Song of the chapter is Bad by The Cab. I like pizzas. You like wattpad. This chapter is longer than usual. That shit was random. Okay bye now.
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Later that day, as soon as the bell rang signalling the end of the last class for the day, Ashley rushed out of the gym in her sports gear, not bothering to wait for Gabriella. She knew that if she waited for Gabriella, Sean and Zac would come along as well.
Zac.
Only his name was enough to make her want to roll up in a ball due to discomfort. Hurrying towards Roosevelt House, Ashley's mind felt strangely blank. She couldn't understand what was wrong with her, but at that moment, she couldn't care less either. All she wanted right then was to reach her room, get into the bed, roll up into a ball and sleep.
She wasn't sure of how she got through the day, but she was glad school was done for the day.
***
"Where's Ash, Gab?" Zac questioned immediately as soon as the boys finished their chat with Coach Andrews.
"I don't know," Gabriella admitted. "She just rushed away as soon as the bell rang. I don't even know whether she bothered to change out of her gym clothes."
"I certainly don't see her anywhere, around here," Sean mumbled as he glanced around the gym.
Zac exhaled loudly. "Why's she being so .. - unreasonable?"
"Zac, I'm sure she has her reasons," Gabriella explained. "Be patient."
Sean smirked as he heard Zac mumble something that sounded a lot like 'whatever'. "Why don't you just ask her out?" he asked.
"Y'know what? I'm gonna go talk to her now, fess up and ask her out," Zac decided firmly.
Gabriella cocked her head. "Oh, so you finally grew a pair which is why you're about to do that?" she teased, making Sean chuckle.
Zac rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go. Do I look okay?"
"Yeah, you do. Just go now," Sean said with a laugh as he lightly shoved Zac.
"What about lunch?" Gabriella questioned. "I thought you said you were starving."
"Lunch can go to hell," Zac replied over his shoulder before he began sprinting away from the couple. "She's more important. See you two later."
Zac came to a halt outside the door of the room that Ashley and Gabriella shared. He hesitated a bit, before knocking on the door. "Ash?" he called out. "Open the door . . ." he trailed off nervously as he realized what he was going to do; he was about to ask out the girl he loved.
***
Ashley lay in her bed willing sleep to come to her, but failing. Never had she felt more wide awake than she did at that moment. Shuddering as her mind went back to whatever went down between her and Zac earlier, Ashley felt like crying, for some reason.
'I'm feeling so emo and I'm not even PMSing,' she thought wryly. "What is wrong with m—" she snapped back into reality as she heard someone softly knock on the door.
"Ash? Open the door!"
Ashley froze. It couldn't be . . .
"What happened?" she asked loudly, not moving from her bed.
"I— I need to talk to you," came the muffled reply.
Ashley squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm kinda busy and—"
"You and I, both know you're not busy, Ash," Zac interrupted. "Would it really kill you to talk to me?"
'Yes,' she thought. "I'm coming," she replied before heaving herself out of her bed. She walked towards the door sluggishly, as if trying to postpone the impending doom which came with the awkwardness of facing Zac, and that too alone. "Yeah?" she squeaked out as she cracked the door open.
"Are you in the middle of changing your clothes or something?" asked Zac, genuinely puzzled.
Ashley went red. "No, why would you think that?"
Zac shoved his hands into his pockets before looking at Ashley in the eye. "Why else wouldn't you fully open the door?"
"Oh. I uh, one sec," Ashley said quickly before she banged the door shut on Zac's face.
Zac took a step back, shocked, as the door shut on his face. "Ash?" he called out uncertainly. "What's- what's going on?"
"Nothing," Ashley replied meekly with her hand on the door knob. She had already unlocked the lock, but was feeling extremely nervous at the prospect of facing Zac. 'I'm acting so weird. Funny how love messes up the normal functioning of the brain,' she thought. She blinked as her hand froze. 'Love? Where'd that come from?'
Sharp knocking on the door got her thoughts back to earth. "Ash? Are you alright in there?"
