Intertwined

Chapter 10

"You're late, Charlotte," my mother's strict voice cuts through the comfort of my dream. I roll on to my side, bringing my comforter with me. "Charlotte, now," she commands me, as she strides over to my bed. She grabs a hold of my comforter and before I know of it we're having a tug of war over it. I groan when she rips it off of me, exposing my body to the cold temperature in the room. "You need to get ready."

"Fine," I groan and she eventually leaves my room.

I'm barely awake when I roll out of bed and head for my dresser. I throw on the first and the best outfit I can find with such short notice, and I give up on my makeup halfway through, when I realize that there's nothing I can do to make the mascara smudges from yesterday disappear.

I pull my hair up into a ponytail and tug the strands that aren't quite long enough to reach behind my ear, as I make my way down the staircase and into the kitchen, where my mother has resumed her usual position at the kitchen island.

She glances up from her newspaper as I enter. "You're going to be late," she reminds me again, as if I wasn't stressed enough. I do my best to ignore her, as I scramble to get my things together.

"You should have woken up earlier," she reprimands me, as she appears in the hallway while I'm trying to slip into my tied sneakers. I refuse the urge to roll my eyes at her, knowing that it will only piss her off, as I search for my house keys on the key platter in the hallway. "I expect more of you; if you make this a habit of yours you wont last long at Columbia." As if I want to, I want to snap at her, but I know that it will only add fuel to the fire. "You need to be more considerate of your future."

"I know mother," I sigh in defeat, knowing that it's the only way I will ever be able to get out of the house.

"This discussion is not over Charlotte," she calls after me, as I reach for my book bag and head for the front door. I don't bother answering her and I can tell from her footsteps heading back to the kitchen that she doesn't expect me to.

Despite having been running the seven blocks form my house to the school I'm still twenty minutes late for homeroom, but I'm too furious with my mother to care.

I'm breathless and sweaty by the time I make it to the front entrance. I stop to catch my breath, using one hand to lean against the brick wall of the school for support. I feel like my lungs have been set ablaze and I'm about ready to collapse, when a voice startles me: "You surprise me." I wipe around with the speed of lightning, holding a hand to my feverish heart.

"I could say the same to you," I tell him, once I manage to catch my breath.

"You're late," he concludes in disbelief and a small smile tugs at my lips.

"So?" I ask wary.

"And you're not freaking out," he adds with a glimmer in his eyes. I throw my head back and let out a light laughter. He's right; for once I'm not at all worried about being late.

"People change," I shrug. I have a feeling that Asher is rubbing off on me more than I would like him to. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"I was waiting for you." He looks so boyish with his ruffled dark hair and the wide, crooked smile on his lips.

"For me?"

"Yes you," he emphasizes each word, before letting out a throaty chuckle. It's infectious. I don't think I have ever experienced Asher in as good a mood as now. I want to join him, but the grey cloud he left me with on Saturday night is still hanging over me. "I thought we could spend the day together," he shrugs, before announcing: "I want to show you something."

"And skip school?" I ask, glancing around him at the large brick building.

He nods, his usual challenging smirk already settling in on his lips. "Unless little Ms. Perfect is scared."

I narrow my eyes at him and growl. "You did not just call me perfect."

"I believe I did." His grey eyes are glowing bright with excitement, making him look five years younger, despite of the piercings and the tattoo creeping out under his tshirt sleeve. "Are you scared?" he dares me and I know I'm done for.

"Never." I push past him and start making my way towards the parking lot, leaving him to catch up with me. I'm praying that we wont get caught. One thing is being careless with and around Asher to prove to him that I am nothing like my mother, another thing is getting in trouble for fooling around. "Where's your car?" I ask him when we're about halfway between the school and the parking lot. I've been scanning the parking lot three times, trying, but failing, to catch a glimpse of his truck.

"We're not taking the car," he shrugs nonchalant.

"I don't understand," I say, but he doesn't respond until we get to the far end of the parking lot, where a bike is parked in between two cars.

"We're taking this," he announces proudly and points to the bike. I shoot him a terrified glance, but he doesn't seem to notice; he's too busy studying the bike.

My eyes trail him as he kneels down beside the bike and grabs a hold of a heavy chain locked around the rim of the back wheel, no doubt to keep strangers from driving off with it.

"Do you have a bobby pin?" he asks, not taking his eyes off of the lock.

Oblivious to his plans I retrieve a bobby pin from the haystack on top of my head and hand it to him. I watch as he pulls it apart and stuffs one of the ends into the lock on the chain. He wiggles it around a few times before the lock clicks open and he can pull it free from the back wheel. I watch him dumbfounded, as he pulls the bike out of the parking space and positions it in the right direction.

"Did you just steal that bike?" I ask with my arms crossed over my chest.

"No," he feigns innocence.

"Really?" I ask skeptically.

"I borrowed it without permission," he shrugs dismissively.

"I call that stealing."

"Don't worry; I'll put it back," he promises me, but I still have a bad feeling about it.

"It's still stealing in my book," I tell him.

"Good thing I'm not that into reading then." His smirk is bright and his eyes wide with excitement as he climbs on the bike, pushes some buttons, and twists the handles, and the machine comes to live beneath him. "Are you coming or what?"

"On that thing?" I eye the bike with caution. Where he saw raw beauty I saw a killer machine.

"No on a magical broom stick," he snarls, his happy mood replaced with frustration. I bite my tongue to keep myself from rolling my eyes at him, knowing that it will only agitate him even further. "Just live a little Charlie, what's the worst thing that could happen?"

I could break a leg, I could die...you could die.

His grip tightens around the handles and his eyes flickers from mine to the road. And I realize that it doesn't matter whether I get on the back of the killer machine or not, he is still going to take off on it.

I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head from all of the reasons not to trust Asher, as I close the distance between us in three long strides and straddles the machine.

Unsure of the proper etiquette of riding on the back of a stolen motorcycle with a self-proclaimed troublemaker, I wrap my arms around his waist and grab onto the front of his black shirt. I bite my tongue and pretend not to notice the way his body tenses up beneath my touch. I reel in the fact that he doesn't push me away or tells me to hop off like I had initially predicted he would, but at the same time our close proximity is ripping at the sensitive topic of Saturday night and his blunt departure.

Asher twists the handles on the bike again and the engine roars loudly, as if proving its worth, before we shoot off out of the parking lot and onto the street, heading south and out of town.

| AN: so terribly awfully sorry about being so damn bad at updating! I'm so freaking grateful for all of your votes and comments - you guys are amazing! |