of school. I saw Andy standing by the stairs of the main entrance to the school.
“Hey Andy, what’s up!”
“Ashley! Hey!” He smiled and waved to me. “Oh, I’m just trying to figure out my way home by foot, my mom drove me here this morning but didn’t explain how to get home.”
“Where do you live?”
“East Main Street.”
He was delighted “Really! Seriously, no way! I live on East Main Street.”
“No way!”
“I’ll walk you home!” I tried to be comforting and he did so back.
