What's Meant To Be (2 page)

“Karli, you’re going to get me in trouble. We can talk about it after we get out of here, now shhh!”

Karli looks annoyed and within two seconds her hand is up in the air flapping back and forth.“Mr. Preston! Mr. Preston!” Karli’s partially jumping out of her seat. I look on, mortified at her actions as she continues to speak. “I feel sick, really sick, like I might throw up all over at any moment!”

The boy sitting in front of her slides his chair a few inches away from Karli.

Mr. Preston gets a grossed out expression on his face before he looks at the clock. “We only have a few minutes left before the bell rings.”

“I wont make it!” Karli clutches her stomach for emphasis. “I think it might be cramps!”

Mr. Preston waves his hands as if to say he doesn’t want to hear anymore and tells Karli to go to the nurse and quickly.

“I might not make it on my own! What if I pass out on the way there and no one sees me on the ground, and I end up getting kicked and I need help? You!”

She declares loudly, looking right at me. “What’s your name? Can you come with me? Please??”

I look at Mr. Preston waiting for him to jump in, to tell Karli she’s ridiculous, that he knows the two of us are friends. To knock it off and either go or stay.

To my utter shock Mr. Preston nods, looks at me, and says “You’d better take her, make sure she gets down there safely.” He says it more in a way like he doesn’t trust Karli to be out there alone, not that he actually believes she needs assistance to go to the nurse’s office.

Once we’re out in the hall and the door is safely closed behind us, I swing my body around and look Karli in the face. “What are you thinking?” I demand, still shocked at what she just got away with.

“I’m thinking,” Karli says smugly, “that I’m saving your life.”

“How could you possibly do that?”

“Because,” she says matter of factly. “We’re going to find Austin and tell him exactly what we think of him.”

Then before I can say anything she turns and starts walking down the hall.

Chapter 3

I stumble as I run after Karli as fast as I possibly can. “Whoa, whoa slow down there, crazy. You left your mind somewhere back there.”

“Haha very funny. I mean it, Ashley. You have to find out what his deal is.

How is this situation fair to you?” Karli asks, still walking down the hall.

I run to get a few steps ahead of her, then place my body in front of her, forcing her to come to a stop in the middle of the hall. “Karli, you need to stop. I’ll talk to him. I will. But I don’t think ambushing him in the middle of his first period class is the right way to go.” I’m talking slowly now, trying to make her understand exactly where I’m coming from.

She rolls her eyes and looks at me. “We aren’t going to ambush him in his first period class.”

I let out a sigh of relief and take a step back from her.

“We’re going to his second period class, we’ll never make it to his first period before the bell rings.” She starts walking down the hall again.

“His second period?” I ask in a small voice, still trying to keep up with her.

“Yes!” She’s talking so loudly that her voice is echoing through the hallway now. “Then we wait for him outside and when he least expects it, BOOM!” She claps her hands for emphasis. “We pounce on him!”

“KARLI!” I shout, hoping to snap her out of her crazy rant. “He’s a boy, not a mouse. And we’re girls, not cats. How do you even know where his second period class is?”

“Well…” She looks away. “I might have glanced at his schedule while I was in guidance this morning.”

“You didn’t! Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get in for that?”

Karli rolls her eyes. “Ashley, please. I mean, it was two seconds really, and I only saw his first and second period. First period English, second period gym…and maybe a few others but I mean, really, that shit is practically public knowledge.”

“Second period gym?” I cut her off.

Karli sighs. “Yes Ash, gym, in the west gym. Which is so gross, I mean he’s totally gonna be all sweaty the rest of the day.”

“I have second period gym,” I tell her softly.

This stops Karli dead in her tracks. “You do?”

“Yeah,” I say, looking down. Suddenly I feel a little lightheaded.

“Well” she says, “this changes everything. Good! Now you have the chance to see what his deal is without it looking like we’re stalking him.”

“Hey!” I say. “You made it out like it would seem totally normal.”

Karli laughs. “Don’t be silly, it could have totally fucked everything up!

Haha!”

But I think she sees the look on my face, then because her tone softens.

