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Ashley often found herself sticking to the side of the room in situations like this.
Sure, she wasn’t on the brink of a panic attack, but she sure as fuck wasn’t having a grand old time either. It felt like some weird middle ground where her heart hammered in her chest and it felt like every thrum of a song was crushing her, but at the same time her eyes were blurry and unfocused, drifting between one dancing figure to another.
She took another shaky sip of her punch and fumbled with her other hand to find a pocket that wasn’t there. She kept forgetting. Dresses don’t have pockets.
No pockets to shove her hands in, no hood to hide under, no sleeves to nibble on, just a shitty dress, a shitty purse, and even shittier beverages.
Prom really wasn’t what the movies made it out to be.
She smacked her lips and wished that Mr. Lomax would just leave the goddamn snack table alone so someone could pour half a bottle of vodka in the punch already. What flavour was it even supposed to be? Red? Red flavour? Sure, let’s go with that.
Chris had left her to go to the bathroom a few minutes ago and he still wasn’t back. He was either taking a mondo dump or he’d gotten distracted with his phone. Both possibilities were equally likely. Her mouth twisted into something akin to a fond smile at how predictable this whole event had gone for her thus far; her date had bailed on her and here she was standing dejectedly next to the snack table.
Not that Chris had done that intentionally, probably. He’s just oblivious in that endearing-til-its-not kind of way.
It was actually kind of sweet of him to come with her despite being out of high school a year already.
Ashley kicked at the surface of the gym floor, her ratty converse leaving scuffs on it. She made eye contact with Sam who was dancing with Beth. Or, well, they were swaying and mouthing the words to the current song at each other.
Sam grinned at her, face flushed from dancing and made a large sweeping gesture towards her, beckoning Ashley to join the dance floor. Beth glanced over her shoulder and gave a little wave. Ashley smiled tightly and shook her head, gesturing to her glass as if to say “I’d love to join you in that loud, swirling mass of bodily fluids but you see, I’m drinking this red elixir, therefore I cannot.”
Sam quirked a brow in concern but didn’t make a move to come over, which was probably for the best.
Within the cluster of bodies dominating the center of the hall, Ashley kept catching glimpses of her friends. More specifically, she kept catching glimpses of them getting pulled away from each other by teachers for grinding. Ashley snorted as she saw Jessica immediately reattach herself to Emily after the teacher who separated them walked away.
Her eyes scanned the floor for a few more moments before feeling someone violently jab her in the side and scream in her ear.
“Jesus Christ-!”
Ashley’s arms went rigid into a pathetic mimic of a fighting stance and her Red Drink™ sloshed onto the floor. She spun quickly on her assailant and frowned at Josh who was cackling away.
“Oh my god, you complete ass!” Despite her tone she grinned, throwing her now empty plastic cup at him which he gingerly batted away.
“Dude, you were a million miles away, I couldn’t help myself,” Josh grabbed her into a one armed hug and jostled her a bit, “Besides, couldn’t help but notice how much of a boring loser you were being all by yourself over here.”
Ashley rolled her eyes but hugged him back, her mouth pressing into pout, “Yeah, whatever. You’re not even supposed to be here, butthead. Never struck me as the kind of guy who’d want to go to prom after he’d already finished high school.”
“All this time and I could have been yucking it up with Biff Tannen. Got any more zingers for me? You gonna tell me to make like a tree and get outta here?” Josh deadpaned, levelling her with a flat expression which quickly cracked into his usual smug grin. “Nah, I just wanted to see my favourite little redheaded brainiac.”
As he said it, voice rising into a cloying babyish tone, he reached up and clamped a hand on her head, practically dropping her to the ground as he ruffled her hair which had taken hours to tame into anything that didn’t have to be hidden under some kind of hat as was usually the case. Her face scrunched and she squealed in annoyance, batting his hand away with both of hers and jumping a good three feet away from him. Josh laughed and Ashley tried to flatten her hair into something that didn’t resemble a Muppet.
