TUGGIN' & PULLIN' ON MY LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS
: : chapter 2 : :
Song of the chapter is Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia. MEMORIES AARRGGHH.
To the side is Zac Bradford, played by Chace Crawford.
--
After the whole fiasco that morning that involved herself, some coffee and an utterly gorgeous, sex-god lookalike boy who unfortunately had anger issues and was known as Zac, Ashley found herself making her way towards her assigned homeroom, alone, after Gabriella mumbled something about having left her binder back in their room.
After having successfully navigated her way through students who seemed to think of the corridors as their personal gardens and were lounging around like they didn't have any class to get to, Ashley stopped outside what she thought was her homeroom. After glancing at the printed A4 sheet in her hand, the brunette's eyes searched around for some indication that she was indeed, at the right homeroom. Once she was sure that she was correctly standing outside homeroom number 302 as assigned to her, Ashley decided to sneak a peek into the classroom outside which she had been standing awkwardly, since the past couple of minutes.
Once she did so, Ashley froze; every sight and smell overwhelmed her as she took in the sight in front of her eyes.
A few students were scattered around the class, a few of them sitting in groups. A few of them were reading what Ashley supposed was course material, judging from the solemn expressions on their faces. A few others were either busy with their phones or i-pods, drowning in music. A couple of students were idly staring around the classroom while those sitting with their friends were talking in low voices. Towards the back of the class there were display boards and just like over the rest of the school, there were a lot of colourful pin ups in the form of posters, notices, sign-up sheets and what nots.
'Well, hello colour-blast,' Ashley thought wryly in her state of nervousness.
As her eyes further fluttered around the room, Ashley nearly choked on her spit, trying to suppress her laughter, as she saw a brown haired boy almost fall off his chair in alarm as a blonde girl propped herself on the desk in front of him. She just stood there gazing into the class after having blissfully forgetten that she was standing right at the doorway, blocking the way.
"Excuse me, child."
Ashley was jolted out of her reverie when she heard the firm voice. She spun around to see a middle aged woman standing in front of her, with a stern expression on the elder woman's face.
"Oh, I am so sorry," Ashley said softly as she hurriedly shifted out of the way to make place for the woman to walk by.
"Did you want something? I'd suggest you to leave quickly since the bell is about to ring in a minute, and you probably don't want to be late to homeroom on the first day of the week." The middle aged woman spoke in a stern but patient voice.
Ashley looked confused for a second, before she finally found her voice. "Oh, I- I'm Ashley O'Connor, I am a new student. My schedule says that this is my homeroom."
The elder woman smiled warmly as realization dawned on her face. "Oh yes, I was expecting you today. I was actually wondering why I hadn't seen you around earlier," she explained. "I'm Elena Simpson, your homeroom teacher."
Ashley threw the teacher an awkward smile as she took in the latest piece of information. Precisely at that moment, the warning bell rang and it wasn't long before everybody within the classroom shuffled towards their places while a larger chunk of people began to make way towards their various homerooms.
"So, get into the classroom and find yourself a seat. I'll introduce you to the other students after the final bell rings and they're all here," Ms. Simpson advised as a few more students trickled into the room.
Ashley obediently went and sat down at one of the unoccupied seats while looking around for Gabriella.
As if on cue, the blonde showed up at the doorway and scanned the room. The moment she spotted Ashley's face, her expression visibly brightened up and they smiled at each other. Gabriella bounced her way over to where Ashley was sitting whilst clutching a blue binder in her left hand and a bag in her right.
"Hey Ash!" called out Gabriella happily.
Ashley couldn't help but smile at Gabriella's behaviour. "Somebody is excited. What's up?"
"Nothing," replied Gabriella. "You know now that you're here, I am more excited about this school year all of a sudden. I mean, I'm really looking forward to it more than ever. I tend to say random shit when I'm super excited, so just bare with me but—" she spoke excitedly, hurling words at a hundred miles an hour before squealing softly, bending ahead and giving Ashley a brief hug.
Ashley laughed at Gabriella's excitement. "So am I," she said with a sigh. "I hope I settle in well over here. Some people were really," she hesitated, "intimidating."
