Trainwreck

by Heather C. Myers

  Sadie physically shrugged even though the conversation she was having was only in her mind. She had no idea about him. Originally, she had labeled him a stoner because that was what he did; he smoked weed. He ditched school. He got detentions and Saturday schools and the like. He was the class clown that occasionally said something funny, but for the most part, would say inappropriate things at inappropriate times. Sadie hated to admit it, but she didn't notice when Asher was at school and she didn't notice when he was gone. He had just been another face, another body, another name she didn't care to learn. He was transparent just like everyone else at school.

  Except now he wasn't. He was more than just a label, more than just a stereotype. He was flesh and bones and feelings and ideas. The problem was, Sadie didn't know anything about him and yet she craved to know everything. Like, why did he smoke pot in the first place? Why did he have a bandana wrapped around his boot? Why did he wear plaid? What was his favorite color? When was his birthday? The questions were random and simple, but she was still keen on learning about him in any way she could.

  "Come on," Sadie murmured under her breath as she slowed her car to a stop at a red light. "Get a grip on yourself. You don't have stupid crushes on stoners you don't even know."

  But he's more than just some stoner, Sadie, a voice in her head reminded her. You just admitted it.

  So what was so special about Asher Boyd anyways? Why couldn't Sadie just stop? She ran her fingers through her hair, chewing her bottom lip as she tried to sort out her thoughts. Asher Boyd was cocky and lazy, careless and selfish. But he was cute in a sloppy, bad boy sort of way. To be honest, she was somewhat surprised that, from what little she saw on Saturday, she hadn't noticed any tattoos on his body. And – though she would never admit it aloud – he was a pretty good kisser. If Sadie was being honest, she wanted to kiss him again.

  "Oh gosh," Sadie whispered, shaking her head as she felt her cheeks flame up.

  She turned into a small neighborhood filled with similar townhouses with no backyards and stopped at 1110 South Street. Somebody was already waiting for her – her best friend, Natasha Hocker. Natasha was a couple of months younger than Sadie, but they were in the same grade and had been friends since seventh grade. She was Thai, with straight, dark brown locks and almond colored eyes. She was slightly chubby but had the best fashion sense Sadie had ever seen and a ten million dollar smile. Currently, she was wearing jeans and a coral Hollister shirt with a bag filled with schoolbooks slung over her shoulder.

  "Hey," she greeted upon sliding into the car. Her eyes immediately caught sight of the fading blush littering her best friend's cheeks. "Oh God, Sadie, is this about Asher Boyd? I heard about the whole supply closet thing."

  "You know that's not true, right?" Sadie asked as she pulled away from the house.

  "Duh," Natasha said, slipping on her seatbelt. "But seriously, Sadie. Even now, even though I've barely talked to you about the guy, your eyes are shining in a way I have only seen when you're talking about a guy you potentially like." She glanced over at her friend's profile and Sadie refused to acknowledge her statement with a nod, a glance, anything, really, so she pressed on. "But Asher Boyd Sadie? I mean, the guy is never in my English class and when he is, he smells like weed and he's always wearing the same thing practically every day. Plus, I hear he's been with numerous girls in the backseat of his car, refusing to actually have sex with them, like, on a bed."

  "Oh, you're being silly, Tash," Sadie said, shaking her head to indicate she didn't believe what Natasha was telling her. "You know that's not true. And how do you know he doesn't wash his clothes everyday or that he has five of the same shirts and pants and whatever."

  "Sadie, wake up for like one second," Natasha said, turning her body so she could get a better look at her friend. "Listen, I know he's the type of guy you go for; the mysterious bad boy, whatever." She waved her hand dismissively. "But, and don't be offended, sweetie, I'm trying to be as honest as I can; Asher Boyd is kind of a loser."

  Sadie felt annoyance crawling up her skin, and she rolled her eyes. "Asher Boyd is not a loser," she said firmly, making a right-hand turn.

  "What exactly happened during detention?" Natasha asked, resting her elbow on the crevice of her door, and cradling her cheek her with palm. "You know you can tell me."