“Isn’t our dearly beloved Christopher a little old for this, too?” He added, wriggling his eyebrows to a frankly ridiculous degree. Her expression twitched into an amused one.
“Yeah, but he was the one who asked me. I didn’t think you’d be interested in coming to prom with your favourite little redhead,” she mocked, voice going up and wavering as she parroted him.
“Why in the name of Jesus did Chris ask you to your own prom?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, he offered to come with when I said I wasn’t going with anyone, so…” Ashley shrugged and raised her arms from her sides slightly as if to indicate the current situation.
“Well, my, my, what an attentive date he is.”
“Oh, tell me about it.”
They both grinned at each other, their ribbing laced with the ever present warmth of affection.
Was Chris a lousy date? Yes.
Was he just the right amount of dorky to make them forgive him anyway? Also yes.
“Well, I’m here now, so you can dry those tears of rejection, my dear Ashley; the Joshua Washington party experience is about to begin. Besides,” he continued with a nonchalant shrug, as if he hadn’t just said one of the dumbest things she’d ever heard, “everyone knows that you don’t have to follow the rules once you get rich enough.”
“Come a little closer and I’ll redistribute your face to the masses,”
Josh’s grin spreads even further up his cheeks, making him look like a cat, “What are you gonna do, history vocab me to death?”
“No, I think torturing you with my study cards is enough. Death by papercut.”
Josh winces and sticks his tongue out, “God, fuck that.” He reaches around her and takes one of the flimsy plastic cups and scoops up some punch, sipping it thoughtfully. “Did you know papercuts hurt more than a knife in your gut? Cause there’s more nerve ending on the surface of your skin.”
“That’s just so not true it’s unreal,” Ashley said in disbelief, snatching the drink out of his hand, “In what universe is that close to the truth, Josh?”
Josh continued, seemingly undeterred by Ashley both stealing his drink and mocking him outright, “That’s why if you wanna torture somebody, you should take the edge of a sheet of paper and pull it across their--”
Ashley quickly pressed the balls of her palms to her ears, almost spilling Josh’s drink all over her head in the process. Even that would have been more preferable to hearing whatever cringe inducing factoid Josh was about to assault her brain with, “Stop! Stop, enough, I’ve heard enough.”
Josh just laughs again but holds up his hands in surrender. Ash would kick his ass if he wasn’t, you know, taller, faster, stronger, and just all around more adept at kicking asses than she and her small stature were.
“Where is Thing 2, anyway? He didn’t completely ditch you already, did he?” Josh made a sad attempt at looking around, barely scanning the area around him.
Ashley hummed and shrugged, picking a piece of lint off her dress, “He went to the bathroom, I think. He’s been gone for like, ten minutes though… I’m starting to think he missed somehow.”
Josh nodded seriously as if to say ‘Ah, yes… happens to the best of us…’
He looks at a couple dancing near them and makes a face, “We’re in enemy territory.”
Ashley cocks her head as she follows Josh’s gaze and he takes her brief distraction as a chance to sling his arm back over her shoulder. Her eyes flicked to him in a glare but he simple nodded encouragingly towards who he was looking at; a boy and a girl dancing awkwardly together. The boy was gangly and pale, his suit a size too small, the cuffs of his pants and jacket riding up every time he jerked a limb; the girl was short with a pretty face; auburn hair and a pointed jaw. The tag on her dress was sticking out the back.
Josh leaned closer, stage whispering into her ear, “Straight people. Everywhere.”
Ashley smothered a giggle around the rim of the cup, nodding sagely, “They’re multiplying as we speak.”
“Oh, god, here comes some now,” Josh said, slightly louder and gesturing with his head to where Hannah and Matt were now making their way over, though it was more Hannah dragging Matt behind her.
