Catching Fireflies

Two

"Cris, please," Ashley pleaded as he stopped me in the hallway, "talk to me."

I was suggested that after everything that had unfolded right after basketball season ended, I would avoid Ashley, and cut him off entirely. I had to cut corners and take shortcuts in order to avoid crossing paths with him. Somedays I wasn't that lucky, and would end up bumping into him in the halls. When I did, he didn't hesitate to take his chance to talk to me. Sometimes he would try to make small talk, or throw out a joke or two. I would always ignore him, and continue to keep walking.

But that day it seemed he caught on to what I was doing.

He had grabbed my arm as gently as he could to stop me in the halls. Feeling his skin against my arm sent chills down my spine and enabled an old feeling to arise in my stomach.

"Please let go of me," I murmured, and tried to take my arm back from his grasp, but he tightened his grip.

"What did I do?" Seeing the look on his face was unbearable, right there I almost cracked and went against everything my friends told me to do. I wanted so terribly to tell him, yell at him, confront him, or to just ask him why or what happened that night. I wanted to know what his reasons were to go against the morals he told me he had.

But in the back of my mind my friends were there telling me that I was strong, and that his pleadings wouldn't break down the walls I'd spent many days building.

"Please let go of me." I said, and he let go.

I went home and cried that night.

He never tried stopping me again after that. If I saw him in the halls he would simply glance, and continue on his way.

Each time it happened, it would hurt. I eventually got numb to it. So the relationship between us that was once so bright and fun, quickly darkened and wilted until it didn't exist anymore.

That went on for the rest of junior year.

That summer I picked up a part-time job as a waitress at a small diner. Being as small as a town as we were, I saw a lot of people that I knew from school and other locals I would sometimes see while running errands for mom.

And that also meant seeing the boys basketball team meet up for lunch every once in a while. That meant seeing Ashley more often than I would have liked. With him already being my neighbor, it was already a lot.

I would serve them like I would normally do for any customer, but I would avoid eye contact with Ashley and only spoke to him when getting his order which was always the same. I eventually stopped asking for it, and just wrote it down as I went along.

Luckily, I had Isaac who was the captain of the team there to keep me comfortable anytime they were there. If Ashley needed something, Isaac would ask for him.

Having him there as a friend who knew what had happened was relieving and helped me not to worry as much. But then there were days where Ashley came by himself and always sat at one of my tables.

Those visits were always different. I would assume that he would order the same thing as he normally would with the boys, but when he was by himself, he always ordered something different.

I could have asked my coworker Dakota to take the table for me, but for some reason I didn't. Anytime I would finish writing down his order, he would smile. That smile, no matter how many times he showed it, would break off tiny little pieces of me.

It was a shame that this was what became of us.

Then there we were, standing together in the front office of the school. The secretary was giving us the run down of what was expected during this period for the entirety of the school year. I was partially listening, since I was too busy focused on how close I was to Ashley, and how one single shift to the left would cause me to brush against his arm.

I shouldn't have wanted to be that close, but I secretly did regardless of what my friends had told me.

Once the secretary finished her long list of expectations, she announced that she didn't have anything for us to do that day, so Ashley took a seat on the couch that sat against the wall, and I took the small chair that sat in the corner of the room. The secretary left for a few minutes, and that left just me and Ashley alone together.

I didn't know if Ashley could feel the awkwardness in the air, but I did and it left me uneasy. I was hesitant to move my body because the slightest of movement created the loudest sounds. Eventually I told myself screw it and moved around as much as I liked to make myself comfortable.

I half expected Ashley to try and make conversation, but he was so enthralled on his phone that he didn't seem to care that I was in the room whatsoever. So I didn't care either. I took out my sketchbook from my bag along with a pencil and sketched away to pass the time.

Until finally,

"How has life been for you?" Ashley slid his phone into his pocket and started bouncing his leg on the floor.

I didn't think about the fact that I shouldn't be talking to him, but words spilled off of my tongue before I could give it a second thought and just like that, we were back to having our usual carefree conversations that we once had.

"Life has been an ass." And that was how it started. The slow transition of discovering ourselves, and other peoples point of views.

That small, tiny little conversation starter, started a downward spiral of what was supposed to be the best last year of high school.