“Hey, just promise me you’ll stick up for yourself okay?”

I smile. “I promise.”

She nods. “Good. You’re too good of a person to let people walk all over you, Ash.”

Then the bell rings and her face is lost in the string of people coming out of nearby classrooms. And I’m alone with nothing left to do but go to second period.

********

I know no one in my second period gym class, and when I say no one, I do mean no one. The gym is covered with kids scrambling around, climbing on the bleachers, looking for their friends. They’re hugging, and hand clapping, and even some fist pumping. And in the mist of all this, I do not see one face I am comfortable enough to approach.

I’m scanning the crowd, searching for someone, anyone to talk to when I spot him. Austin. He’s standing in the middle of the gym looking just as lost as I feel. This is it, I think. The perfect time. I’m just going to march right up to him and ask him why he avoided me this morning. Ask him why he hasn’t talked to me since we got back from Florida.

I breathe in a few times, then gather up all the courage I have left and start to walk over to him. He’s busy looking around, taking in his surroundings, but his eyes land on mine. And they don’t leave me until I’m right next to him.

Neither one of us says anything for a moment, but it’s me who speaks first.

“Hey,” I say quickly.

“Hi,” he responds. “How, uh, how have you been?”

He’s nervous. I can tell by the way he’s stumbling over his words a little, but he shouldn’t be. It’s me.

“Good, really good.” It’s a lie, I mean, I’ve been good but not like amazing or anything. Just like average.

“Yeah, me too. Busy, really really busy.” He runs his hand through his dark hair and looks down, almost like his eyes can’t meet mine.

“Yeah? Is that why I haven’t heard from you?” I ask him. I figure there’s no point in holding anything back, so I add, “I saw you this morning, and I thought you saw me, but maybe you didn’t.”

“No,” Austin says and for the first time he’s looking at me the way he did over the summer. “Ashley, I saw you.”

“Then what happened?” I ask him now, and my eyes are pleading with him.

Asking him to just stop being weird, and to go back to how we used to be over the summer. When we were best friends and it was so simple and not complicated. He opens his mouth but before he can say anything he’s knocked forward by what seems to be a large object someone has thrown on his back. It takes me a second to realize it’s a girl, not an object. A girl with long dark brown hair and a dress much too short to be jumping on anyone like that.

Once she gets off his back and wraps her tiny arms around his waist, I realize it’s Melissa Petron. Melissa Petron, who’s so tiny she makes me look like a giant. Melissa Petron who’s on the varsity cheerleading squad and almost too perfect to handle. Melissa Petron who has hated me ever since seventh grade when I got student of the month over her.

“Oh,” she says, looking me up and down. “Were you, um, in the middle of something?”

I want to say that yes, actually we are in the middle of something here, like trying to figure out why someone I thought was my best friend wont talk to me.

Austin, however, seems to be at a loss for words. And after what seems like hours, I realize he isn’t going to say anything.

“No,” I say, “we weren’t.” And then I turn on my heel and start to stomp away.

“Ashley.” Austin’s voice echoes through the gym above all the talking and so I hear him loud and clear, but when I turn around to meet his gaze, Melissa’s rolling her eyes and pulling him by the hand after her, and he’s letting her.

I stomp up the bleachers and take a seat at the very top. Since it’s pretty clear I’m not going to find anyone that I know in here, I figure it’s better to be away from everyone so I can be miserable alone.

I feel angry, very angry. Angry at Melissa and her stupid black dress.

Angry at myself for not telling her to go away. But mostly I’m angry at Austin.

Austin for not saying one word to me that made it seem like he cared even a little bit about our friendship.

All the things we told one another over the summer, all the things we did together, and it’s that easy for him to pretend it never happened. Like we were never even friends at all. Well fine, if that’s how he feels, then screw him. Austin who? Never even heard of him. La la la, don’t need anyone but myself.

