Hate On Aspen Hale

04 | Carson Should Really Stop Putting Herself In These Situations

04 | Carson Should Really Stop Putting Herself In These Situations

My fingers froze. The sharp knob hurt my hand and the lock’s cold surface felt like it made my skin sting.

The male voice (which I could tell just by his deep pitch that it was most definitely Aspen) shouted some more half-coherent words such as “Hey!” and “Put my—my stuff down!”

They were mostly in anger, and judging by the direction of the sound, I had about thirty seconds to get out of there.

There was obviously one choice here: either run, or get the note, shred it to pieces and then run. But I would most likely get caught (because there was a reason why I never tried out for cross country added to the fact that exercise was effort).

And so, with a very heavy heart (because Aspen, being Aspen, would most likely find out in the end who wrote the note), I turned around.

The hoodie I had on, because I did take precautions, covered most of my face. Hopefully Aspen couldn’t recognise the random bob at the back of the hoodie to be a ponytail.

But it also covered part of my vision.

And so in my defence, I could most certainly not see a barrelling Aspen Hale heading my way.

The first point of impact was hard—shattering and causing me to land with an even bigger impact on the ground. My heart beat was quick all of a sudden, a thumpthumpthump instead of its usual thump-a-normal-heart-beat-pause-thump. My ankle felt like I had landed on it after falling from a fifty metre cliff (which I assumed hurt a lot).

Aspen, of course, was unfazed and I thanked god that I was facing the ground. The timber floor, that you wouldn’t think would be coarse, was coarse. Especially against my cheek.

In an instant, Aspen was pushing against my shoulder, most likely trying to flip me around to find out who I was. He was straddling my legs, hovering above me like a hawk and I was his prey.

By then, I was pretty sure that he would find out. He would see me, then he would hate me even more (not that I cared), and finally he would tell the whole school about my retarded ways with dealing with my problems. Or worse, tell the whole school a lie (such as “Carson’s so infatuated with me, she tried to send me a hate letter! What an attention seeker”).

And because of that, I knew I had to get the fuck out of there.

The one thing worse than letting Aspen win (because he would see it as a game—he sees everything as a game, the little shit) would be letting him broadcast it to the whole school. Teasing, I was fine with. But there was a fine line between teasing and bullying, and maybe I had a bad past but being the one people whisper about—I knew was completely demeaning and undignifying.

And so I kneed him where the sun-don’t-shine.

Within a couple of seconds, I had followed suit—turning around just like he wanted me to do. My hands were immediately finding his face (more like slapping, really) and covering his eyes so that he couldn’t see. And then I put my knee into action.

Of course, Aspen was stronger than me. But being kneed in the balls was probably a very traumatic event that took at least a couple of minutes to recover from, and so with my advantage I managed to shove his (very) heavy body off of mine.

My eyes widened at the mere thought of escape, because I was so nearly there.

But Aspen—he was relentless (couldn’t he just let me go? It was a damn locker for fuck’s sake). He grabbed my ankle, and then it was my foot.

And then it was my ballet flat.

So maybe wearing flats weren’t the best idea in mind when trying to break into someone’s locker. Definitely if you didn’t want them to find out who you were. And Aspen could now tell I was a girl.

But I couldn’t stop running.

My feet pounded across the hallways, my breathing coming out harsh and sharp.

I couldn’t go back to get that shoe (even though it was one of my favourite pairs). And so I ran as fast as I could to the girls’ bathroom, and then changed my clothing and shoes for extra measure from a sports bag (thank god for Plan Bs).

My hands were still shaking by the time Harper made her way to the bathroom.

“Car—man you look shaken up.” Harper’s expression was concerned (for once) as she reached over to hug me.

“What happened? He didn’t do anything, did he?” Harper’s voice rose at the end of her question in part panic, part anger.

“N—no, no”—and then because Harper didn’t look convinced—“well kind of.”

“What do you mean kind of?” Harper glared at me, gesturing for me to continue.

“Well—” I didn’t know where to start. The whole ordeal was still so fresh in my mind and I was still quivering a little from it. The adrenaline had really left my blood once I reached the bathrooms.

“He nearly caught me, so I ran. But then he—he did catch me and it was so scary, Harper,” I choked out. “He grabbed my ankle and stole my shoe.”

Harper looked at me in disbelief.

“He—he stole your shoe? That’s outrageous!”

Harper’s question brought a little smile to my face. So maybe it was a bit (completely) scary, but I was fine now, and Harper was here. Leave it to Harper to make a completely inappropriate comment while I was in a middle of a breakdown.

“Well, if it helps, I kneed him in the balls.”

Harper busted out laughing (again with the inappropriateness, especially since it apparently hurts a lot when you’re kneed in the balls). She saw the look I gave her, an unimpressed one, and from then on she tried to contain her laughter.

“I’m sorry,” she half chuckled, half said seriously, “it’s just, you kneeing someone in the balls? You won’t even touch your brother’s underwear, let alone have your knee in contact with a bodily part of a man.”

I grimaced at Harper’s words and started to realise how gross that was. “Harper!” I groaned out, because I probably would have to disinfect my knee now (and if Harper could just keep her mouth shut, I wouldn’t have noticed and it wouldn’t have bothered me so much).

“Come on, let’s get to first period,” Harper said, still chuckling, “before Aspen notices you’re gone.”

Huh, I completely forgot about that.

I followed Harper out the bathroom towards our lockers, mumbling something about how much my body hurt and Harper retaliating back saying it served me right, letting a good shoe get stolen just like that.

a/n: all righty, so Carson always seems to be situations like these where the chapters have something to do with her getting caught doing something (?) and so I decided why not just the chapter name it this hehe :-)

also, to clear everything up, Carson is a girl, Aspen is a boy. I like using unisex names, sue me. everyone's just so confused about that ahahahh it's kind of funny (i'm mean, i know).

well, yeah if there are anymore questions, feel free to ask!