  "I know," Sadie agreed, making a left at the light. "Okay, what happened was this. We had detention together, and I guess he must have had it pretty consistently because he seemed to be familiar with Stewey and not in a good way."

  "Asher Boyd is known for getting Saturday schools," Natasha murmured with a roll of her eyes as she glanced down at her new acrylic nails. She suddenly noticed something on Sadie and her mouth dropped as her eyes opened. "Sadie, oh my God, what happened to your ring?!"

  "Will you let me tell you the story?" Sadie snapped, before sighing and running her fingers through her hair. "Right, well Asher sat right behind me. I guess something happened between him and Paulina in eighth grade, blah, blah, blah, but he really didn't seem to get along with anybody, like he was putting up this tough front. He and Edward actually got into a fight."

  "A fight?" Natasha asked, completely flummoxed. "Why would they get into a fight?"

  "Well, you know how Edward loves soccer, right?" Sadie asked, and without verbally responding, Natasha nodded. "Right, well, he had a soccer ball he was pushing back and forth between his hands and apparently, Asher got sick of it so he picked it up and threw it across the room but wouldn't go fetch it when Edward told him to."

  "Okay, I could see how maybe that... could be very hot," Natasha admitted, but quickly changed the subject. "So what happened?"

  "They got into a fight and then I jumped on Edward's back because honestly? Edward would have beat the shit out of him," Sadie murmured. "Then Asher got mad at me but then I was mad at Asher because he wouldn't clean his face for, like, ever, but then he finally did. And then he grabbed some weed from his locker; everybody started smoking it upstairs except me, but then Asher comes down and said he saved some for me, but I told him that I didn't smoke."

  "Wait, Asher Boyd saved some of his pot just so you could smoke?" Natasha asked, somewhat perplexed. "Isn't that supposed to be like super-romantic considering the fact that he's a stoner and weed's pretty expensive?"

  "I don't know," Sadie said, shrugging uncomfortably. "But anyway, for whatever reason – I can't remember now – I get up and am about to leave, but when I push the door open it hits Stewey right on the nose." Natasha winced at the action but didn't interrupt. "So he takes me to the supply closet where I'm there for the rest of the day, right?"

  "Do you know how totally illegal that is?" Natasha asked, but the question was rhetorical and Sadie didn't answer it.

  "But then Asher comes in," she quickly.

  "The supply closet?" Natasha asked sharply.

  "The supply closet," Sadie said with affirmation, nodding her head once. "And we played truth, you know, where you say truths or whatever." Natasha nodded incessantly that she knew the game and just wanted her to finish up. They were almost at school. "I, uh, well, I kissed his collarbone for some random reason, and then we kissed after Stewey released us from Saturday school. Like on the lips. And for whatever reason, I grabbed one of his chains and slipped my ring through it, locking it around his neck."

  Natasha was silent for a moment, letting everything settle in. "Sadie, you know I'll support you no matter what you want to do, and if you like him and he likes you, then I say go for it," she responded, just as Sadie pulled into the school parking lot. "I just don't want to see you hurt, the way Tony treated you."

  "Don't worry," Sadie murmured more to herself than to Natasha. "Asher Boyd is not Tony McGinnis."

  Chapter 14

  When the 7:24am bell rang, Sadie and Natasha said their goodbyes at the quad. Sadie ended up heading east while Natasha headed south to a bunch of portables the school had dubbed as the Village. Sadie's first class that morning was Marine
Biology, the class Asher had mentioned that they shared, but Sadie had never noticed him in. The room itself was big, and instead of sitting in individual desks, there were eight rows that could fit six people in, with a dividing pathway in the center of the room. Because there was no particular seating chart, the students decided where they wanted to sit. Sadie's seat of choice was the second row on the right side of the room, second seat in. As she waited for the class to start filling in, her eyes scanned the posters that occupied much of the room's walls, the posters she had already thoroughly studied whenever she was bored.

