Black and White Blues

She got the next bunch of flowers that Friday. Five. I knew because she had them in her hand when she approached me after school.

“Hey! Alex!” she called. I turned and saw her walk-running toward me.

“Ashley!” I said, a bit puzzled. I was surprised to see her there. I had just stayed after to retake an algebra test I failed, and the halls were nearly empty. I had been tightening my scarf to prepare for the frigid outdoor air that awaited me and my long walk home. “What’s up?”

She reached me. “Hey, are you doing anything today? With like Chloe or anybody?”

“Uh… no, it’s just me today,” I told her. I motioned to the door, beyond which a light snow was falling. “I got a two-mile walk in this to look forward to. That’s about it.”

A strange thing was happening. Ashley, whose state had been steadily declining for the past few months, was, all of a sudden, smiling and somewhat bubbly. Like she used to be, before the Ender incident. I could still see something in her eyes that didn’t quite fit, but I could see she was trying hard to get better, and it was actually showing. She wasn’t so pale. She’d put on a little makeup, done her hair. I remembered what she had told me about Jace being a jerk to her, and how Chloe told me that they’d broken up. Maybe that was the reason for the return of her upbeat attitude?

“Really?” she asked. “So do I! My ride left a while ago, right after school got out. I was getting some help with Engish.”

“Yeah, I was taking that awful algebra test,” I explained.

“So… do you mind if I walk with you?”

Be still, my heart.

“Uh… sure, yeah. That’d be great!”

So we pushed through the doors and into the cold. Ashley was wearing a black coat and matching boots, and I just had my usual striped long-sleeve and scarf. I was used to the cold at this point. I looked up at the sky and sprinkling snow. It was one of those peaceful December days, a couple weeks before Christmas, where you can feel the holiday spirit coming on. The air seemed still and quiet. It was actually pretty romantic. I looked over at Ashley, her shoulders hunched up and her breath coming out in puffs. She was adorable when she was happy.

“So,” she said, wasting no time, “I’m sorry about my phone call the other day.”

It took me a moment to remember, but when I did, I said, “Oh, don’t worry about it.” I was curious as to why it had happened, but I didn’t want to ask, in case it was something too personal.

But I didn’t have to. “That was the day I broke up with my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, Jace Valentine, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah.” A shadow played across her face, but she smiled it off. “I guess I just wanted somebody to talk to, you know? And then when you actually picked up, I froze, I didn’t know what to say.”

“Why did you call me?” I asked tenderly.

We crossed the street.

“Well…” she hesitated. “Lately all of my friends have been ignoring me. I don’t really know why. Probably has to do with Jace somehow.” She sighed. “Besides, they’re all those types of girls who care more about appearances and hair and stuff, rather than people. I mean, I’m sure I’m guilty of that too, probably more than most people, but I’m still not proud of it.”

“Yeah,” I said, just to let her know I was listening. Not much else to say.

“But you’re not really like that,” she said, looking at me and smiling. My heartbeat quickened. “Even when I was a wreck, and even though we didn’t really know each other, you stuck by me more than everyone else. I guess I just wanted to say thank you.”

I blushed and watch my feet plow through the snow. “Thanks…”

We walked in silence for a few moments, and then she spoke up again. “You seem like a really, really nice person. It seems weird that we’ve never really talked or anything before this year.”

I smiled back. “You seem cool too, and nice, and… stuff. Yeah.”

She giggled. “I guess it’s kinda hard to get to know people when you don’t really have any classes together, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Makes sense.”

“But hey,” she suggested, touching my arm. I shivered, and not from the cold. “Do you want to come over to my house and watch a movie or something? We have this incredible popcorn, it’s even better than the theatre’s.”

Okay, reality check time. Was this actually happening to me? Here I was, walking home with Ashley, the girl I’d had a crush on since school started in August, and so far she’d thanked me for “being there for her” when really I was just trying to figure myself out, called me “really, really nice,” and now she wanted me to come over? What had I done to deserve all of this?

I grinned, wider than I remember doing for a while. It made me feel a little self-conscious, but I couldn’t help it. “Sure, I’d love to! You mean like, today?”

