If Ashlynn Sempers allowed herself to be honest to the world, including herself, she would admit she's happy to move to Los Angeles. She would tell her mother she is ready to go to a new school. She would laugh in her "friends'" faces when they cried about how much they would miss her. She might even tell her brother she liked his haircut. Or lack of one. But, alas, she is anything but honest with the world, especially so with herself. So she stubbornly stays set against the move.
She wonders to herself what she possibly did to deserve this. To deserve being moved across the country where she would be alone and have almost no chance of making friends. Her mother says to treat this as a new start where Ash can be who she wants to be, and she actually plans to do so once she gathers the balls to say what horrible thing she's thinking. It's part of who she is, she reasons, so she should open her mouth and say it.
But what Ash hates most about this move is, and she thinks it with a wince, she's going to public school. Public school will not be like the private school she went to where your last name determined who you could hang with in the small town of North Carolina. No, she doesn't miss it, but it's the only way she knows.
"Ash! Ash!" Jane Sempers calls from downstairs. Ash pulls herself off the bed, grabbing her iPod because she already know what she has to do. Jane doesn't have an affinity for direction like her children do, but he soon, Brock, has already made friends in the neighborhood and is constantly outside with them. Ash grabs her tennis shoes, dressed in her Batman tank and loose jeans she got from an ex but didn't feel like burning.
"I've got the list," Ash says to her mother as she grabs the keys to the minivan. Her friends had all sorts of cool cars, but she always stuck to her mom's van. Jane made a joke about Ash being more interested in listening to music than she was about driving. Ash didn't like it but laughed anyway. She felt there was no need to make her mom suffer.
"Be careful! Love you!"
"Love ya too, mom!" Ash backs it out the drive, careful not to hit anyone or anything. The grocery store is about a mile from her house, a distance Ash would normally walk, but today is a day Ash just wants to be lazy. She throws some sunglasses over her brown eyes, tired from starting up all night the night before when she unpacked to set up her room.
Before she knows it, Ash is passing the car perfectly and going inside the store with her mother's credit card. Ash could have one like Brock, but she found it to be a pain in the butt to keep up with. Cash works the same way anyhow. As she's getting out, a group of cars drive past, ones Ash knows are constantly being the speed limits because they have the money to pay the tickets. Ash hasn't seen the drivers, and isn't all that interested.
She turns on My Chemical Romance and hours inside the store, bumping to the beat in her summertime outfit. She looks at the list hard as she pushes the cart forward, only to bump into someone. Ash looks up, pulling the earphones out. "Hey, I'm so sorry. I was trying to read my mother's hand writing."
The person she ran into is blonde and clearly not happy about it. "Watch where you're going, runt." Her voice is accented slightly, but Ash can't pinpoint where exactly it originates. No, not the person, the accent, she tells herself as the rude comment crosses her mind. But she holds herself back, not sure if she wants her first fight to be in the middle of a grocery store.
Ash raises a brow at her, swallowing thickly. Now or never, red, so do it. "I said sorry. No need to get upset." So not what you had in mind, red! The blonde says nothing, instead smirking. Ash feels like she fell into some kind of trap.
"What's your name again?"
Ash knows exactly what she wants to do at this point. Tell her it's none of her business. You can do it. Let's go- "Ash. I'm starting my first day tomorrow when school starts." Great going, she thinks glumly. You're not going to change because of how much of a coward you are. So have fun with yourself, you big, stupid idiot. While Ash insults herself, she misses the blonde's next question. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Your car?" Ash shakes her head. "Oh, you aren't going to make it here, sweetheart. Go on ahead and go back to wherever you came from, Ash." The way the blonde says her name feels like a direct insult to Ash, and she glares at her. The blonde coos, "Oh, she does have some teeth. Now can she use them?" Her fist rears back-
Only to be caught by a man around her size but with some serious training in self control. "What's happening here, Vegh?" he asks, and Ash thinks she's Russian. "We came to get something to eat, not get in a fight. Besides, she isn't part of any other group, so she isn't a threat to us. Got it?" The man turns to Ash. She notices his blue eyes the most. "I'm sorry about my friend. My name is Owen Shaw."
"Ash. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like- If all my enemies threw a party, would you light the candles? Would you drink the wine while watching television?" She puts in the other earbud, rolling past the duo and towards the next aisle as she tries to finish the shopping so she can get home and talk to her friends without having the feeling of someone listening in on her conversation. Ash doesn't pride herself on being a good singer, but she can get by without her voice cracking terribly.
