The Blind Boy

12.

Ash doesn't know how Daisy talked her into this. 

"It'll be fun," the dark skinned girl insists eagerly, and those doe eyes are impossible to say no to. "Please, Ash? I've never really had a girl friend to spend time with."

And there it is. The guilt trip. Alongside Daisy's words, she starts to pout, lower lip jutting out. Ash wants to point out that they're already spending time together, have already been for a few hours now, wandering around the mall window shopping.

Well, window shopping for Ash - actual shopping for Daisy, if the bags littered at her feet were any indication, although her friend generously offered to pay for a few things she caught Ash eyeing. 

Ash is really sick of being a financial burden for everyone, even if no one except her sees it that way. 

"The shopping part has been really fun," Ash concedes, choosing her words carefully, somehow managing not to trip over them. Daisy, while often loveable and bubbly... can be a tad bratty, turning into an different person when she doesn't get her way.

Ash suspects she almost always gets her way, given her static personality. "I'm just not sure about the party."

A mass of sweaty, drunk teens with blaring music that she usually can't stand? Count Ash out already. That's not the sole reason she's so adamant about not going, though. At anyone else's house, it might've been fine, but -

"You just don't want to go because it's at Rory's cousin's house," Daisy accuses, wagging a teasing finger in her face. "And he might be there."

In response, Ash maturely takes a dignified bite of her eggroll.

"I thought you guys were friends now anyway," Daisy continues, either not recognizing her verbal cue to drop it, or ignoring it plainly. "Or does my little prude have a crush?"

Ash nearly chokes, reaching around her food for her Sprite. She's not a prude, but maybe her friends have managed to pick up on her avoidance of relationships, of the way her cheeks flare whenever there's mention of anything further than kissing.

"Aw, Asher, there's no shame in it," Daisy giggles, but there's something about the way her dark eyes dim that leaves Ash puzzled. There's a certain hesitance in the air that she can't place, like Daisy is withholding something from her. Maybe Ash is just losing it. "He's very nice looking, grouchiness aside."

Ash hates the way she immediately wants to jump to his defense. After getting to know him further these past couple months, Rory is not an enigma. He's a grouch sometimes, yes, but who can blame him? It's clear he loathes his disability, hates the way people pander to it unabashedly.

Underneath all that hot and cold, underneath that scowl, he's just a lonely, traumatized boy. Even if he exudes 'do not touch' energy. That's something Ash wishes she had realized sooner. He's not some mystery to untangle - he's a person.

"I just - I just don't feel like it," Ash mumbles, digging her fork around in her white rice. A few people bustle past them, taking her attention. Anything to avoid Daisy's imploringly look. 

In truth, ever since he got her that icepack, she's been retreating a bit from him. Not necessarily avoiding him, but closing off that part of her that's only ever been reserved for Robb. A silly crush may be uncharted territory for Ash, but it's still harmless. Attachment on the other hand? Fondness? Adulation?

That would mean shifting from an innocuous crush to something else. Something that she refuses to dignify with a name.

I won't let myself go down that path, not with him.