"Are you talking about Zac?" asked Gabriella, sobering up as her excitement subsided. She grimaced as Ashley nodded in reply to her question. "Don't worry. He'll get over it. He is a nice guy for those who know him well. He was probably just exhausted and cranky because of early morning soccer practice- he starts behaving like a prick when he's exhausted. The way he behaved with you was screwed up- just remind me to slap him when we see him next."
Ashley felt her heart swell with love for Gabriella on noticing how genuine the blonde was being; on noticing how she was standing up for her. In spite of the topic on hand, a smile slipped onto Ashley's features. "Never mind that," she said softly. "It doesn't matter much."
"You know—" Gabriella was about to say something, but was interrupted by the final bell ringing. "I should probably get back to my seat now, I'll catch up with you later," she promised.
Ashley nodded and watched as Gabriella went towards her seat, after hugging the guy from the morning, the one who had called Zac a cheerleader—Sean. She recognized him from the pictures of him and Gabriella, which were scattered on the pin-up board next to Gabriella's study table. Ashley giggled as she thought back to Sean's comments. Ashley noticed Sean's tall, lean physique and his messy, brown messy hair, tan skin and his somewhat relaxed look and realized how perfect he looked with Gabriella. Also, she didn't fail to notice the way his eyes lit up when Gabriella hugged him- it was obvious to the whole world that the two of them were crazy about each other.
"Settle down, students,"Miss Simpson said loudly before lowering her voice and speaking further. "Make this room resemble a classroom rather than a zoo."
Once her command was obeyed, she spoke up again. "I have a few announcements to make before which, I am going to introduce a new student. Now, I would like to introduce to you all a new student, Ashley O'Connor. Where are you Ashley? Come up here," said Ms Simpson.
Ashley walked up to with her eyes glued to the ground as she focused on her feet. All that the brunette could hope for, right then, was her legs not to give away; she didn't want to fall flat on the ground and make a laughing stock out of herself on her first, proper day at a new school. Once she reached the front of the classroom, she shot the elder woman a shy smile before turning to face the class.
"So, this is Ashley O'Connor and she is new to Oakridge High."
Ashley felt like throwing up as she suddenly began feeling awfully nervous; she wasn't one for talking in front of a crowd without prior notice. She caught Gabriella's eye, who smiled at her encouragingly.
"Hi," she said in a soft tone, realizing that everybody in the room was waiting for her to speak up.
"Now Ashley, introduce yourself to the class so that they can get to know you better."
The brunette glanced towards Ms. Simpson to see that even she, like Gabriella, was smiling encouragingly towards her.
She gulped. "If you say so," she muttered while doing her best to conceal the fact that she was about to pee herself out of nervousness. Once again, Ashley looked back towards the rest of the classroom and got the shock of her life when eyes met with those of Zac. The brunette almost groaned out loud on realizing that staying out of his was wouldn't be as easy as she had hoped it to be, earlier. She reluctantly noted that Zac looked unfairly good. On noticing that Zac was smirking at her, Ashley turned a blind eye to him before speaking up. "Hi, I am Ashley O'Connor. As you guys all know, I'm new here. My family lives in New York and that's where I had been for the past six years. I have an elder brother, Shane. My father's a music producer. And uh, I guess that's it?" She turned to look at Miss Simpson, as if for confirmation.
Ms. Simpson smiled, satisfied with Ashley's explanation of herself. "Okay, well, we have a bit of a tradition here."
Ashley frowned in her direction, not sure if she was supposed to be nervous or excited.
"Whenever we have a new student at our school, we allow the class to ask questions," Ms. Simpson paused. "It's something like a rapid-fire question and answer session."
Ashley grimaced and tried to smile, but failed. "Uh, okay . . ." she said, exhaling loudly.
"Who would like to start?" Ms. Simpson looked at the class.
A boy with jet black hair raised his hand.
Ms. Simpson smiled. "Yes, Garrett? What's your question?"
"What sports do you play?"
"None," Ashley replied immediately, breathing easier. 'This should be easy. They're just asking general questions,' she thought.