Josh took the opportunity to steal back his… seriously, what was it, strawberry? Cherry? His unholy-union-of-fruit flavoured drink. Hannah bounded to a stop in front of them, pulling Matt into her side who looked a little awkward to be so suddenly dragged before his girlfriend’s brother and grinned sheepishly at the two of them.
“Josh?” Hannah’s beaming face didn’t dim as she saw him there, but Ashley noticed a twinge of confusion cross her eyes, “What are you doing here? You graduated like, a year ago.”
“Yeah, man, I don’t think jeans and flannel are formal attire,” Matt grinned and gestured to Josh’s clothes.
Josh took a gulp of the punch and handed the cup back to Ashley.
“Well, first of all, yes, I am a grotesquely ancient being who hasn’t known the trials and tribulations of high school for many, many moons,” Josh shook his head solemnly and Ashley joined him, keeping her expression grave in an attempt to hide the smile brewing there, “and I’ll have you know, Matthew, that these are designer jeans and flannel.”
“Dude, I can see the stains on them.”
“Stains from very expensive beer and salsa dip.”
Ashley saw Hannah turn towards her and quickly swallowed her mouthful of punch, sliding the half empty cup onto a nearby table; it was half backwash at this point anyway.
“Ashley, I absolutely love your dress. It’s so cute!”
Ashley grinned awkwardly and flushed slightly, “Ah, this old thing.”
It was said mainly as a joke, but the dress probably was pretty old. A short-sleeved royal blue number that stopped just above her knees she’d found hidden in the middle of a rack at a thrift store she frequented. Sure, it wasn’t anything extravagant and had been sitting in the back of her wardrobe for god knows how long, but it had been soft and comfortable and, most importantly, affordable.
As long as Hannah didn’t look at the back of her skirt and see the moth holes riddling the hem like a tiny mobster had been shot up, she was golden.
“I love it! It’s so you!” Hannah grinned, and Ashley bit her cheek to stop flinging back a sarcastic comment.
You mean cheap and falling apart?
Of course, Hannah hadn’t meant it as anything but a glowing compliment and the sheer joy etched on the girls face was enough to dissuade anyone from thinking otherwise. There was truly nothing Hannah Washington loved more than sappy teenage romance and all the events that catered to it.
“Thanks, Hannah,” Ashley said softly, nodding, “You look really nice, too.”
It felt kind of awkward, like she was only saying it because Hannah had said something nice in the first place but if Hannah thought so she hid it well and just seemed to grin wider.
“Aw, thanks, Ash! I was kinda worried about wearing something sleeveless cause of my new ink,” Hannah flexed her butterfly adorned arm jokingly and laughed, “but I really like it, I’m glad I can show it off!”
“My girlfriends so cool, I can’t believe how hardcore she is,” Matt said, holding Hannah’s hand gently in his and grinning at her. Hannah turned to him and smiled just as adoringly back, seemingly forgetting either of them were there.
Ashley and Josh gave each other a look that had the same exhaustion of parents getting their kids home for the summer.
Clearing her throat awkwardly, Ashley flushed when the two of them jolted at the sound of her voice like they were pulled out of a trance - Christ alive, they are infatuated - and didn’t expect anyone to interrupt their uncomfortably intimate eye contact, “So, are you guys having a good time?”
Hannah’s face lit up again and she nodded, “Yeah! It’s, like, super fun!”
“Yeah, we’ve been dancing all night,” Matt added and Ashley could tell. The both of them still looked great in their prom outfits, but she could see the light sheen of sweat across their grinning faces. She couldn’t help grinning back at them, honestly; something about their unadulterated joy at such a cheesy event set Ashley’s ever frayed nerves at ease.
“As much as I would love to sit here and see you two just be… so in love,” Josh interrupted, “Me and Ash here have a date with tall, blonde, and dorky.” As he said so, Josh clamped his hands on Ashley’s shoulders and pulled her back towards him. At that, Matt looked confused and cocked his head to the side like the golden retriever he was at heart.
“Wait, is Chris still not back yet? We saw him walk out like, 10 minutes ago.”