She shrugged. “Sure, why not? We can even get some homework done or something if you wanted.”

I laughed. “Yeah, but you’re way smarter than me. I’m so far behind you.”

“Well, then maybe I can help you, so you won’t have to retake the next algebra test.” She winked at me.

I kept waiting to wake up, but it never happened.

*

Ashley’s house was huge. I kind of expected that, from the way she dressed. You can just tell these things sometimes. But she was cool about it. After the grand tour, we started making the incredible popcorn in her designer kitchen in her designer popcorn popper. All black and stainless steel, of course. That was when I asked about her family situation.

“I live with my grandma,” she explained. “She’s… about eighty-five, I think. Old. And deaf.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.

“Well, I have five older brothers, but they’re all at least ten years older than me and they’ve moved away. Now it’s just me and Grandma.”

“Wow,” I said. “So basically, you have this whole house to yourself?”

She thought about it. “Yeah, basically.” She laughed at the face I made. “It’s not really as great as it sounds. You can have all the nice things in the world but it doesn’t make you happy.”

“Hm,” was all I could think of to say. It was true, after all.

“And my brothers hate coming here, mostly because of Grandma,” she explained, as the popcorn began jumping. “She’s kind of hard to handle, and she was never close with any of us grandkids, even before she practically went deaf.

“This whole place is my dad’s fortune,” she continued, motioning up at the vaulted ceilings. “He was a really talented surgeon, before he and Mom died. The people at the hospital called him the Miracle Man.”

She got a distant, sad look in her eyes again. I knew the conversation was headed onto thin ice. I considered changing the subject, but wondered if it would be rude. She was telling me all of this for a reason, I thought. So gently, I asked, “How did it happen?”

“Car crash,” she said casually. “Nothing too exciting, just some drunk driver one New Years’ Eve. We were coming home from the big celebration and this jerk didn’t stop at a red light. He was going at least forty. It was over pretty quickly.”

“We?” I asked, amazed. “You were in the car too?”

She nodded. “I was eleven. I was hurt pretty badly. It took me a long time to heal. I still get pains and stuff every once in a while. But Mom and Dad… it was instant for them. The worst part is,” she choked back emotion, “the drunks? They lived, every one of them. They didn’t even get put in jail. I don’t know how it happened.”

She was crying now. I stood up and hugged her. It felt natural and good, like two puzzle pieces fitting together, and I knew I was doing the right thing. She grabbed onto me too, and held me tightly, crying into my shoulder. I felt myself tearing up too. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would help. I wasn’t sure if anything would. “I’m sorry” was all I wanted to say, but it didn’t seem like enough. So, I just kept holding her and letting her cry on me.

After a minute, she stepped back, her face now red and wet. “Jace would always tell me to stop crying. He told me I was being weak. I guess I am.”

“No,” I said quietly, lightly touching her arm. “It’s not weak. You’re not weak. The fact that you healed and are still going to school and living a normal life is proof that you’re strong.” Her eyes met mine. They were so bright and beautiful, even tainted by tears. “What’s difficult for some people might not be for others, but if it’s a big deal for you, then it doesn’t matter what other people might say or think. What matters is how you feel about it.”

Her eyes filled again. I worried that I’d said something wrong, and wanted to apologize. She came forward and wrapped her arms around my waist again, sobbing. I softly ran my hand up and down her back. “Thank you so much…” she said, her voice broken and muffled by my shirt.

I smiled quietly and told her, “Any time.” And I meant it.

*

Chloe’s team lost an important match the next Monday. It was a home game, and Ashley and I stayed to watch and cheer her on. Unfortunately, the other team managed to get the upper hand early in the game, and the referees were making bad calls left and right. I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the mass of angry fans booing and calling things out to them. Not very nice things. Our Reeds High Raptors lost the game, and now had no chance at the championship.

So I understood why Chloe was looking quite dejected the following day at lunch. She was even eating something normal – three cheese nachos. The cheeses were varieties I had never heard of before, and they smelled repulsive, but it was nachos just the same.