  Since the class was a science, Sadie had to work extra-hard to get a good grade. She didn't know why but science and her mind didn't exactly go together no matter how hard she tried. She was good at English and she was even decent at math (though she would never say she preferred the subject), but science always caught her off-guard. So she decided to choose Marine Biology; at least this way, she'd be learning about the sea and the sea's inhabitants. That was definitely interesting, to a point.

  Her mind tried not to think about the guy who was practically stained on her thoughts, but her eyes decided to rebel, not to listen to the logic her brain wanted to see through, and she glanced at the faces that were currently coming into the classroom in a subtle manner, so if she did catch Asher's eyes, she could immediately look away. Yes, it was silly, but it was the only strategy she had right now.

  The seat to her left of her was still unoccupied by the time the teacher walked in and started to call out roll. Sadie hadn't seen Asher come in, and after doing the most casual sweep of the room that she could, realized he had not shown up. Disappointment quickly spread through her body, but she it wasn't that much of a surprise. Just as Asher was notorious for getting some sort of detention at least once a week, he was also known for not showing up to class.

  She just thought that after everything the two had been through over the weekend... Oh well. Like it mattered. It was just a crush, right? She could get over a crush. Or so she hoped.

  "Okay guys," Mr. Wilbourne said, clapping his hands before rubbing them together. "Happy Monday. Today's going to be boring, I'm sorry to say. I'm going to give you notes on Unit I, so today is pretty much lecture. Pull out your notebooks and some sort of writing utensil, and get ready to take some notes on the basics of Marine Bio."

  The whole class emitted a low groan, but nobody argued with Mr. Wilbourne; the teacher was incredibly nice and it was hard to be mad at him. They rarely had homework and he provided thorough study guides for tests. If he wanted to spend a whole class giving notes, then the class wasn't going to complain too loudly.

  For the first five minutes of the lecture, Sadie really did try and pay attention, but her mind kept going back to... Don't say his name, Sadie.

  Suddenly, the door opened, and Sadie felt her heart leap in her throat. Except it wasn't Asher. It was some guy who looked like he was in her grade, and Sadie for the life of her, couldn't recognize him. He must be new. As he handed Mr. Wilbourne his schedule, Sadie took the time to check him out without the subtext of attraction. He was tall in relation to her, maybe five foot ten or something along those lines, but definitely not six foot. He had a built frame, but it was lean rather than filled with muscle definition. He had shaggy blonde hair and dark brown eyes, and as he spoke to Mr. Wilbourne, Sadie noticed a dimple continuously popping up in his right cheek. With straight, white teeth and clothes from Tilly's, Sadie figured he had to be a surfer.

  "Why don't you take a seat next to Sadie?" Mr. Wilbourne suggested. "Sadie, will you raise your hand?"

  Sadie did so and watched as this guy came over and sat down next to her. It was only after she dropped her arm and the new guy was settled did Mr. Wilbourne introduce his new student.

  "Everybody," he announced, "this is Tyler Handler. He's from San Francisco, so if you see him around campus, please be nice and say hi. I'm sure everyone knows what it feels like to be new somewhere, am I right?"

  After the class gave Mr. Wilbourne murmurs of agreement, he went back to the board and continued speaking and writing.

  "Hey," Tyler said, his voice low as he regarded Sadie. "So what are we doing right now?"

  "Oh, he's giving us notes," Sadie whispered back. "It's important that you actually take them down though, because on the first day of class, he mentioned that he got a lot of test questions from the lectures."

  "Gotcha," Tyler murmured, leaning down and reaching into his black backpack and pulling out a spiral notebook and a number two pencil.

  It was a half an hour into class when the door opened once again. Sadie didn't even bother to look up; her hand was scrambling to catch up with Mr. Wilbourne's in hopes that she wouldn't miss anything.

  "Well, Mr. Boyd," Mr. Wilbourne murmured, obvious disappointment laced in his light voice. "I'm sorry to see you walking into class this late."

  Upon hearing his name, Sadie's head snapped up and without any intention to do so whatsoever, her eyes locked with Asher's.