Ashley hummed flatly and let herself get dragged towards the door by a quickly retreating Josh, speaking louder so her voice wasn’t lost over the din of the room, “Tell me about it!”
She struggled to keep her footing as Josh stumbled into the almost deserted hallway and finally away from the headache Ashley didn’t even know she was on the cusp of. Did DJ’s have a universal code to always play the music just slightly too loud to be comfortable? Whatever it was, the sudden change in volume and temperature made her feel like someone had stuffed cotton buds in her ears and ice packs on her exposed arms.
There were a few other people dotted around the immediate area, but they’d clearly only stepped out for a quick breather. The fire doors leading to the parking lot were propped open and Ashley got a brief smell of cigarette smoke that made her ache. She’d been trying to quit but Josh being… himself, made that endeavour harder than it needed to be.
“Shitters this way, right?” Josh asked, clearly not looking for an answer as he continued to manoeuvre her via shoulder yanking. Ashley struggled a moment before falling into step beside him, wrapping her arms around her torso as if the stick-like limbs would provide any sort of warmth.
Ashley clicked her tongue, “Has your brain liquefied? You’ve been out of education for a year and you already forgot where the bathroom’s are?”
Josh ignored her, predictably, and muttered, “Gotta be around here somewhere, Cochise wouldn’t walk this far for a dump…”
“Are we still operating under the assumption he’s doing a number two, then?”
“Ashley, has anyone ever told you that you talk like a literal robot sometimes?”
“Yes. You. Frequently, actually.”
“There they are! Told you we were close,” Josh jostled her and took a few longer strides forward, overtaking her quickly.
She barely had time to ask why he was lifting his leg like that before Josh kicked the door open with the force of a bull and Ashley was sincerely surprised the whole thing didn’t come flying off its hinges and leave a comically shaped hole in the opposite wall. While she’d flinched at the abrupt sound, Ashley skittered the last few steps towards the opening but hesitated at the threshold, finding herself unwilling to completely walk into a men’s bathroom. Didn’t smell as bad as she’d thought it would, actually.
“Christopher!” Josh boomed, not even checking if there was an innocent bystander captured mid-piss (there wasn’t).
Ashley heard a screech from one of the two stalls and a clattering that sounded distinctly like a phone being dropped on a dirty laminate floor.
“Shit! Wha- Who-!?”
Ashley snorted and covered her mouth, trying to control some of the giggles spilling out of her.
“Special delivery of a foot up your ass, for one Christopher ‘Shitty Date’ Hartley!” Josh continued on, smacking on the only locked stall door while Ashley cackled. She’d assumed, probably correctly, that Josh’s plan to drag Chris out of the bathroom would have gone ahead even if there was some other poor sap trapped in here with them.
“Josh? What are you-?” At this point, Chris opened the door and grunted as Josh continued smacking his chest, seemingly undeterred by the lack of door in front of him. Ashley took a few hesitant steps into the already cramped room and felt her cheeks aching from laugher as Chris started knocking Josh’s hands away only for it to quickly devolve into the two boys slapping at each other. Whatever shock Chris had felt at the whole ordeal was gone just as quickly as it’d arrived.
“You got some real nerve leaving your lady out on the dance floor alone, Cochise, you know that? Some real gumption. Any old slimeball could come along and steal her.” Josh tutted, shaking his head sadly as finally scurried away from their significantly larger friend and to her side, lavishly slinging an arm over her still jumping shoulders.
Chris rolled his eyes and stood up straighter, pushing his glasses back up his nose with a knuckle, “You mean a slimeball like you?”
“Precisely,” Josh grinned, pulling her into his side.
“Yeah, Chris, kind of a dick move,” Ashley pursed her lips, a smile still tugging at them, and shrugged. Chris at least had the decency to look ashamed of himself after making eye contact with her and slumped his shoulders, gaze flicking to his shoes. He looked like a kicked puppy.
