The iPod was playing some new pop song that talked about love and sex. Ashley applied another smear of lipstick and puckered up.
She glanced at the photo of her, Lee, and Chase. She turned her head and longingly stared at it. She took it down and looked at it in detail. “Eighth Grade Graduation” was written on the back. In the photo, three young thirteen-year olds were arm in arm, their faces expressing too much happiness.
Eighth grade graduation was when Lee told Ashley that Chase liked her.
She bit her bottom lip and threw the picture towards the ground. The picture delicately fluttered down. With her slippered foot, she stomped on it and wanted it to miraculously catch fire and burn to ashes.
The song played into the sexual parts. Ironically, Ashley listened to them, thinking about that fateful Friday evening.
No, it wasn’t rape; and she was the only one who knew it. She was the one to lead him on. She was teasing him…She was stripping him…She was kissing him.
But towards the latter parts, she wanted out—she had ‘come’ to her senses. She had felt so stupid afterwards...
Why was she so stupid? Why did she lead him on like that, knowing how he had become obsessed over her? She grabbed her cosmetics and violently threw them onto the ground. Screaming with rage, she began to throw everything her hands could grab a hold of. Her screams were heard from downstairs.
“Honey? Honey?” her mother’s voice knocked on her door. “Is everything okay?”
“GO AWAY!” she screamed.
“Honey, it’s me,” her mother cooed. “Open the door.”
“I said, GO AWAY!” She threw a bottle of perfume at the door and the glass bottle shattered into a million pieces.
“What was that? Honey?!”
She let out a blood curdling scream. “I don’t want to talk about it!” She threw herself onto her bed, where she grabbed a random stuffed animal and began to tear at it. She tore and tore, until the limbs of the poor bear were in ruins.
She glared at the bear, kind of surprised that she randomly got this one.
The bear that Chase had given her on eighth grade graduation. An insignificant little white bear with a blue ribbon that was so tacky, but something to hold dear. And, she tore it up like a bad report card. No regret came out of her. No, perhaps it was fate to choose the bear.
She picked up the remains of the bear and threw it into her trash.
Her cell phone rang. When she looked at the ID, she didn’t know what to feel: relief or sorrow…
“Hi, Liza.”
“What’s wrong? Your mom just called me, saying you were breaking things in your room…”
“It’s nothing.”
“Are you okay?”
“…Yeah. I’m fine.”
Liza went on and on about her new boyfriend, Kyle Myrtle. Just hearing about the baseball team that Kyle was on made Ashley think about Chase again.
Yes, she had liked him—quite sometime ago, when she didn’t believe that she was beautiful. That all changed, and she had forgotten about him and whatever feelings he had invoked.
But, it was hard to forget your first love…even if you tried your best and made him do things that you wished he never did.
Her mind changed like a mood let and now, she remembered his sweet lips, his cheeks, his eyes…his heart…
Yes, it was hard to forget, no matter how much you want to hate him—you just end up loving him again…
“…Anyways, you’re coming to the barbeque in the park, right, Ashley?”
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