Sixty-One- Ash

A Chapter by Sophie

romance developement!!! yayyy! I can't spell! ^

Chapter 61

Ash

Not only was Ray practically cut in half, but Jasper's dad died too, killed by a Sine. He's had his tragedy. Mine is still yet to come, I don't feel like it was getting kicked out, that wasn't... tragic. And Airborne flying away after I kissed her wasn't tragic, just... mortifying.

Her dad is out helping with clean up of the town, and we sit in her living room. Silent.

“This is bullshit, you know that?” I finally burst. “Can we at least go back to being friends? If you're not going to love me like I love you-” Holy crap, did I say that?, “-then can we at least pretend it didn't happen? I get it, you don;t like me like that, but you could've told me.”

She's quiet for a minute, just breathing. “See, that's the thing. I do. And that's why I ran.” She says, then gets up and goes into her room. I fall back against the couch cushion.

I think I just made it even more awkward. Oh come on.

She does, what? Like me? Then why won't she-oh, never mind. Ugh. Girls are confusing. I lie down on the couch and fall asleep.

I wake up to a text from Bry.

Hey guys, we need to do the meditation thing again, tomorrow, dawn?

I reply. Dawn?!?

Trust me, it's a good idea.

Fine :(

I glance at the clock, five-thirty in the morning, just in time. The sun rises at 5:45. I get up and shuffle into the bathroom. Air's already in there brushing her hair.

“Good morning.” She says, leaving with the brush and closing the door behind her. I go to the bathroom, wash my hands, flush, and open the door to let her back in. I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and start brushing my teeth with her next to me, brushing her extremely long, wavy black hair, her large grey eyes inspecting it for anything wrong. God, she's beautiful. I force myself to look away as she catches me staring in the mirror. I spit and rinse, brush my hair with my fingers, then change my clothes in the living room.

I open the window of the living room and sit on the windowsill.

“Ready?” I ask. She nods coming up behind me. I push off, and turn on my feet engines, I'm carrying my shoes. She jumps off the window too and we fly to Bry's house. When we get there, the horizon is slightly pink. We get there at the same time as Jasper, he explains Nox went over to Ray's house to help her. The yoga mats are out again and we sit, not talking much, waiting for Nox and Ray. When they arrive, neither of them are invisible, though they're both clouds of whatever, because its neither day or night. Nox appears first, and gets some clothes from 'storage' to put on over his underpants, and some for Ray. She solidifies and he lowers her to a sitting position, then helps dress her, because she still can't do much with her hand and leg. We look away, trying to be inconspicuous about it.

“Okay, so basically the same thing as last time, picture your element engulfing you and then force it away.” Bry says, sitting down across from Jasper and taking his hands. I settle down on the yoga mat and Air follows. We awkwardly take each other's hands, and I look over to where Marina is swinging Wren's hands and laughing. Nox carefully holds Ray's hand while she struggles to keep it up of her own accord. Jasper squeezes Bry's fingers and when he thinks no one is looking, he kisses her hand.

And then there's Air and I, barely touching fingertips. But, of course, now we have to memorize each other's eyes. Those eyes that are like liquid silver swirling around, her dark lashes that need no make up because they're so thick. She's so beautiful. I could just...

And suddenly those beautiful eyes have gone wide, but mine close as my mouth connects with hers. Holy s**t, when did that happen? We're kissing now, actually kissing, and she's kissing back, her mouth moving with mine. Her fragile fingers knot themselves in my hair and my hands hold her face. Someone clears their throat. We break apart and Air looks... I don't know what she looks like, ashamed? Jasper and Bry are looking at us, done with meditation and Jasper is barely managing to contain his laughter.

“We will talk about that later.” Air hisses.

“I, uh, sleep-kiss?” I say, though I know full well I wasn't asleep.

“I know!” She whispers. Huh?

Suddenly a glowing catches my attention. I look over in the direction of Ray and Nox, and they're doing their yin yang thing again. Except, this time, the little dots of the other color are there, instead of just the halves of the circle. Is that because they're together? Then it fades and everyone is done. Well, except for us... sort of. I can't remember if I did what I was supposed to or not, all that consumes my mind is the kiss.

“So, um, sorry about that.” I say as we take off.

“I kissed back, its not all your fault.”

“But what did you mean by 'I know'?” I ask.

“Um, during the fireworks wasn't our first kiss. Well, sort of. Remember when we fell asleep on the couch together? Well I woke up and you trapped me in your sleep, and I manged to turn myself around trying to get out and your face kind of just collided with mine. There was no, like, movement or anything, just kind of...” She claps her hands together.

“Seriously? I don't remember that.”

“You were completely unconscious, you didn't wake up when I fell off the couch.” She explains. We're silent again.

“Air, what did you mean yesterday? 'But I do'?”

“Ash, I do like you. Like, a lot. Why else would I have kissed back just now? But... I can't. I just can't. If I like you, and say it were to last and we were to get married or something, presuming we don't die, you'd end up like my dad. Alone and heartbroken because his wife screwed up both their lives. And that really just can't happen. I don't want to screw up your life.” She says, the words tumbling out in a rush.

“I'm pretty sure my life is already screwed up, look at me. There's fire streaming out of my feet. If you don't call that screwed up, what is?”

“It's screwed up when your pregnant mother goes on a plane when she's pregnant to go get an abortion and her next drug fix but instead has you on the plane then dies. That's what I call screwy.” She says, her voice cracking. We've reached her house and she flies in the window and slams her door.

Yet again, more awkward.

Why, Ash, why?

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