“Yeah… I’m sorry, Ash. I-I just, you know, got distracted…” He snapped his head back up, “Which, you know, totally not an excuse, major dick move, I-”
“Oh my god, Chris, it’s fine, I’m messing with you,” She couldn’t help smiling fondly at him, “What were you even doing in here, though?”
“Was it porn?” Josh chimed in, leaning towards him with wagging eyebrows and dragging Ashley down with him. Chris’ face flushed and he looked affronted.
“No! God, I was just on Twitter…”
“Oh, sure, if that’s what the kids are calling it these days.”
“Josh…”
“Well, whatever it was that kept you from escorting our dearly beloved Ashley around the gym, you can make it up to her!” Josh finally released her, flinging his arms up into something of a trademark stance. A stance that said ‘I have a cunning plan’ and one both Chris and Ashley had seen many times before impending disaster struck them all.
Chris slipped his phone back into his pocket and took a step towards them, the trio now making a huddled triangle right in front of the door. Ashley had a momentary vision of someone walking in on their little meeting and the door bowling her over as they did.
“What will that entail, exactly?” Chris asked, clearly hesitant about whatever Josh had planned but continuing to cast worried glances at her.
“Well, obviously we’re gonna blow this popsicle stand and go to Burger King,” Josh said with an eye roll, “I was gonna treat you two but since you decided to be such a flake, Chris, I’ll leave the bill to you! Sounds fair, eh?”
“I like that plan,” Ashley nodded along as if in deep contemplation while shooting a grin at Chris, who was looking even more sheepish than before. He held up his hands in surrender.
“Yeah, yeah, my wallet is at your disposal.”
With that, Ashley linked both the boys arms in hers and was grateful when they let her drag them towards the door, “Alright, Chris is buying us burgers, can we get out of here now? I don’t want anyone coming in here and seeing me with you two idiots.”
“So you’d rather someone see us all coming out of the bathroom together?” Chris laughed, but wasn’t exactly protesting too harshly. Josh shoved the somehow still intact door open with his shoulder and snorted while Ashley chuckled nervously. Well, when he put it like that…
“You two are adorable. But seriously, let’s get moving, I think I can hear the opening bars of ‘Shape of You’ in there.”
The short trip from school to Burger King had been punctuated by not one, not two, but three arguments.
The first was over who would ride shotgun in Josh’s garbage pit of a Jeep; Ashley had offered to do it and Chris had quickly vetoed that and simply pointed to the mess of wrappers, cups, and paper that caked the passenger side floor and - was that an open mustard packet? Yeah, she didn’t fight him too hard on that one.
The second came when Josh tried to drive them into the Burger King closest to them, to which both her and Chris loudly protested. It was a known fact that this particular Burger King was the one that Chris had infamously thrown up all over the bathroom in after attempting to chug as much unlimited coke as he possibly could. Ashley wasn’t actually there for this particular endeavour but she’d heard all about it in all its horrific, gruesome glory from a wildly laughing Josh. So that was definitely out.
The final hurdle was over whether or not they should go inside or stick to their usual routine of using the drive-thru and then eating everything in the parking lot, adding even more to the pile of trash that they were just complaining about. After quite the heated discussion from the front seat (“I can’t go in there, man, I’m wearing a fucking suit!” “You really think a guy in a suit is the weirdest thing a fast food employee has seen? Get over yourself, dude.”) Chris was overruled and here they sat in one of the booths closest to the entrance.
“Oh my god, will you stop taking my fries?” Ashley whined, trying and failing to slap Josh’s hand away from her grease mountain.
Josh, who wiggled his eyebrows and popped said fry into his mouth, gnashing his teeth obscenely, “As if you don’t have enough, you hoarder.”
“I plan to eat them, thank you very much.”
“Psh, yeah right, as if your scrawny ass if gonna eat all these. What were you thinking, Cochise?” Josh asked turning his attention to the man in question across from them. Chris was mid-bite on quite possibly the biggest burger Ashley had ever seen. Instead of stopping like any other normal person might do, Chris chomped down and tried to speak around the mess of food in his mouth.