The girl took a deep breath. 'Here goes,' she thought before she swung open the door, startling Zac. "H- hey," she stammered, trying her best to keep as calm as possible. It didn't help that her heart began beating like crazy when she looked at Zac to see him staring into her eyes.
"Hey," Zac replied as he casually leaned against the doorframe. "How's it going?"
"Good? I guess . . ." Ashley murmured her response. "You?"
"Great . . ." Zac trailed off as he took in Ashley's appearance through the little part of the door that was open. With an oversized, loose t-shirt and shorts that reached till a little above mid-thigh, Zac couldn't help but find her cute even though she wasn't exactly dressed up.
Ashley cleared her throat. "What did you wanna talk about?"
Zac exhaled loudly as he tried to get rid of his nervousness. "Can I uh, c'mon in?"
"Oh," Ashley slowly nudged the door open with her knee before stepping aside to make way. "I'm sorry. Come in."
Zac entered the room and made a beeline towards Gabriella's bed, swallowing nervously. Which guy wouldn't be nervous? He was about to ask out the girl he loved after some persuasion from his friends.
Ashley silently shut the door before making her way towards her own bed, which was a few metres away from Gabriella's bed, and sat down, waiting for Zac to speak up.
"So . . . how was today?" Zac began, trying to look for a way to breach the topic that he wanted to.
"Good, I guess," Ashley replied unsurely. "Yours?"
Zac looked at Ashley in the eye. "It sucked because you ignored me all day today."
Ashley was speechless, so she did what she thought was the best; stared at the ground.
"Oh, and do tell me if you're gonna ignore me tomorrow as well so that I don't make a complete fool out of myself by trying to talk to you."
The brunette's head snapped up to gawk at him. "Za—"
"Oh, and just tell me exactly when is this going to go on till," he ranted.
"Have you come here to give me shit about how I haven't been talking to you?"
Zac bit his lip as he realized exactly what had he been doing. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "Really, Ash," he muttered as he stood up to go and sit next to Ashley. "I was being a dick, and I'm sorry."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"What I wanted to talk to you about, was—" Zac began, but was interrupted by the shrill sound of a bell ringing.
"Is that—" Ashley began fearfully as she stood up.
Zac stood up quickly. "The fire-bell, yes," he said as he grabbed Ashley's hand. "C'mon, let's get outta here!"
The duo were making their way out of the almost empty building of Roosevelt house towards the commons but before they could actually do so, Zac grabbed Ashley's wrists and pushed her up against a wall.
"Zac, we need to get out of here right now. What the heck are you doing?" she asked frantically.
"Promise me you'll not ignore me," Zac whispered. "Promise me you'll be normal with me."
"But—"
"Ash, promise me . . ."
"Zac, there's a fire raging somewhere. We need to get out of her as soon as possible." The brunette tried to speak in as calm a tone as possible. However, if you're trapped between the wall and your crush with a fire raging somewhere in the vicinity, it would be pretty hard to keep calm.
"We'll get out of here as soon as your promise me." Zac was going crazy, trying to control himself. He wanted to just go ahead and kiss her, but wasn't going to do it. He didn't want to ruin her first kiss.
"Promise," Ashley whispered. "Now can we get out of here?"
"What promise?"
"I promise I'll not avoid you anymore. Ever. Zac, now can we please get the hell out of here?" she asked as she started to get worried.
Zac breathed heavily as he realized that they both were standing so close that their breath was tickling each other. "Okay."
Ashley placed her hands on Zac's chest and gently made him step away. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "Trust me on this, Zac, I had reasons to do what I did. I won't anymore, though."
"It's okay," Zac replied before pulling her into a quick hug. "Let's go now. There's a fire raging somewhere, remember?"
Ashley exhaled loudly. "Right."
***
"I don't believe how yesterday was just a stupid prank, the whole deal with the fire alarm," Sean said with a snort as the four of them sat at their usual table for breakfast.
