Part 15 (1/2)

”Come on.” He made a ”come hither” motion with his hand. ”You have to finish what we started the other night. Channel all your rage into that little clock and hit me with it. After some of the s.h.i.+t that I did and said, I'm sure I deserve it.”

”Maybe,” Ash replied, tossing the alarm clock from hand to hand. ”But the alarm clock doesn't.”

”I'm not leaving until you do it.” He glanced at the indentation in the door frame and grimaced, but before he could change his mind, he closed his eyes tightly and set his feet. ”Avoid my face if you can. But don't hold back.” He gritted his teeth.

In that minute, while he awaited his punishment with his face all scrunched up as if he were constipated, Ash recognized what she'd been seeing these last two months whenever she looked at Bobby Jones, when she kissed him, when he slipped his arm around her waist as they walked across the quad. She'd been with Rich Lesley all this time, again, replacing him with somebody who had all the same qualities that had made Rich so exciting and infuriating and irresistible and vile. Only, Bobby, for all his flaws, had at least some glimmer of a soul beneath the camouflage of immaturity.

183.

As the image of Rich's face melted away, revealing Bobby's underneath, she walked over to her bed and set the alarm clock gently down onto her mattress. ”You ready, Bobby?”

He clenched his fists. The muscles in his forearms tensed. ”Do it.”

Ashline grabbed one of the two decorative pillows she kept on her otherwise minimalist bed. And then, with a windup that would have made a professional softball player envious, she lobbed the pillow right at Bobby.

Direct hit. It struck his eager face. Ash tried not to enjoy it too much as he released a girlish shriek and staggered back into the doorway. His arms thrashed in front of his face at first, clawing at the pillow as if it were a rabid bat. But his nerve receptors soon reminded him that he had not in fact been hit by a four-pound alarm clock, and his spastic floundering ceased. He held out the pillow at arm's length.

Ash couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

As the color slowly trickled back into Bobby's ashen face, he joined her with relieved laughter. ”We cool?” he asked. Then he added with some hesitation, ”Can we . .

. fix this?”

”Yeah, Bobby, we're cool.” She paused. ”But there's nothing left to fix.”

”Come on,” he pleaded. ”What if we gave it time?

What if we went back to being just friends?”

”That would require that we were 'just friends' in 184 the first place-and I'm pretty sure we hopscotched right over that step,” she reminded him.

”You must still feel something here.” He thumped his hand over his heart with pa.s.sion, but his voice was growing quieter and more defeated by the second. ”You don't date someone for two months if there's nothing there.”

Ash took a moment to gather her thoughts so that what she said next wouldn't come out sounding like an it's-not-you-it's-me speech. ”Bobby, believe me when I say that, even after dating you for two months, it didn't occur to me until now that you might actually be one of the most romantic guys I've ever met, in your own special way. If we gave it time to work out all the kinks, I'm sure you'd make a great boyfriend.” Ashline smiled gently at him. ”But I think maybe I needed to date you to realize that I don't need to date anyone.”

”Just to be clear,” Bobby said, ”that was you referring to me as just anyone?”

”You're going to make a great somebody for somebody else,” she said, then bit her lip. ”s.h.i.+t, that sounded like it came from a really bad greeting card.”

His lips twitched as if he wanted to smile back, but it was clear she'd just taken a dinner fork to his ballooned ego. ”Well, at least I took a shot at the goal,” he said. ”I better head back to practice. I imagine I'll be doing laps for my little stunt.”

”At least it's still raining?” she said unhelpfully.

He walked out the door but stopped before he'd made 185 it too far down the hallway. ”I hope you'll take this as a compliment. . . . You seem different today.”

”Probably my hair,” Ashline replied. ”It's a few mil-limeters longer than the last time you saw it.”

He leaned in and hugged her, lingering and gentle, with a wistful longing she'd never sensed from him when they were actually together.

”Good-bye, Ash,” he said.

Ash sighed after he left, feeling somehow even more exhausted than she had when she'd crawled into bed the night before. She climbed back under the covers and closed her eyes.

Just in time for more knocking on the door.

”I hate everybody,” Ash mumbled into her pillow and hauled herself back out of bed. She opened the door.

The laughter explosively vomited out of her.

There, in jumpsuits so orange that they could probably be seen from s.p.a.ce, stood Ade, Lily, Rolfe, and Raja.

”I'm sorry,” Ashline said. ”Did you just walk off the set of some twisted eighties music video, or was there a Blackwood fas.h.i.+on show earlier this morning?”

Rolfe snorted. ”Not quite as funny when you're actually wearing one.”

”Speaking of which . . .” Raja thrust a jumpsuit on a coat-hanger into Ashline's hands. ”Here you go. It's a medium. Hopefully it's not too small.” She turned and marched off down the hall. Ade and Rolfe giggled and followed her out.

186.

”Well, I hope you got your jumpsuit in stretch-fit,”

Ash yelled down the hall too late, knowing full well they'd already made it to the stairwell. She added, ”To cover your huge a.s.s.”

”Cla.s.sy,” said Lily, but she was laughing too.

”Cla.s.sy? I'm about to dress up like a tangerine and pick up garbage.” Ash shrugged and unzipped the jumpsuit. ”But screw it. Gotta be better than homework, right?”

It was only once they were outside waiting for their park ranger escort to arrive that Ashline began to appreciate the full sinister brilliance of the job the headmistress had sentenced them to. The real punishment wasn't cleaning the forest floor for a few hours on a clammy, overcast Sunday. No, their true punishment began as soon as they set foot onto the Blackwood quad wearing bright orange jumpsuits. The headmistress had planned for their escort to pick them up at twelve thirty, exactly the time when most students, foggy from a late Sat.u.r.day night, stumbled out of bed and headed to Sunday ”morning” brunch.

What the students got instead when they exited the dormitories was a far better start to their Sunday than syrup and French toast: a five-student chain gang, waiting for a ride into the forest.

Everyone had something to say as they walked past.

”Did you guys get cast in a Tropicana commercial?”

187.

”What's the matter, the other crayons wouldn't let you play?”

”Yo, it's the Fruit of the Loom!”

”That,” Ade said when he heard the last one, ”made absolutely no sense.”

”Fruit of the Loom!” the kid shouted back, and pumped his fist triumphantly into the air.

Raja shook her head and pulled at her jumpsuit as if it were made of dog s.h.i.+t. ”I'd almost rather wear a scarlet letter than this.”

Rolfe elbowed her playfully in the ribs and winked.

”There's a second time for everything, I guess.”