Won't tomorrow be just fun? Please, Ash thinks, note her sarcasm.
Brock is excited, the first one up and about before her mother gets on her first cup on coffee. Ash wants to hit the sucker for waking her up so early, but knows better than to do such a thing to her cute kid brother. It would be either assault, child abuse, or end with her grounded from her phone by her mother. None of them sound enticing to her.
Ash pulls her hair up into a ponytail, leaving her face framing bangs down. It was the style in her school, so naturally she went with it despite how much she absolutely loathed them. The things she had to do to stay at the top there...
Ash chooses not to wear make up. Another thing she had to wear to stay at the top. She goes back into her room with her contacts in, and chooses a shirt from her closet. It's a band t-shirt, and she grins. the sides are cut into strips, tied together, so she chooses a black cami to go underneath. Next come her jeans, much better than yesterday's pair. They're tight, but not slutty tight. She prides herself on being a modest person, as taught by her Christian roots.
"Hurry up, Ashlynn, or you'll miss the bus!" Looking at the clock, she raises a brow. Obviously her mother doesn't know she's awake or she wouldn't be saying the bus comes at 6:30 in the morning for an 8:30 start time. "Now, Ashlynn!" Rolling her eyes, the brunette picks up her bag and goes downstairs to see her brother grabbing his skateboard to go meet up with his friends. The middle school starts before the high school by about an hour, meaning he gets out about an hour before me too.
"See ya, Brock," Ashlynn says as he exits the house. He waves goodbye in his own way, AKA the bird, and closes the door behind him as Ash makes herself a cup of milk and breakfast. She gets out two eggs, deciding on scrambled eggs as her mother comes out from her bedroom brushing her teeth. Ash rolls her eyes at her nightwear. Ash was conceived while her mom was eighteen, so sixteen years later her mom still looked pretty hot.
"Okay, I, uhm, didn't mention this before. The street racing scene down here is pretty big, especially in this area. Try not to mix with them, alright?" Ash nods, knowing how touchy a subject this is for her family. Brock has a need for speed and it scares her mother enough, so Ash knows she won't go near any of the obvious street racers. Unless she has no choice. She just hopes her mother gets over it before her brother grows up a bit more. He'll be the problem child if she doesn't.
Ash kisses her mother on the cheek as she leaves, checking her appearance once more in the mirror. She had once been afraid to wear this shirt in public, but this is the first steps towards being her own person. If Brock could do it, so could Ash. The door closes behind Ash, and she takes a deep breath. It's now or never.
Walking down the steps, Ash stays on the sidewalk as she hears a group laughing. They're driving fast, going right past her with the cops chasing behind. She sees one of them with his window down, and she doesn't recognize him. "Hey, Dom-" the rest is cut off as the woman rolls away but sounds similar to "watch this" to Ash's ears. She shakes her head with another eye roll, strolling down the sidewalk to her bus stop.
The bus ride is almost uneventful. She sits in her own corner with her iPod on full blast until someone is pushed into her. He glares at the guys, mumbling apologies to Ash, but she brushes them off. "Feel free to sit here. I might not talk, but I do listen." He seems surprised. "Name's Ash."
"Twinkie." Ash smiles. "Go on, laugh. I get it-"
"My brother always says if he has a kid, boy or girl, it will be named Twinkie." Ash knows she interrupted, but she didn't really care since Twinkie smiles back. "Nice to meet you, Twinkie." He seems satisfied with this, going on to talk while Ash asks a few questions and makes a few comments when required.
"Oh, man, you gotta meet my homeboy," Twinkie says as the duo gets off the bus. "You'll love him, Ash. Sean!" A boy around their age jogs over with two others waving him goodbye. Ash thinks he's pretty cute, but not cute enough to be drooling over and wishes for her hoodie. Her hoodie was looked down upon by her old school, another thing she hated about it but couldn't admit. "Sean, this is Ash. Ash, this is Sean."
"Hey," he says, and Ash shakes his hand. "I guess you're new here then?"
"Yeah," Ash answers, taking a good look around at the people in her school. She notices some of them aren't as modest as she. "Do most girls dress like that?" Ash feels stupid as she asks that since she doesn't want her friends to know about her bank account. She's never been proud of it because she's seen what having deep pockets can do to a friendship.
"You must come from some type of Catholic family," Sean says, not trying to sound rude about it. Ash shrugs. "Yeah. Where you're at right now is racing central. What kind of car do you have?"
Ash shifts. "I, uh, don't." She feels her face begin burning and turns her iPod off, shoving the earbuds into her pocket as the bell rings.