Ashley went red as she recalled what went down between her and Zac during that time. "Yeah," she said with a cough. "It's crazy. I wonder who did it. I've a feeling it was Jayden," she admitted with a laugh. "Don't you think so?"
"Now that you say it . . ." Zac mumbled. "He seems the type to do something like this."
"I can ask him about it later," Gabriella offered. "Can we go to that cafe down the beach road sometime in the evening, all of us?" she asked randomly as she stared around at the faces of the trio.
"Talk about randomness," Sean teased.
The blonde pouted. "I've been wanting to go there since a while."
"Then we're going there this evening, and that's it," Zac said with a hint of finality in his voice. "Good?"
Gabriella leaned over and hugged Zac. "Perfect."
That evening, Gabriella's wish came true as she along with Sean, Zac and Ashley occupied one of the outdoor tables of the Beach Cafe. Sitting on the stone seats which were fixed onto the ground around the round table, Gabriella seemed to be oddly happy. Oh and not to forget the stone shade which looked like an umbrella.
"This cafe's amazing." Ashley commented as she looked around. "I don't know how come I've never noticed it."
"There's a lot you don't know about this place. Give me one day and I'll show you everything about this locality that there is to know," Zac suggested.
"Oh. Sure," Ashley agreed. All throughout the day, she did her best to be as normal as possible with Zac. Even though it was tough because that evening was the first time they'd properly hung out after Ashley's revelation, they both were doing a pretty good job of keeping up the normalcy.
"This would be just the perfect place for a date," Gabriella commented, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Nobody apart from her knew that cupid Gabriella was really hard at work and neither was anybody aware of her ulterior motive that evening. Suddenly, she stood up.
Ashley, Sean and Zac's heads snapped to look at the blonde.
"What's up, Gab?" Zac asked slowly. "Did something scare the living daylights out of you?"
Gabriella frowned. "No?"
"Then why'd you just . . ." Sean trailed off as he gestured around. "Jump off your seat?"
"I need to pee." She looked around sheepishly. "I don't know where are the restrooms though."
"Oh."
"Sean, d'you know where are there restrooms close by?"
Sean nodded. "I guess I do."
Gabriella smiled sweetly at him. "Lead the way then."
With a groan, Sean got off the low, stone bench before trudging up towards where Gabriella was waiting. "We'll be back," he said to Ashley and Zac who were looking their way.
"Alright," Zac and Ashley replied faintly.
As soon as the couple left, Zac cleared his throat and turned to face Ashley only to see her drumming her fingers on the table. Feeling his eyes on her, Ashley looked up and smiled at him.
"What's up?" she asked lamely, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.
"Erm," Zac raised his eyebrows. "We're hanging together since the past half an hour, almost, Ash," he pointed out looking extremely amused.
"Right," she said as she ducked her head to hide her flaming red face. "I'd nothing else to say, so . . ."
Zac chuckled in a low voice before picking up his phone and staring at the blank screen. He looked up and held his phone out towards Ashley.
"What?" Ashley asked doubtfully as he slipped his phone into her hand.
"The screen's dirty," Zac mumbled.
Ashley raised her eyebrows. "D'you want me to clean it? Really now?"
Zac nodded meekly.
"That's so sexist."
Zac shook his head vehemently. "No, I'm not sexist. It's just that . . . that the material of my shirt won't clean the screen."
Ashley gave him a flat stare. "What?"
"It's a polyester t-shirt, the one that I'm wearing, so I can't really use it to remove the dust," Zac explained.
"Oh," Ashley replied as she eyed his red, polyester t-shirt with the white Adidas logo printed on one corner of it. "Right." After fingering a corner of her shirt, Ashley casually rubbed the screen of Zac's phone before handing it back to him. "Here you go."
While Zac examined his phone with a frown on his face, Ashley nervously began drumming her fingers again, absolutely hating the silence. She looked up when Zac said something incoherent. "What happened?"
"The screen's not completely clean," he said with a pout.
