Just in Fifteen Days

23. Lee And Her Fire

Ashton's POV

Our whole drive back to my hotel was silent. No one spoke but just fidgeted - her hands on the steering wheel and my fingers sometimes inside my palms and sometimes, when trying to rest, on my thighs.

I remembered Myra telling me, "Ash, I like Lee. Why don't you ask her to come over for dinner? We'll make our special recipe. I hope you remember it." Myra had given Talie her own little nickname, Lee. After the night she had talked to her, Myra insisted on talking to Talie every time I told her how I spent my day.

The other day, I was having a video call with Myra. Emily and Tris had just picked her back from her school. She was excited when she called me and was like, "Ash, Lee is so beautiful! I like your choice." And I had heard Emily and Tris giggling in the background. They had told her that she was my girlfriend and Emily had stalked her on Instagram. Ugh.

Later, Emily genuinely said that she liked Talie and asked me if I did, too, and asked what I thought about her. I told her it was nothing but I wasn't sure if that was true. And so did Emily. But, she let it pass. Thankfully!

Talie had said that she wanted to talk to me something while we were having the dinner. I kept wondering what it could be - maybe she didn't like my company, maybe I wasn't the type of guys she really hung out with. I had accepted the fact that I wasn't like Steve. He was a great boyfriend, a person with too much of good looks, witty and cautious, nonchalant yet prudent. I really admired him.

There's this thing - people who don't have the ability to accept some facts about some people, become jealous and with time start hating them. We often tend to think that the other person is lucky and fortunate because the grass is always greener on the other side. With happiness and satisfaction, comes the disappointment and longing. And to get through all the phases, acceptance is what we need. We need to learn to accept things. It makes the life so much better and easier. I had accepted that getting over Cheryl was going to be hard but I was going to do it. I had to. And I must. I had accepted that I had some drawbacks and I needed to work on them. I was trying. I was determined to pull myself up as much as I could. Anyway...

Kayaking was one of the must-do things I had on my list. Everytime I went to a new place, I tried it. It was different and very less people did it. I wanted the experience of all the places. Kayaking in Australia isn't really bad but not that good, too. The best experience that I ever had was in New Zealand. Oh, that place! It filled my body with adrenaline. The place is so wild, so green and beautiful. It was like, I had this very different kind of energy at that place. Fiordland, New Zealand had the best kayaking from the ones I had been to.

I wanted to go for it here as well. Talie had told me that she didn't want to get bored with her English essays and asked me if we could go anywhere. I told her about kayaking. After we returned from dinner last night, she didn't really respond to my text messages and gave one word replies but when I told her about kayaking, she became too excited and asked all the things she would need to carry. I told her that it wasn't some picnic that we were going to.

Kayaking is one hell of a healthy sport. So, here I was, at Talie's house, waiting for her to collect all the important things - the water bottle and just one set of extra clothes. Too much? Apparently, yes.

"Come on, Talie! What's wrong with you? I won't get it if you don't tell me." She hadn't talked to me since I was here. She hadn't even looked towards me. The last message of mine was a the ghost emoticon to which she didn't reply. That was the way we always ended our chats - ghost from my side and the Halloween pumpkin from hers. It was stupid but it was something like our thing.

You forgot the blue hearts that you exchanged sometimes.

Sandra was just leaving when I got here. She just gave a smile that clearly said 'it's not gonna be good.' I hadn't understood it then. Now, I did.