The Butterfly Effect

Chapter 14

Thursday

Ashley shut her apartment door close behind her weakly. She wasn't feeling better today, her head aching so badly. Her diet most likely caused this, she knew it. Jessica had warned her to just call in sick to her professor and take some rest, but she had to turn in an assignment today. Besides, with final exams closing in, she couldn't miss classes.

Breathing heavily, sweat broke out her skin but she felt cold. Worse, her sight became blurry and everything was spinning. She leaned against the wall then tilted her head down as she closed her eyes, hoping everything got better when she opened them again.

"You look... terrible."

Ashley heard a familiar voice talking to her. As she peeled her eyes open and looked up, she saw Joey inspecting her with this weird... consternation look? Not believing what she witnessed, she shut her eyes again for a few seconds. There was no way Joey was worried about her. Without giving him any response, she tottered past him. It was definitely a bad time for arguing right now, but how surprised she was when he grabbed her arm.

"What the—!"

"You're hot," Joey stated.

Ashley feigned a laugh. "Well, thank you."

"No, I mean your temperature is high."

Looking into his blue eyes, she found seriousness in them that made the heat rise to her face and her heart throb unsteadily. "I... Um... I'm fine."

"You're obviously sick. Have you eaten yet?" he asked, his hand still holding her arm.

She shook her head feebly.

"You need to eat now."

"Why? So you can make fun of me again?" Ashley accused.

Joey frowned, perplexed. "What are you talking about? You have to eat right now."

"No, no. I may have gained a few pounds, so I can't eat. I got to go. I'm going to be late for class." She attempted to release her arm but he gripped it tighter.

"You're kidding! You didn't gain weight, you lost it, I can tell."

Hearing that come out of his mouth made her ticked off. Didn't he intuit that he was the one to cause this? If he had never said stuff like that a few nights ago, it wouldn't have made her become so insecure.

"Ash, are you on a tight diet or something?"

"Get lost, Joey."

"You can't get sick."

"Why, huh? Since when do you care?"

"Since I can't imagine how..." his blue eyes looked through hers, they were as blue as summer's sky it made her insides turn over, "...many boxes of pizza you're going to miss if you get sick." He grinned mischievously.

There was a little pain in Ashley's heart to hear him make a joke out of it when she thought he was seriously concerned about her. She tried to get her arm off of his strong grip, giving him a dirty look. "Fuck off."

Instead, Joey tightened it. "Oh, come on, I was just joking."

"Not funny," she said through gritted teeth, yanking her arm.

"Stop it, Ash! You're going to hurt yourself."

"Just let me go, Joey!" she shouted.

"No! You have to eat and rest."

"Just let go off me!"

Still not letting her go, Joey forced her to follow him back to her apartment. "You need to eat something to make you feel better!"