Ashley laughed lightly before holding her hand out for Zac to give her his phone. Zac grinned brightly before handing the brunette his phone. She purposely ducked her face and pretended to be absorbed in cleaning Zac's phone. Feeling Zac's gaze on her, Ashley couldn't help but go red.
"Here you go," she said shyly before handing him his phone. "All good?"
"Yeah, perfect." Zac smiled, making Ashley feel extremely thankful that she was sitting and not standing.
Ashley exhaled loudly. "Hey, could you pass me that bottle of coke?"
"Sure." Zac picked up the bottle and placed it in front of Ashley. "Here you go."
"Thanks," Ashley murmured before picking up the bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a couple of sips of the drink. It was just then that she had realized exactly how thirsty she was feeling. Ashley frowned as she realized something. "Why's this bottle so . . . sticky?"
Zac shrugged. "Must've spilled over. I know it's sticky."
"Oh."
"Yeah. I realized that when I had a sip before you. Never really said anything . . ."
"Right," Ashley said slowly, not knowing what else to say as she handed him back the bottle which he was asking for. She pulled out her phone and checked a couple of applications before pouting. "I need to go wash my hands. The bottle's too sticky."
Zac laughed as he held out his right palm. "Give me your hand."
As nonchalantly as possible, Ashley put her left palm into the right one of Zac's while checking her phone.
Using his right palm as the base, Zac firmly placed Ashley's left palm on it before rubbing it with his other hand.
Ashley looked at him weirdly. "What are you upto?"
"Nothing. Just making your hand stickier," he chuckled.
"Oh."
"What, did you think I'm holding your hand and trying to be all romantic?" he teased.
Ashley went red. "No."
"Yeah yeah."
"Oh, look they're back," the brunette pointed out.
Quite rightly, Gabriella and Sean were walking towards them, both wearing secretive smirks on their faces. After lounging around for a little while more, the four of them decided to head back to the campus and kill yet some more time by hanging out in the common room with the rest of their friends. Ashley wanted to get back to her room and hit the books but after a lot of convincing from Gabriella, Sean and Zac, she decided to get her books out into the common room and do her homework while chilling with them.
It was like a mutual agreement that they had reached.
"Hey, Ash," she heard Jayden call out to her. "Why are you studying right now?"
Ashley shrugged. "I don't like school work piling up, so that's why."
Jayden frowned. "Do it later."
"No. I'll do it right now," Ashley countered. "I'm not exactly feeling really active right now and this is probably the only thing I can manage to do without speaking, without moving out of my seat."
"Oh." Jayden sighed dejectedly. "Okay then. We're all having fun. You should also join in. Next time, will you?"
"Next time," Ashley agreed. Once Jayden turned his attention back to whatever he was doing, Ashley looked around the common room trying to figure out what was everybody else upto.
She noticed Sean and Gabriella all cuddled up with each other on a loveseat.
Seeing them that way, Ashley couldn't help but feel a little jealous of their relationship; she wanted a relationship just like theirs. Moreover, she was getting impatient- impatient because she wasn't sure of how Zac felt about her because hardly a couple of week earlier, he had commented that he had a crush on some girl who wasn't Ashley. Then came the time when Zac comforted her while she was having a bad time in school with the continuous tests and anonymous messages. Right after that, the weekend trip to Zac's parents' house happened where the two of them had almost kissed, that too twice.
The brunette glanced at Zac, who was laughing along with Haley, Jayden and Heath about some joke that Jayden cracked. She smiled at Diana who had just walked over to the group and sat down next to Jayden, but not before throwing a smile in Ashley's direction and signalling her to come over to join them.
Ashley quickly declined as she pretended to be busy with the textbook in front of her because right then, she wanted to be alone. After a couple of minutes of pretending to be busy reading her book, Ashley finally decided to look up towards where the rest of her friends were sitting. Suddenly, the brunette felt a pang of hurt in her chest as she noticed the way Jayden had his hands intertwined with those of Diana, and the way he looked at her. Tearing her eyes away from the two, she looked over at Zac to see him already looking her way. Giving him a small, sad smile, Ashley stood up and quickly made her way out of the common room.
