The Space Between Us(12)

“Yup. Nine o'clock, Charlie,” my dad said as he raised one eyebrow at me.

“Got it.” Asher and I walked out of the house and started the mindless walk to our elementary school. A walk I could take blindfolded I'd done it so many times. We were silent for half the walk and finally I couldn't take it anymore.

“What did my dad say to you?”

“Not much.”

“Asher Carmichael, don't you lie to me.”

He laughed at me. “You sound like my mom,” he said through his laughter.

“Asher, tell me right now what he said to you!”

“Ok, jeez, Bit. Take it down a notch.” He took a breath in and let it out loudly. “First he asked me what happened on the first day of school and made me tell him exactly what that guy in the hallway had said to you.”

“Oh my gosh. How embarrassing.” I dropped my head into my hands.

“Then he thanked me for sticking up for you and defending you. He followed that up with an anti-violence campaign,” Asher said, laughing again.

“Then what?”

“That was it.”

“No. You were in there with him for ten minutes. What else did you talk about?”

“Just drop it, Bit.”

“No! Tell me,” I begged.

“He just wanted to make sure I knew that you couldn't date until you were sixteen,” he said quickly. My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.

“Why would he tell you that?” He didn't answer me. “Asher? Why did he say that to you?”

“I don't know, Charlie.” He sounded a little angry. “I think he just wants me to remember that you aren't allowed to date anyone.” I shook my head, still not really grasping what was going on.

“Wait, does my dad think that you want to date me?”

“I'm not sure,” he said as he bounced his basketball on the pavement as we made our way to the hoops hanging under a large covered area. “It's not a big deal. Let's drop it.”

“Ok,” I said quietly. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you upset.” He stopped bouncing the ball and looked over at me.

“I'm not upset, promise. Now, let's play Horse.”

“Ok,” I tried to smile, but still felt the tension coming off of him. It wasn't until I had lost the first game that I felt like we'd moved passed the awkward moment of the evening. I watched him dribble down the court and then execute a perfect lay-up. He was gifted when it came to sports. I was cursed. But I enjoyed trying to keep up with him, sometimes. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't want there to be weirdness between us. Something told me, however, that the weirdness was something I was going to have to get used to. Things were slowly changing between us. I could feel it. And I knew he felt it too. I just didn't know what we were going to do about it.



Freshman year continued without much incident. Asher and I still walked to and from school together, until basketball season when Asher made it on the Varsity team. It was quite a big deal to be put on the varsity team as a freshman and he was doing amazingly well. He didn't always get to start, but he always played, and I was so proud of him. Reeve and I went to most of his games and cheered him on. I even had my dad help me make a special jersey that had seventeen on it, his lucky number.

At one of his games, a girl who looked like she could have been a junior or senior sat next to Reeve and me. She saw me cheering Asher on and kept sending glances my way. Finally she said something to me halfway through the game.

“Your boyfriend is really good.” I turned toward her, finally able to look at her without it being weird. She had long blonde hair and it was split in to two braids that hung down past her shoulders. Just as I started to answer her, Asher made a three-point shot and the crowd erupted into intense screaming. After a few seconds the noise died down enough that I was able to answer. I leaned towards her but only turned my head far enough to make sure she heard me, but not far enough to take my eyes off the court. I didn't want to miss anything.

“He is really good, but he's not my boyfriend.”

“He's not?” The blatant surprise in her voice had me turning to look at her again. “That's interesting.”

I did not like the way she said that. It was as if I had just told her that there was one piece of chocolate fudge cake left just for her.

“I just always see you guys together, and you're always at his games, wearing his jersey.” She said, looking at me with a perfectly pleasant expression on her face that for some reason I wanted to smack off of her.

“Well,” I said, trying not to sound too irritated by her, “Asher is my best friend and I am just supporting him.”

“So, he's single?” Single? He wasn't dating. You couldn't be “single” unless you were on the market, right? Asher wasn't on the market, was he? I tried to keep the panic from my eyes.

“He's not dating anyone, no.” I murmured.

“Interesting.” There was that damn word again. I exhaled loudly. Reeve, sitting next to me, heard everything. She leaned over to me.

“Just tell her he's taken,” she whispered. My head snapped back to look at her.

“But he's not,” I whispered back. She rolled her eyes at me.