  "I'm not," he murmured before slowly darting his eyes away from Sadie and to the guy he didn't recognize, sitting next to her.

  ---

  Asher narrowed his eyes almost instinctively. He didn't question his reaction to the sight as he headed to his usual seat in the back of the class; whatever came naturally, he usually went with. He had this laidback nature about him that was often mistaken for carelessness. It wasn't as though he was suddenly going to start sitting next to Sadie just because they happened to have kissed on Saturday and that she had given him a ring to hang around his neck that, by the way, he was still wearing. It wasn't like he would suddenly become this whole new person just because some things happened that he didn't expect.

  But that didn't mean he was still the same person he used to be, before he had encountered Sadie Brown, before he had touched his lips with hers, before he ran into her Sunday afternoon, about to get slapped across the face by her ex-boyfriend. He would never admit it aloud, but she had been occupying his thoughts quite recently, and he noticed that every time his thoughts would trail off, he would idly finger the chain currently hanging from his neck. And right now, currently, he was leaning back in his chair so the two front legs were pushed off and he was balancing on the back two legs, his warm brown eyes hard as he studied the blonde couple two rows in front of him. He was drowning out Mr. Wilbourne's lecture, as he usually did, but his thoughts this morning had more of a purpose than whether or not he should ditch next period.

  Even though Asher had called out Sadie on not noticing him before, it didn't mean that he hadn't noticed her because he had. It wasn't though he was instantly attracted to her or anything, but she was pretty enough, and whenever he got bored during class, he liked to watch her. He was taken aback when he found out that Sadie was the same Sadie who had been dating Tony, wondering how someone like Tony could get someone like her. He hated to admit that there was some kind of hierarchy in high school, but there was. Sadie was the type of girl who wasn't known as popular, but everyone knew her. She could be popular, but she wasn't. She was smart and gorgeous and talented, but she didn't exactly fit in any sort of clique. Girls like her did not date guys like Tony.

  Or guys like him.

  His fingers crept up to caress the cool ring hanging from his neck as he continued to watch the back of her head. For him to even think that he had any sort of chance with her would be him being delusional. It would probably be better for everyone if they didn't interact again, if he moved on, if she moved on, if they both decided to mutually keep the hierarchy in position. No disturbance meant that he had freedom; there were no expectations of him, no pressure, and no one to worry about. And that was how he liked it.

  So when the bell rang, Asher quickly disappeared out the door before Sadie could even attempt to talk to him after class.

  Chapter 15

  To be honest, Sadie should have expected Asher's abrupt departure as the norm and brushed it off. Instead, she took the entire scenario personal.
Maybe she was that easy to affect, maybe she really did care about what Asher thought of her and liked him sort of kind of maybe just a little and was hoping he might like her in return. She couldn't have misread the signs he was giving her Saturday, could she? Maybe he just used her as a means to his end. It didn't really look as though anyone would have amused him save for her, and maybe he just wanted to get through detention.

  "Maybe, maybe, maybe," she mumbled to herself as she walked down a small hill before turning right, glancing at the empty baseball field as she headed to her English class located in the Village.

  There were too many maybes.

  Sadie was notorious in her small group of friends for overanalyzing things to an extraneous extent. In fact, that was probably why she got along with Natasha so much. Natasha was known for the same thing, and at least together, they could understand each other. Both were spiritual rather than religious, both believed in fate, and both believed that there were no such things as coincidences. With logic ruling today's day and age, it was rather difficult to find someone likeminded, so they each considered themselves to be quite lucky to have each other to bounce ideas off of. Too bad they didn't have any classes together.

  "Well," the teacher, Mrs. Arnds, said once the whole class had settled down. "I hope you brought Brand New World with you today."

  Sadie reached into her bag and pulled out the book, but as she did a worksheet based on the reading she had done over the weekend, her mind was obviously elsewhere. The more she thought about the situation, the more she began to get frustrated with herself, but even more so, upset at Asher. Why would he lead her on? Why would he make her think that that he could possibly like her in return when he so obviously didn't?