Our gym teacher, Mr. White, who I had last year and is actually really nice, calls the gym to order and everyone becomes quiet as he starts to call off names for attendance. I concentrate hard on listening to every name he says, praying that I’ll recognize a name or a face that I somehow missed in the crowd. I lean forward a little bit and catch a glimpse of Melissa and Austin sitting together a few rows away from me. I roll my eyes and look away. Good thing I don’t care about him at all or anything or I might be upset right now. La.

Mr. White spends the rest of the period going over all the basics (proper dress code, make up classes, sick days, blah blah blah). Then he has the boys come down and fill out a little blue card for him to keep on file and gives them a bunch of forms to bring home for their parents.

After the boys are done and go back up to their seats, the girls start to file down, one by one. There’s about thirty of us, and we’re handed clipboards and pencils with the same blue forms on them. I find a spot on the far wall and start to fill out my form so I can go back to my seat.

I’m just starting to print my name when Melissa smacks her clipboard down hard on the wall next to me, much too close for comfort. I roll my eyes but I’m determined to not let her get to me so I go back to concentrating on my form.

Address: 156 Sheldon Lane

Height: 5’6”

Weight: 135

Melissa snickers loudly next to me. “One thirty-five? Yeah, right.”

I move my clipboard further away from her give her a nasty look. “I am actually, thank you very much.”

Melissa looks me up and down like she’s honestly considering this, then shakes her head. “No way. I mean your legs alone are probably like seventy pounds.”

“What’s your problem, Melissa?” I snap.

Melissa laughs, like the thought of me starting to get angry is funny to her.

“I don’t have a problem. It’s just you’re supposed to be as honest as possible on these forms, and you, well, you’re lying. Why are you a liar, Ashley?”

The way she spits it at me is so conniving and so annoying that the words are out of my mouth before I even realize what I’m saying. “Why are you such a bitch, Melissa?”

Her shove is hard and my back contacts with the wall quickly , so quick that it takes me a second to realize she just pushed me. Before I have a chance to react, Mr. White is between us and I can tell by the look on his face that he is not happy.

“You two, office, now.”

Chapter 4

The chairs in the lobby of the office are about as comfortable as a lock. I wonder if it’s some type of indirect punishment for being in there to begin with, since the people who are in the principal’s office are usually in trouble for doing something wrong. Like ha-ha I’ll teach you, you felt like acting out, well now you can sit in these hard chairs while you wait to get yelled at and punished. Well, the joke’s on them because someone will probably end up getting back problems from these chairs. Maybe the school will even get sued.

Melissa comes trotting out of the office with a yellow form in her hands and smirks at me as she walks by.

“Ashley,” the secretary tells me, “you can go on in now.” She’s a plump woman with a sweet smile and somehow being out here with her wasn’t that bad compared to whatever waits for me beyond those doors.

Our principal, Mr. Morgan, is on the phone when I enter his office. I sit down in the chair across from him, fold my hands in my lap, and wait. Lucky for me the chairs in here are a little more comfortable because it takes him a few minutes to wrap up whatever he’s taking care of. Something about a student missing the bus and the school refusing to send it back to get him. Yikes.

When he finally hangs up the phone a few minutes later, he sighs aloud, but forces a half smile when he looks at me.

“So, Ashley, why don’t you tell me what went wrong this morning?” His voice is kind and unintimidating.

I do the best I can to tell him the events of last period exactly as I remember them happening and when I’m finished he just looks at me for what seems like forever before he speaks. “Well,” he says finally, “we seem to have a little bit of a problem then.”

“A problem?” I ask him, a little nervous now. “What type of problem?”

“You and Melissa have a completely different version of what happened.

She says you provoked her, were taunting her really, and she only pushed you because you got in her face and she was scared you were about to hit her.”

I gasp aloud. “Mr. Morgan. That. Is. Not. What. Happened.” Of course Melissa would stick to the old self-defense theory, because she doesn’t have the backbone to take the consequences of her actions. I should have known better.

“Look,” Mr. Morgan tells me. “You’re a good kid, Ashley. You’re almost never in my office. I know this is out of character for you. Unfortunately, at this point it’s your word against Melissa’s, and we have a very strict policy about fighting at school.”

“But I wasn’t fighting at school!” I tell him. “I didn’t even touch her!”