"What school did you go to?" a girl randomly asked from the back row of desks.
"Before you answer," Ms. Simpson interrupted, "I think it's best if those who ask questions state their names first so Ashley can get to know students."
"Oh." The girl blushed. "My name is Rebecca. What school did you go to?"
"I went to Pathways," Ashley said, breathing easier and easier by the second.
"Uh," a boy said, from the desk in front of her. "My name is Matt. What's your favorite color?"
Ashley laughed. "Um . . . " she laughed once more, "It's purple? I guess? I don't know."
"You don't know what you're favourite colour is?" Matt laughed.
"I don't know. I have tons of favourite colours, but I think purple's at the top? I don't know."
Matt broke out into hysterics. "Alright then," he said whilst chuckling softly.
"My name is Daniel," a boy said, raising his hand. "What's your favourite subject?"
"I guess Math? It comes easy to me," the brunette replied with a small smile.
Daniel made a face. "Oh, alright. Math isn't my favourite subject, but that's cool, I guess."
Ashley nodded, glancing around the classroom to see if anybody else had raised their hand. That's when she noticed that Zac had raised his hand too. 'I've a bad feeling about this,' she thought wryly to herself.
"Do you have a question, Zac?" Ashley heard Ms. Simpson ask on noticing that Ashley didn't acknowledge him.
"Yeah, I do." replied Zac, with a smirk.
"Go ahead and ask her then,"
"Okay," Zac cleared his throat and turned towards Ashley. "Hi. Are you always clumsy?"
Ashley glared daggers at Zac. 'I don't believe this sucker!' She found her voice and spoke up. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Remember breakfast time?" Zac reminded her in a taunting manner.
"Oh, I do. How come you are so obsessed with that sweatshirt of yours? It was an accident, and I apologized. Plus, the place was pretty crowded, so it happened," she retorted, getting impatient."Why can't you just be mature about it, and get over it?"
"I thought I was the one who was supposed to ask the questions and you were the one who was supposed to be answering them," Zac shot back immediately, with a smug expression on his face.
Ashley got this huge urge of wanting to slap his smirk off his unfairly good looking face, but then she decided it won't be the best thing to do at that moment. She was about to say something, but stopped as Ms. Simpson intervened.
"Okay, enough of this, you two," she said, her voice a few decibels higher than earlier. She took a deep breath before resuming her speech. "Ashley, you can get back to your seat. Zac, you've got detention after school. You're not supposed to be so rude to someone who just joined . . . or anybody for that matter," she said firmly.
"But I have Socc—" Zac was interrupted before he could finish whatever he was saying.
"You should have thought of that beforehand," Ms. Simpson said shortly.
Zac decided not to argue further because he didn't want to get into deeper shit than what he already was in; he knew that coach of the school's soccer coach was going to screw him over for missing that evening's practice. He just sat there, content with himself by glowering in Ashley's direction for the rest of homeroom.
Ashley, on the other hand, was steadfastly ignoring him after having killed him just about a hundred times in her head.
Almost immediately after the bell rang, the students slowly got out of their places whilst chattering merrily. Ashley joined the herd, meaning to meet Gabriella outside the classroom since she knew that trying to get to the blonde right then was a no-no situation firstly because their seats were away and there were too many people, as well as furniture, in between the two of them. Secondly, Ashley decided to stay away because Gabriella was busy cuddling with, and French kissing Sean and the brunette didn't want to intrude. She turned on a foot and made her way out of the classroom whilst staring at the ground. The crowd had somewhat thinned and there weren't any blockages on her path towards the door; at least not till that moment.
As soon as she stepped out of the classroom, still deep in thought, the brunette didn't realize that somebody was standing a mere few metres away from her, in the direction that she was walking in. She didn't realize that there was a high chance of her walking into him.
He didn't notice it either. Zac just stood there with his eyes shut and earphones shoved into his ears as he bobbed his head along the beat of the music. He got a rude shock when he felt something, or rather someone, collide to his side. He glanced to his right to see Ashley stepping away from him, her face a furious shade of red.