“I got them to apologise, man! They’re not for you!” Ashley thought he said but it was honestly hard to tell. She even winced slightly at how viciously he had to work his jaw to chew. So this is where she’d decided to lay her affections, huh?
Chris had lay his suit jacket on the seat next to him and rolled his shirt sleeves up, determined not to dunk them in the frankly obscene amount of ketchup he’d poured onto one of his napkins. She was sure the three of them looked quite the sight but honestly, there was always something about the trio that drew somebody’s attention, usually for a bad reason like a particularly vibrant shirt, a particularly loud laugh, or a particularly shitty joke. At least when she was with the guys such attention didn’t make her want to curl into a ball and cease existing.
“You’ve got your own fries right there, man,” Ashley gestured towards Josh’s tray, covering her mouth with the same hand that was holding her half-eaten Double Whopper.
Scrawny as Josh claimed she was, she certainly managed to find somewhere to put all her food, by god.
“You of all people should know fries taste better when you take them from someone else, Ash,” He countered, barely breaking rhythm as he quickly nabbed another of her fries before she could even react. The nerve of this guy…
“So!” Josh clapped once and rubbed his hands together, “After this lovely dinner, you guys wanna head back to my place? We gotta watch ‘Prom Night’ for the occasion.”
Chris nodded enthusiastically while Ashley whined and sunk into her seat.
“Nooo, I’m so sick of horror movies right now… you just made me finish all the ‘Scream’ movies!”
“Those aren’t even scary, Ash, good fuckin’ God. And this is Jamie Lee Curtis! You can’t say no to Jamie.”
“He’s right, Ash,” Chris joined in, apparently done with his mouthful and staring intently at her across the suspiciously sticky table, “You don’t fuck with Jamie.”
“Can’t we watch ‘Halloween’, then?” She tried weakly. At least with that one you could barely see what was happening anyway.
Josh thumped his fist on the table, causing Ashley’s fry pile to slightly collapse, “Don’t be ridiculous, Ashleighna-”
“Not my name.”
“- it’s not even October! Don’t you care about tradition? Does it mean nothing to you?”
Despite her defeat, Ashley felt a smile tugging at her lips and she glanced back at Chris who was shaking his head at her, disapproval plain on his face and a frown so comically forced it looked like his lips were trying to escape his face, “Shame on you, Ashley.”
“Are you even listening, young lady?”
“I don’t think she is, look, she’s smiling.”
“I can’t believe this disrespect, Ashley.”
“Ashley? I can’t believe it.”
“Ash. Ashley. Listen.”
“Oh my GOD! Shut up!” She finally squealed, dissolving into a fit of snorting and wheezing laughter, clutching her head in her hands.
“Look at this… we can’t take her anywhere.”
“Shhh! Shut! Up!”
Chris’ face cracked into a cheesy grin as she launched fries at his head with every word, going to catch them in his mouth and failing spectacularly. She could see the smear of grease one left on his glasses.
It was, of course, at this moment that the tired looking assistant manager behind the cash register not 10 feet away started yelling at them.
“HEY! Excuse me! You three in the booth! Could you stop throwing food please, thank you!” It was obviously not a request and whatever customer service voice he may have been attempting fell flat with the annoyance plainly featured in his tone. Not that Ashley could blame him really; if she wasn’t part of her little trio she’d probably hate them too. Josh snorted as she sheepishly lifted a hand in apology.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Josh shrugged, beginning to shove his food back into it’s packaging, standing as he did, “Let’s eat in the car, yeah?”
Ashley and Chris nodded in unison and began doing the same, Ashley using a part of her hand that wasn’t covered in salt to wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes. Chris hooked his jacket over his shoulder and offered her a hand as she shuffled over from the window side to get out.
“Sure, can’t make it any more of a shit hole than it already is.”