Asher ✓

34 | model

JANUARY 4, 2014 / SYMONT HIGH SCHOOL

Asher had come to know Kerrish Soto as a strange, dirty-minded spitfire that managed to hide his oddities well enough for girls to like him incessantly. Said spitfire made a dramatic entrance to their shared Algebra II the first day back from winter break. He stormed past the doors; Asher winced at the rattling of the hinges that remained seconds after Kerrish flung it back.

Kerrish stopped right in front of Asher's desk, where the boy was lazily doodling on the inside cover of his Algebra II textbook. The shadow across his hands drew his eyes up Kerrish's toned body, straight to his face. The light behind him cast afternoon shadows — though it was morning — across his eyes, chiselling out the caves under his eyebrows and cheekbones even more. The look in his eyes was devilish; Asher prepared to apologise for whatever he had done wrong, when Kerrish's lips tugged into a smirk so wide it stretched across continents.

"You lucky son of a bitch," he hissed.

Asher could only grip his pen tighter. Saxon Rush had been a one-time encounter. He and Asher had parted on civil and understanding terms: just a fling. A volatile combination; a risky experiment that they'd pulled out of before it could explode and kill them both. Matches couldn't be relit after they'd already been burnt out.

"Excuse me?" Asher asked.

Nothing had been mentioned about secrecy about the affair, but Asher reflected back to how little he actually knew about Saxon, though he had described himself to Asher as articulately as he could.

His mother was a contemporary artist, whose work Asher had seen in magazines but could never convince himself to like. Saxon was an indirect millionaire, having connections through his family. He wasted money to make himself feel valuable. Saxon liked purposefully crunching leaves on the pavement in autumn, little foam ferns on the top of his lattes, lace embroidery on clothing and smoking cigarettes (any type — he wasn't fussy).

"Don't try to hide your dirty little secret," Kerrish tut-tutted.

In a way, Asher could say he knew him well. And in others, Saxon Rush was still a stranger. Every curve of his bitter mind and lean body could be printed out in a textbook. The tempo of his heartbeat and breathing could be memorised. His history could be studied like a medical journal. But the important things: conscience, personality, weaknesses — those things took years to find out. Asher and Saxon had one night.

And at six in the morning, when Asher left, all he could really say was that he knew what skin Saxon lived in — not what sort of person lived in his skin. He gulped down the tightness in his chest, and fixed the same inquisitive gaze Saxon had given him onto Kerrish's face. "Spell it out, dude."

"You slept with—"

Asher's fist tightened on the pen, just a fraction. He forced everything else to stay composed. Posture, breath, expression. Calm.

"—Krista Ming."

He spluttered, and the confusion was real this time. "What are you talking about?"

Kerrish did a double take, slamming his hands down on Asher's desk. "What are you talking about?"

"Who's Krista Ming?" Asher asked, incredulous.

"Bro," Kerrish looked appalled. "You don't know her? Give me a second."

Kerrish dipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone and furiously tried to drag up some pictures of Krista Ming. He shoved the screen right up to Asher, close enough for the pixels scramble themselves up and blur out of focus. Asher leant back, taking in the images of Krista Ming. Black hair, fanning out behind her in a perfect isosceles triangle. Sharp Asian features, profound collarbones, and a smoking hot body. Only recently sixteen.

Fashion model.

The memories came back with one big pound inside his head. Flashes rushed up to meet his swirling mind.

The colour of her lipstick. 

Her cutout dress beneath his hands. 

The sweat.

Asher dropped his head onto his hands, feeling an oncoming headache. They hadn't slept together, not even close. But this trashy teen magazine had obtained a picture of them laughing together at the party. Apparently they were to be the next power couple.

His breath left him in a shaky exhale, "Shit."

Kerrish was beside himself with an odd concoction of glee and annoyance, "Oh my God, you sly bastard. I asked one thing of you: a smoking hot chick's number, and you get her for yourself. That's evilly impressive, man."

"I swear, I was drunk off my ass. Didn't even—"

"It's always so funny when the nice guys try to defend their flings." Kerrish pulled out a chair next to Asher, and assumed the pose he used for all classes without a hot teacher. Legs propped up on the desk, arms folded across his chest. "The life of a player is harder than it looks, no?"

"No," Asher muttered.

Kerrish smirked over at Asher. Their teacher was coming in, shooting a sharp glare to Kerrish's dirty sneakers on the desk, and realising the boy wasn't going to move his feet at all. A disgusted scowl was sent Kerrish's way, before the attendance register came out.

"Let's just leave the sleeping around to me now," Kerrish said.

"Deal. Just don't bring this up again."

A bark of laughter disturbed the class, and all eyes shot to Kerrish. He shrugged, still maintaining his careless attitude. Asher had received plenty of attention when his career first kicked off, but by senior year, everyone he knew could not care less about his fame. 

Inside the halls of his high school, it was, in fact, Kerrish who demanded most of the popularity.

When their conversation was relatively unnoticed again, Kerrish leant over the gap between their desks to whisper, "It's weird reading about my best friend in tabloid articles."

Asher felt the blood drain from his face, leaving his jaw sagging open numbly. 

Kerrish continued, "Yeah, I think everyone in the country's read about this. And maybe China."

An urge to cry aloud and slam his head on the desk tugged at Asher — maybe a concussion could erase all of this — but could only weakly ask his friend, "How fucked am I?"

"I would say," Kerrish yawned extravagantly, "as much as you were on New Years."