"Sorry," she mumbled before taking a few more steps away from him. She was about to turn around and make her way to the other side of the door where she thought she could wait for Gabriella, instead of hanging around anywhere close to Zac. Before she could do so, she froze in her tracks on hearing Zac's mocking voice.
"Do you have a secret crush on me or something?"
Ashley groaned inwardly since she had been hoping to get away unnoticed but sadly, that hope slid down the drain as soon as she heard Zac's voice. After reluctantly turning around, she glanced into Zac's grey eyes before a frown flitted onto her face. "What is wrong with you?"
"I should be the one asking you that. What is it with you and walking into people?" Zac smirked. "That's the second time you walked into me in less than an hour; do you always do that?"
"I have no clue why this keeps happening. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I'm going through this bad luck phase which involves me just . . . walking into you of all people. How sick is that?" she groaned, "I just wish this stops soon."
"It will, if you actually decide to use your eyes to watch where you're walking. I'm not invisible, you know?"
"Of course I know you're not invisible. I wish you were though! At least I won't have to stop myself from wanting to slap that arrogant smirk right off your face, y'know?" Ashley bit back, sounding really annoyed. "Now move before I 'walk' into you again."
Zac just shrugged nonchalantly before silently walking away without a backward glance.
As Ashley stared disbelievingly at his retreating back, she didn't notice Gabriella come and stand next to her.
"Ash, you ready to go?" she asked, sounding cheerful as always.
Ashley assumed by Gabriella's tone that she obviously hadn't noticed the 'pleasant' exchange between Zac and her a few moments back. Ignoring that, she replied to Gabriella, "Yeah, let's go." The brunette glanced around for Sean, but didn't see him in sight so she decided to ask Gabriella about him.
Apparently, he had to go meet the guys for a minute and would be joining the girls later.
"So, you and I have Calculus for first hour, right?" questioned the blonde as the duo began to head towards the lockers.
"Let me check," replied Ashley, looking a little flustered. "I'm not so sure . . ." she trailed off, as she rummaged in her bag for her schedule.
Gabriella let out an impatient sigh. "Ashl—" she began, but was interrupted by the brunette.
"Yeah, yeah, I found my schedule. You're so impatient. You know that right?" Ashley almost wanted to laugh looking at how excited Gabriella was, but she restrained herself from doing so because right then, she was more nervous than excited.
Gabriella just laughed. "I've been told that loads of times. So, what do you have now?"
"Calculus."
Gabriella's smile widened even more. "Great! I just need to grab my books from my locker. Then we can go to class along with Sean and Zac. Zac's locker is on the way to class and Sean would probably be with him."
Ashley's face paled the slightest when she heard Zac's name. "Zac?" she managed to sputter weakly. "He too has Calculus right now?"
"He won't bite your head off, so relax. He'll probably just ignore you because that's how he is." Gabriella said, trying her best to sound reassuring. "Don't worry."
Ashley shrugged. "Let's hope so."
As the two girls turned into the adjacent corridor, Ashley spotted Sean and Zac at the other end of the corridor. On realizing that Gabriella wasn't by her side anymore, unlike how she had been a couple of moments back, she began to look around for the blonde. Ashley was terrified when she couldn't spot her. She stood on her tiptoes, desperately searching for the familiar blonde hair. Since the corridor was crowded, she was having a really tough time doing that. Nobody seemed to acknowledge her presence and she just kept getting shoved aside like she wasn't even there. She heaved a sigh of relief when she spotted Gabriella a few meters away, standing next to a tall, broad shouldered boy with floppy blond hair. Gabriella's expression, Ashley noticed, was completely contradictory to how it had been a few minutes back—she looked anxious. Suddenly, Gabriella happened to look in Ashley's direction and her expression immediately turned into that one of relief. The blond boy, who had followed Gabriella's line of sight, also looked towards Ashley and smiled. Ashley politely smiled back and began walking towards the duo.
"Gab, you gave me quite a heart-attack back there," Ashley said, sounding flustered.
"Sorry," Gabriella apologized sheepishly. "That wouldn't have happened if this silly guy hadn't decided to surprise me by pulling me aside to say 'hi'."
