Chapter 8: Partners

Ashley sat at her desk in her English class, staring off deliberately into nothing, so that she would not have to stare at the boy who sat across from her.

"So I guess we're partners for this project," said Andrew.

Ashley dared to look up, and caught a sympathetic look from Kate before making herself speak. "Looks like it," she said lamely.

A pause. "Any ideas?" Andrew asked.

"None whatsoever," Ashley replied. In fact, she had many ideas whirling through her head, but most had to do with the evil of her English teacher, Dr. Maguire, for randomly assigning partners for this project. Ideally, they were supposed to write a dialogue making use of double entendres, words and phrases that had different meanings than intended. The dialogue was, in effect, supposed to sound like it was about one thing but really be about something else.

The only problem with this was that all of the possible things that Ashley could think of had some sort of sexual connotation, and here she was sitting across from the most sex-minded boy in the school.

Which is why Andrew surprised her out of her seat by asking, "What do you think about doing something political?"

"What?" Ashley said.

"Well, there's already so many symbols connected to it—think about it! We could use colors to represent parties, even the party symbols. And look at the current political candidates—their names are so easy to play around with." He paused. "Don't tell me you're conservative."

"Um…I'm not," Ashley said, stunned that Andrew was so passionate about the subject. She'd seen him wearing a few political pins or shirts around November, but this was the only class she had with him, and she didn't know him very well.

"Yes, another liberal!" he said, excited.

"Um…not really," Ashley responded. "I'm not really into politics…"

Andrew looked at her as though this was possibly the most shocking thing he'd heard all day. "You're kidding me!" he said. "You're what, seventeen, right?"

"Yeah."

"So when you register to vote next year, what party are you going to affiliate with?" Ashley did not respond. "You don't even know?"

Ashley shook her head. She had always thought she'd figure it out later. Her father wasn't very much into politics, and so she hadn't been exposed to much of it. "But right now we're supposed to be working on that project, remember?" she said, trying to keep them on track. Dr. Maguire was looking suspiciously in their direction.

"Okay, sorry," Andrew said. "It just took me a while to get over the shock!"

Ashley smiled, then wondered why she was smiling—it was Andrew, his usual overdramatic self. "So…we still need an idea," she said.

"Do you mind if we do the politics one?" Andrew asked.

"Not really," Ashley said, "but I won't be much help."

"Don't worry," Andrew said, then leaned in a bit and whispered, "you see, this is the perfect way for me to indoctrinate you with my superior Democratic beliefs before some Republican finds you and corrupts you."

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "Right."

"You'll understand someday," Andrew said. "Now, about this dialogue…"

They spent the rest of the class period laying out a framework for their project, though Andrew did most of the talking while Ashley sat and listened. The skies outside the classroom window were dark, and by the time the bell to end the class rang, it was raining.

"Don't worry if you didn't get very far today," Dr. Maguire said as students got their backpacks together and started filing out the door. "You'll have tomorrow in class to work on it also. Presentations of dialogues will be Wednesday, so I'm even giving you the weekend to work on it if you need to."

There was a scattered chorus of thank you's from the students. Ashley was relieved; she knew they'd need the time, though she was becoming more confident about the writing of the dialogue.

"If we don't get most of it done tomorrow, we can always get together over the weekend," Andrew said. "I'll see you tomorrow," and he walked out the door.

Ashley pulled her jacket more tightly around her and exited just as an announcement came on over the PA telling all students that the gym and auditorium would be open to students so that they wouldn't have to eat outside in the rain. Such a storm wasn't a common happening here, so Silver Hills didn't have an indoor cafeteria.

Of course, I don't have an umbrella, Ashley thought, and both the gym and auditorium are on the opposite side of the campus. Just her luck.

She made a mad dash from the English building over a slightly muddy patch of grass to the science building, managing not to get too wet. However, there was no cover between the science building and the gym, and the blacktop was too wet for her to run; she was afraid she'd slip, or at least kick up puddles and get her pants all wet. Resigning herself to just being wet for her last two classes, Ashley walked out from under the eaves and into the rain.

It took her a minute to notice she wasn't getting wet. In fact, no rain drops were hitting her at all…

She looked up and saw a black umbrella—looked back, and saw Damien holding it over her head and his.

"You're far too good at sneaking up on people, you know?" she said, smiling.

He grinned back. "I was wondering when you'd notice." He moved closer to her so that he could stay out of the rain as well, and Ashley suddenly felt very warm.

"So—so how are things?" she asked as they walked through the rain toward the gym.

"Good," he said. "What about you?"

"Good," she replied. It grew quiet, with no sounds except for those of rain falling and their shoes hitting the blacktop, carefully evading puddles. Ash tried to think of something to say, at first, but slowly realized the silence was companionable, not awkward. Walking next to him felt perfectly…normal, somehow. She could still feel in him the power of his song, but it was muted now, hidden by the mask of his shyness. He seemed like just another guy, albeit a guy who was considerate and more than just a little good-looking.

They arrived at the entrance of the gym too soon. "Thanks," Ashley said to Damien as he closed the umbrella and then walked inside. Then, feeling reckless, she asked, "Do you want to find somewhere to sit and eat?"

Damien smiled, a sincere half-grin. "Thanks, but I'm supposed to see my English teacher and take a test I missed," he said. "So I have to go. It was nice talking with you."

And he turned and left Ashley standing there, utterly startled and confused. He'd been right by the English building when he'd met her, and yet he had walked all the way here with her, only to backtrack now…

Ash scanned the room, looking for her friend. This was definitely something to think about.


Author's Note: I know, it's short. Please don't attack me! But I wanted to get this out, for a few reasons, not the least of which being that I was afraid some of you loyal reviewers might attack me if I didn't. I would love to respond to all of your reviews personally, but I've never really liked the concept of review responses, since so many of them just become "Thank you!" And I can say that to all of you at once, though it is most completely heartfelt.

However, there have been a few comments made in reviews that I feel I should address. Namely comments by kitty minky and futureChristine, who very astutely pointed out that it's practically impossible to put on Phantom with a high school cast. I am completely aware of this, and have been since the moment I started writing this fic. That's actually one of the reasons I didn't post it sooner—I was worried people would hate it for being unrealistic. I was surprised no one said anything earlier! But, for the purposes of this fic, I am laboring under the self-induced delusion that if they want to put it on, then they can. I hope my readers will allow me this one fabrication.

That said, I'm afraid I have another thing to say, one that will probably cause a few people to dislike me. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I've finally decided that I'm going to take a one-month self-imposed hiatus from fanfiction, starting after I post this. The reason for this, in short, is that fanfiction has become a distraction that I don't think I can afford. I am currently working on writing an original novel, but it seems that I always find some excuse to put off writing it. Many of my excuses come in the form of fanfiction. I have decided that I enjoy the "instant gratification" I get from posting a new chapter and seeing a bunch of review alerts in my inbox, and that it's caused me to forget the possible gratification that will come a long way into the future when I finish my novel. This is an experiment designed to remind me why I started writing in the first place. I will probably still write fanfiction during this hiatus of mine, but I will not post anything for a month at least—perhaps more. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone, but I've come to the decision that I have to put my original work first. I hope my loyal readers will understand, and I thank you sincerely for your patience. If there is anyone who would like to be alerted when I'm up and posting again, just leave your e-mail in a review and tell me you're interested.

Thank you for reading all of this! Cyber-cookies for anyone who actually read it through!

Reading Redhead

Please, don't let my annoyingly long A/N keep you from reviewing this chapter! I promise I won't do it again if you review and tell me what you thought of the chapter, which was really the important part, anyway.