Zac stared at Ashley's retreating back before he stood up and ran out of the common room, intending to talk to her because right then, he was getting a really strong intuition that something wasn't right with her.
"Ash!" Zac panted as he ran up to her after following outside into the commons, under a tree.
Ashley was about to sit down, but froze as she saw Zac. Biting her lip, she stood up and looked towards him. "Yeah?"
Zac took a step closer to her, greatly reducing the distance between them. "Is everything alright?"
The brunette nodded, not trusting herself to speak. "P- perfect," she choked out as she felt extremely nervous at their proximity.
Sliding his arms around her waist, he breathed into her ear. "You're not, Ash. At least give me some credit because I know you well enough. Something's bothering you and you're not telling me about it," he whispered.
Ashley blinked in surprise. "I . . ." she trailed off, wondering what to tell him. Should she tell him that she was falling for him and was getting increasingly frustrated because she wasn't sure of how he felt about her. "Nothing."
Zac shrugged. "If you say so," he muttered, not quite believing her.
"Yeah," Ashley murmured as she leaned forward and rested her head on his torso. "Everything's alright." Her heart skipped a beat as she felt Zac's chest rumble while he chuckled.
"You weird kid," he mumbled, poking her lightly on the sides. "You're cute when you're all crazy and smiling."
Ashley swallowed hard. "Okay."
"Now lighten up and smile," Zac teased as he poked Ashley again, a little bit harder this time.
"Ouch," Ashley jumped as she got caught by surprise due to Zac's fingers feeling extremely ticklish on her waist. "Stop, Zac," she said with a laugh.
"No," Zac replied cheekily. "I won't stop until—"
"N- nothing's bothering me, s- so d- don't ask me that again," Ashley interrupted Zac as she spoke between her giggles. "Zac!"
Zac grinned. "Let me finish. I won't stop tickling you until you say that you think I'm the sexiest person on the face of the earth."
"What?" Ashley asked incredulously. "No, I won't li— lie, cherry boy," she giggled as she tried to pry Zac's hands away from herself.
"You're leaving me with no other option then, baby," Zac chuckled as his fingers danced over Ashley's mid-section.
"Oh— okay," Ashley panted slightly as Zac slowed down his fingers. "You think I'm the sexiest person on the face of this earth," she repeated as a light laugh escaped her lips. "Happy?"
"No," Zac mumbled in his low, husky voice. "You know what I meant you to say," he added with a smile which made Ashley go weak at the knees.
'Ugh. The effect this guy has on me,' she thought, rolling her eyes at herself. "Fine. I think you're the sexiest guy on the face of this earth," she mumbled, trying to behave in a manner as nonchalant as possible. "Happy now?"
"Very," Zac replied immediately. "You're amazing, Ash," he murmured as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear before subconsciously pulling her even closer to himself.
Ashley nodded. "T- thanks," she stammered as she realized the fact that their faces were mere inches away from each others'.
Zac wanted it and he saw on Ashley's face that she wanted the same thing as him. Gently, Zac leaned in and kissed her square on her mouth.
Remember the epic 'brain versus heart' battle that always happens? That started in the minds of Zac as well as Ashley immediately a couple of seconds into their kiss.
'We're not even dating,' Zac thought. 'It's wrong to kiss her. But, it's the perfect time to ask her out . . .' he pulled out of the kiss. "Ash? We need to talk."
She felt her stomach drop. 'That's it. Now he's gonna tell me that this kiss was a mistake and we should forget about this since he supposedly likes some other girl that's not me,' she thought dolefully. Right then, she hated herself to let the kiss deepen, somehow.
Ignoring the situation the two of them were in, the kiss that they had shared right then could've been the perfect first kiss.
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Bored. I uploaded this cause I was just so fucking bored.
Anyway . . .
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