"Oh!" replied Ashley, sounding utterly bemused. When she glanced towards the blond, she noticed that he was already smiling at her in a really sincere manner.
"Hi, I'm Jayden," said the blond, extending his hand towards Ashley. "You are?"
"Ashley. I just transferred here. Hi," she replied, taking his hand.
Jayden shook her hand enthusiastically. "Welcome to Oakridge, Ashley! Can I call you Ash?"
Ashley smiled as she noticed his childish enthusiasm and attitude. "Sure, why not?" Ashley's smile grew wider as she noticed the sincerity in his words.
"Great. Well then Ash, I think you're very pretty. You're one of the prettiest girls that I have ever seen." Jayden still hadn't stopped shaking Ashley's hand.
"Oh Jayden." Gabriella sighed. "Are you ever gonna learn to stop talking so much?"
"I like talking," he replied animatedly.
"Well then," Gabriella started, "can you please stop shaking Ashley's hand now and talk later, so that we can get to class on time? And what about you? Won't you get late?
"We have a sub," he replied, letting go of Ashley's hand.
"We have Calc, and we really can't be late."
Jayden laughed. "Okay then ladies, see you both around. Ashley, it was nice meeting you, I hope we get to be great friends."
Ashley flexed her hand because it felt oddly numb after shaking hands for so long. As she replied, she grimaced; she was now beginning to feel pins and stars on her palm. "It was nice meeting you too, see you around. Bye!"
"Bye Jay!" said Gabriella as she began to make her way down the corridor along with Ashley.
"Bye," he replied, "And oh, Ash?"
Ashley turned around, "Yeah?"
"Sorry about the hand." He gestured towards her right forearm.
*
"There they are," Gabriella said a few minutes later as Sean and Zac came into the two girls' view."Let's go."
"Sure."
"Sean!" Gabriella exclaimed loudly as they reached closer to the boys. She launched herself into his arms before engulfing him in a bear hug. "This is Ashley," she pointed out, gesturing Ashley's direction.
On noticing Ashley, he turned towards her with a cheeky grin on his face. "So you're Ashley. I've heard a lot about you." He stuck out his hand for the brunette to shake. "I'm Sean, hi."
"Yeah, I am," Ashley replied with a laugh. "Hi."
"It's nice meeting you properly, finally," Sean commented casually, as he glanced towards Zac before turning his attention back towards Ashley.
"Guess you can say that . . ." Ashley replied awkwardly, "It's nice meeting you too.
"So, do you too have Calc right now?" Sean asked her warmly on realizing how awkward he thought she might be feeling.
"Yeah she does." Gabriella interrupted happily. "Cool right?"
Sean looked amused at his girlfriend's excitement, while at the same time, he was happy that she found someone whom she could talk 'girl stuff' with, as Gabriella had kindly reminded him the previous evening. He shuddered as the memory came back to him. 'Cramps . . . scary.'
Ashley sighed out of anticipation. "I'm really getting fond of this school now. There's a lot going on," she said randomly, as she looked around, "and yeah Sean, I have Calc right now." She glanced in Zac's direction and saw him talking to somebody else. 'He seems to know a lot of people, or maybe it is the other way round,' she thought.
"Come on, let's get to class. I am pretty sure I see Ms. Austin's bright hat bobbing down the corridor. We better get in," Gabriella commented, as Sean snorted.
"Yup, that's her with her flowery hat. Why she wears such voluminous hats in public, that too almost every single day, is beyond my reasoning." Sean laughed.
"Does she always wear such obnoxious . . . things?" questioned Ashley, sounding clearly bemused as the four of them entered the class.
Sean replied darkly. "You have no idea."
*
"So Ash, how was your first day?" asked Gabriella.
It was seven in the evening and the two of them were in their room, completing some homework.
"It was pretty good," Ashley smiled. "In fact, it was pretty damn awesome."
"How did you like Oakridge?"
"It's an amazing school. I thought I'd miss New York once I'm here, but surprisingly," Ashley paused as she absentmindedly chewed her pencil, "I don't miss it as much as I thought I would."
