Run. Just Run.

Chapter 38

"Shut up, James. I love Danny. Not you." Ashley says, and she pushes James to the side and runs into Danny's arms. Their foreheads are pressed up against each other's and they're staring into each other's eyes. James' heart breaks at the sight of this. Then they move their heads closer and.....James looks away. He can't bear to see any of it anymore. As he starts walking away, he hears Ashley speak, in almost a whisper.

"I want to spend forever with you, Danny."

That's it. James starts pouring tears. He lays down on the cold, hard ground and just cries hopelessly.

Suddenly James opens his eyes and is staring up into darkness. He looks around him, and he's in a bed. In a small room. And Ashley's asleep on the other side of the bed. James heaves an enormous sigh of relief. It was just a dream. He takes one last peek at Ashley, then closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

__________________

After a while, James slowly opens his eyes, sunlight pouring in the room. He glances over at Ashley, but she's not there! As he slowly wakes up, he becomes more aware of his surroundings. He sits up in the bed, and then he sees it. Ashley standings a corner of the room, talking to the boy who must be Danny. The nerve! To bring him right here into the room! They're talking low, so he strains to hear them.

"Fine. Be that way." Ashley says, a hint of anger in her voice. She glances over and sees James awake. "Then I'll just do this." She says to Danny.

Ashley walks over to James, and sits down. On his lap! She wraps her arms around him, and glances back at Danny.

"It doesn't affect you?" She asks Danny, with almost a wicked gleam in her eye. "Well, then how about this?"

She turns to James and whispers in his ear. "I've been wanting to do this a long time." She says, and then she kisses him. Full on kisses him. James' eyes shoot wide open, and then almost immediately close, taking in all the sensations. He feels electricity running through his veins, and a crazy amount of butterflies in his stomach. He feels fireworks, like he's on top of the world, and then he feels like he's falling. Falling. Just falling.

Everything gets black. He looks around, but he can't see anything. Then, out of nowhere, he hears a voice. He recognizes it as Ashley's.

"Give me a chance." She says. James tries to see where the voice is coming from, but he can't see anything. "Let me explain."

James' eyes shoot open, and he sees a ceiling. He looks over to the side, and sees sunlight coming in through the window. No. That was a dream too? Why did that one have to be a dream?

James tries to roll over, but something stops him. He leans up on an elbow, and turns over, staying in one place. What he sees makes his heart hurt. There was Ashley, sleeping. She wasn't far away on the other side of the bed, as cold or as rude as she had been the night before. In her sleep, she'd moved and now she was facing James, curled up behind him, snuggled up against him.

"That's it." He mumbles under his breath. "I'm gonna do what I should've done all along." He says, remembering what he'd heard in his dream. "I'm gonna ask her about it, and let her explain."

He lays back down, facing Ashley this time, and brings a hand up and starts smoothing out her hair. There had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this. She wouldn't just lead him on like that. He knew her. It's not something she'd do. He lays there with Ashley snuggled up against him, waiting for her to wake up.