Ashley was sitting with us. She seemed very grateful to be doing so, too. Now, instead of poking her food or ignoring it, she was eating. A lot. More than me. She actually finished my fries when I decided I couldn’t eat any more. She was also talking. She could talk quite a bit once she got going.

And, might I say, the Friday before and now Monday and Tuesday were possibly the best days of my life. Something had changed between Ashley and I that day at her house, something I was definitely happy about. Now she smiled at me all the time, and instead of occasionally waving like she used to, she would stop and talk, tell me about her grandma, or her classes, or anything, really. She never seemed to run out of things to talk about. And for me, that was great. I had little to say, ever. Just listening to her was good enough for me. I felt so lucky.

I was engrossed in a worst-date story involving pine trees when I glanced at Chloe. She was looking down at her nachos, as if she’d suddenly lost her invincible appetite. “What’s wrong, Chloe?” I asked her.

She shrugged, without looking up. “It’s nothing. Not a big deal.”

This was odd. She was never sad. “Those nachos not weird enough today?”

My joke elicited a fraction of a smile, but that was all. “It’s not the nachos.”

Ashley stopped telling her story and joined in on our conversation. “What is it?”

“Is it about the game yesterday?” I asked.

“It’s…”

“Ashley.”

She looked up. A boy, a fresh-looking student body officer whose name I could never remember, had approached our table. In his hand, he held four white flowers. He handed them to her. “I was told to give these to you.”

She took them, looking a bit mystified. “Who are they from?”

He shrugged and held up his hands as if to repel responsibility. “No clue. The office told me to deliver them.”

“And they didn’t say who they were from?” I pressed, just as confused as Ashley. “There wasn’t a card or anything?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Whoever dropped them off just left the flowers and who they were for.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Ashley said, giving him a quick smile as he left. “This is so creepy,” she said to me. “I don’t want to find out who’s holding the last flower. He’s probably some weird guy.”

We turned back around. The nachos were still there, but Chloe was gone.

*

Every once in a while, you get an idea for a song that just plays out so nicely in your head that you can’t help but sit down and write it out. Sometimes it comes so fast and so strong that it’s almost like you can’t get it down fast enough. I suppose it’s called “inspiration” or something. In any case, I had a strong dosage of it that night and my fingers were cooperating quite nicely. It was a good guitar-playing day. Sitting on my bed with my open notebook sitting next to me, guitar in my lap, pick in my right hand, and pen in my mouth, I strummed through my vocabulary of chords to find the perfect one I was looking for. I had almost found it (it turned out to be Amaj7) when my cell phone rang. Reluctantly, I picked it up off my nightstand. “Hello?”

“I thought I warned you,” a raspy voice crackled over the static. “I told you to stay away from her.” It was all too familiar. “Didn’t you get the note I left you?”

“Ender.” I started to sweat. My eyes were looking at but not seeing my CD player across the room. Every other sense went on hold to heighten my hearing as I tried to grasp his every word.

He laughed, once. It was more of a snort. “Hey, you know who I am! You know, you and I could be friends. We’re both the artsy type. Maybe I could help you design an album cover?”

I wasn’t buying it. “What do you want, Ender?”

“I want you to stay away from Ashley. I think I made that obvious. It wasn’t easy to shoot that idiot boyfriend of hers. Or,” he paused, “ex-boyfriend now, isn’t he?” I could hear him smiling.

The pieces were starting to come together in my head. “Wait, I thought… that was for ‘justice’ or something.”

“That’s right,” he muttered. “It was justice.”

“So why do you care what Ashley and I are doing?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Yeah, I would!” I barked. “Tell me!”

“You’re in no position to be making demands,” Ender hissed. “Just do what I tell you to, or I’ll make good on my promise.”

“You can stick that gun of yours up your…” I couldn’t finish. “How about you do what I say, and leave me and Ashley the heck alone!”

He laughed. “You sound so stupid, Alex.”

“Yeah, well, I bet you feel pretty stupid sitting in jail, don’t you?”

“Who says I’m in jail?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Alex. Whether we’re friends or enemies at that point is up to you.”

He hung up. I put down the phone.

I fell asleep with the light on that night.