"Oh," Gabriella frowned at her assignment. "Right; there's just so much to catch up on."
"Obviously," Ashley laughed. "I'm sure we'll manage to tell each other everything in a couple of years or so," she joked.
Gabriella laughed. "Sure; did you wanna start now?"
"Okay, um," Ashley frowned. "What do I tell you? Uh," she paused before she spoke up, "a cousin of mine is in Oakridge as well."
"Who is it?" Gabriella's eyes widened. "Do I know him or her?"
"Maybe," the brunette replied with a shrug.
"Who's it?" the blonde asked curiously.
"David O'Connor," Ashley smiled. "He's on the basketball team."
"David O'Connor is your brother?" Gabriella gawked at the brunette. "Really?"
"Um, cousin. Your reaction was odd." Ashley looked at her curiously. "What's the deal?"
"No, nothing happened. Sorry," Gabriella muttered awkwardly, her face flushed red as she recalled the way she'd reacted a moment back.
Ashley raised her eyebrows as she looked at her blonde friend. "Gab?"
"Nothing, you don't seem like you're his cousin. You're nothing like him." Gabriella murmured carefully.
"What d'you mean? I'm not sure I'm following . . ."
"He'd been throwing his attitude around, the whole of last year," Gabriella explained. "You're sweet, and friendly. You don't look like you're full of attitude."
Ashley looked confused. "Okay?"
"Look, I don't know why I reacted that way and I don't think you know this, but," Gabriella hesitated. "The basketball team and the soccer team have never really seen eye to eye, for some unknown reason."
"And?"
"They're always snubbing each other. Especially Zac and David; they're both captains of their own teams," Gabriella explained.
"Must be because of their stupid egos . . ." Ashley muttered. "Even David has a huge-ass ego problem."
Gabriella shook her head. "Most guys do, they just don't show it that often."
"Yeah," Ashley agreed. Her face brightened up as she remembered something. "So you and Sean, huh?"
Gabriella, quite unlike herself, went beet red as she smiled. "Yeah."
Ashley grinned at her reaction. "Wanna tell me about it? How'd you guys get together?"
"Sure," Gabriella's eyes twinkled at the memory. "Okay so I first met him in homeroom on our first school day here. He was along with Zac, Jayden and Daniel; they had shared a dorm. You probably know Daniel from homeroom, he had asked you—"
"Yeah, I remember him."
"Right, so I was with these girls whom I'd shared a dorm room with. They're Victoria, Haley, Jade and Emily," Gabriella explained as she arranged her worksheets into a neat pile.
"I don't think I know them . . ." Ashley said as she erased a wrong answer.
"You'll get to know them soon," Gabriella smiled.
"Continue," Ashley excitedly bounced on her chair. "I wanna know it all."
Gabriella laughed, "okay then. That day at lunch, I was sitting with the girls when these four guys came up and asked if they could sit with us. Back then, we used to have huge, circular tables which could accommodate around nine to ten people at once."
"Oh, okay," Ashley threw her pencil on the table before she spun around on her chair to sit properly, facing Gabriella. "Go ahead."
"You're very fidgety, aren't you?"
Ashley laughed. "Totally."
"Right," Gabriella laughed. "Okay then time passed by and soon Victoria and Haley had become the best of friends, Jade became close to Emily, Jay and Dan were pretty thick too. That was when Sean, Zac and I grew close. It happened suddenly; at first, Zac and I used to goof around a lot, while Sean used to hang around, awkwardly silent. He and Zac used to talk a lot, though. Turns out, he was that way because he thought that I, in Zac's words, was cute and he was shy."
"Sean, shy?" Ashley gawked at the blonde. "In the very less time that I've been around him, maybe for like a couple of hours, I didn't think of him as anything even remotely close to shy."
"I know," Gabriella smiled. "He was shy, though. Most people have changed. Sean was shy, Zac was the hot-headed one who loved joking around, I was the crazy, hyper one and Jayden was the serious one. D'you believe it?"
"No way," Ashley scoffed. She stopped as she saw Gabriella's expression, "really? You guys really were that way?"
"No kidding, we all were really different."
"Oh."
"Anyway," Gabriella continued, "that was back in two thousand seven, like two years back. So, Sean and I finally began dating sometime around last Christmas, and he asked me out on—"
"Valentines Day?" Ashley asked her excitedly.
Gabriella went red as she smiled silently.
"Really?" Ashley squealed. "You guys are too cute!"
Gabriella sighed happily. "Thanks Ash." She frowned as she realized something, "aren't you hungry?"
"Not really . . ."
Gabriella rolled her eyes. "Are you ever hungry?"
Ashley shrugged. "I think so."
"Oh god," Gabriella groaned as she got off her chair and stretched. "That was good. Let's go. Sean and Zac are gonna meet us in the dining room itself, I guess."
"Right . . ." Ashley trailed off at the thought of meeting Zac again. "Let's go."
*
"Hey, you two," Sean smiled warmly at the two approaching girls. "It's about time. What took you so long?"
"We were too busy catching up with easy other, and we lost track of time," Gabriella shrugged. "That's it."
"Okay then," Sean laughed. He looked over to Ashley over Gabriella's head, a warm smile on his face. "Hey, Ashley."
"Hey," she smiled at him. She stole a glance at Zac to see him walking to the right of Sean, his hands stuffed into the pocket of his sweatpants.
Gabriella followed Ashley's gaze, to look at Zac. She slid out from between Ashley and Sean and began walking on the right side of Zac. "What's up, silly-ass?" she joked. "Everything's okay?"
"Yeah," Zac grunted in reply.
Sean shook his head at Zac's weirdness before turning to look at his girlfriend. "He's been like this for a while. He won't tell me what happened either."
Gabriella rolled her eyes. "Typical Zac . . ."
"He's probably just exhausted. Today's practice was draining," Sean explained.
Gabriella nodded, "right." As her eyes searched around the room for familiar faces, she inhaled sharply as her eyes widened. "Ash," she breathed as she turned towards the brunette. "Isn't that David?"
"Wha— where?" Ashley looked around excitedly; excited about the prospect of seeing her cousin.
"There," Gabriella discreetly pointed in the direction of a well built, tall, tan boy with jet black hair and a frown on his face, talking to a blonde girl a little distance away.
A smile appeared on Ashley's face as she looked at David. Right at that moment, David's eyes happened to flick in their direction. The frowny expression was replaced with a wide smile as he strode over to where the four juniors were standing, leaving the blonde girl staring at him with a flabbergasted expression on his face.
"Ashley!" David exclaimed, sounding overjoyed as he reached the four teens, "Finally I get to meet you."
Sean and Zac stopped in their tracks as they gawked at the basketball captain. Gabriella hesitantly hung back with the boys as excitedly Ashley bounded ahead.
"David!" Ashley squealed. "God I missed you," she said as she hugged him hard.
David grinned down at the brunette head which was pressed into his torso. "Yeah, pipsqueak, I missed you too."
Ashley pulled back and frowned up at David. "Shut up, you hulk," she protested good naturedly as she shoved him. She glanced back at the three people standing behind her as Gabriella's words from the previous night came back to her. She decided not to mention to David about her friends.
"Dude," Sean muttered, "how does she know him?"
Gabriella glanced at her boyfriend. "Cousins," she muttered.
"Oh right. Wait, seriously?" Sean looked at her incredulously. "They're nothing alike."
"That was my reaction too, when she told me about this."
Zac rolled his eyes. "I don't like either of them."
"Suck it up Zac," Gabriella frowned. "Ash is an amazing person. David, on the other hand, I don't know about him."
"Whatever," Zac grunted as he stalked off ahead.
Sean turned to look at Gabriella, questioningly.
Gabriella shrugged. "Let's go, she'll probably meet us at our table."
--
I really hope you're liking the story. Right now in the prologue and the first 2-3 chapters, I'm just working on introducing the characters and the school. I'm to let you guys know as much as possible, without being monotonous and boring.
Please Comment, Vote and Follow. Thanks! Until next time xo