Ever Bound

It was my first day at a new school. I had been unhappy and bullied at the public school. My cousin went to a private school, and he talked me into joining him there. As I walked inside I saw my cousin with a group of boys a lot older than me. My cousin was a senior, so I assumed his friends were too. I pulled my bag up higher on my shoulder and headed that way, because I didn’t know anyone else. The room was small, there were only about fifty students in the entire school. My cousin saw me and waved, then waved me toward them. I waved back. The guy right beside of him stared at me, he had long black hair and wore jeans and a black band shirt. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. My breathing halted for a second, but I shook it off and kept moving.

“Hey Bri,” my cousin, Matt said.

“Hi,” I said shyly looking around at all his friends, who were all a blur to me besides the one that had the long hair. My cousin introduced me with my full name, Sabrina, to them and said all their names and I didn’t care about any of that because the guy with long hair was staring at me. His name turned out to be Ash, short for Asher. I could tell from being closer to him that his eyes were greenish brown.

“So, Sabrina, where were you going to school before this one?” one of the guys I didn’t care about asked me.

“Public school,” I said quickly glancing at the guy, they all seemed to be hovering over me. Asher was looking at me but distracted by something in his hand.

“What is that?” I asked him.

“Oh,” he blushed pocketing it, “I fidget too much, it’s umm a bowl.”

“A bowl?” I asked.

“Shh,” Matt shushed me, “it’s like a pipe for smoking weed.”

“Weed?” I nearly shouted, scandalized. Ash laughed and I was embarrassed, I had never smoked weed and probably seemed childish to him.

“You smoke?” Ash asked me.

“Sometimes,” I lied.

“When?” Matt raised a suspicious eyebrow at me because we were very close and if I had ever smoked, he’d have known it.

“At school, with people you don’t know,” I lied more.

“Sweet, you can join us at lunch if you want,” Ash said.

“Awesome,” I breathed, thrilled that he was paying attention to me but panicked that I was going to have to smoke pot for the first time on my first day at a very strict private school that cost my parents a fortune to send me to. But those eyes and that hair, I couldn’t have said “no” to a single thing on the planet if he’d have asked me to do it. Matt was watching us back and forth with one eyebrow still nearly at his hairline. He knew me well and he knew something was brewing in my mind about his friend. I didn’t say anything as all the guys kept talking until it was time for classes to start. There were so few students that all the highschoolers were pretty much all in the same classes. The morning went by in a blur of new information and I couldn’t think straight. I just kept thinking about Ash.

Lunchtime came and I found out that everyone had to pitch in a few dollars to order food. I hadn’t brought any money with me because I was used to public school. Matt was going to cover my lunch, but Ash stopped him.

“I got you,” Ash said, handing me some money with a wink, I nearly fainted. Then both of them snuck out back and dragged me along. There were already a few people out there. Ash got out his ‘bowl’ and a baggy of weed. I was so nervous that I felt sick. What if something bad happened to me when I smoked it? Or worse, what if I did something embarrassing. Everyone else seemed to be professionals at smoking, and by the time the bowl came to me I just stared at it blankly.

“Come on,” the guy holding it out to me said.

“You don’t have to smoke,” Ash said.

“Oh, pssh,” I scoffed and took the bowl, “I’m fine.” I tried to hold it the way I’d seen the others holding it. I sucked on the end but nothing happened. Everyone around laughed, even Ash chuckled a little bit. I wanted to burst into tears.

“You gotta light it,” Ash said pulling out his lighter, he held it over the bowl part of the pipe, “I got you,” he said softly as he lit the weed. I held it to my mouth again and he whispered, “easy now.” I think he knew it was my first time. If I thought the morning part of my first day was a blur, the second half was blank. I was out of it completely after smoking. I vaguely remembered telling Matt that I thought Ash was hot right in front of him as though he couldn’t hear me. But it was never brought up again. We all hung out at school and I was obsessed, I talked about Ash to everyone besides him. I wrote his name all over my bedroom walls, it was madness. And then one day he told Matt that he liked me but that I was too young for him. I was crushed. I wanted to fall into a pit and never come out. But the next day at school after we smoked and ate lunch, he took me aside and told me he wanted to show me something. So I followed him as he snuck out back again, because of course I did. I would have went anywhere he asked me to.

The school sat in the middle of a small town and there were buildings along the street on both sides. Some were businesses, some were houses and some were just abandoned. That’s where Ash took me, to one of the abandoned buildings down the street. I had gotten to know him a little bit and so I mostly trusted him, but this was a new level. It was dangerous and as much as I was nervous, I was just as exhilarated.

“What are we doing here?” I asked him.

“You’ll see,” he smirked at me and pulled me to the side of the building and down the alley. There was an old door there and he pushed on it, it opened easily, and he slipped inside pulling me along with him. Once inside he flipped on some lights, and I realized it was the old movie theater, we had came in off to the side of the screen.

“Oh the movies,” I teased.

“That’s right,” he smirked and grabbed my hand, “and we’re getting the best seats in the house. There was a spiral staircase that led up to a balcony, it was old and I was nervous but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

“What movie are we watching?” I asked to tease him but also to distract myself from being nervous about the stairs.

“That’s the best part,” he smiled back at me, “any movie we want.” We got up to the balcony and he hopped up on the rail and tossed his legs over. Feet dangling about twenty feet above the theater.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.

“Sitting here to watch the movie,” he gestured to the screen. I grabbed his arms and tugged on him.

“Get down, you’re going to fall and break your neck,” I scolded. He laughed at me but climbed back over to where I stood. Then he put his hand on my chin and gave me a little pout.

“Aww you worried about me Kitten?” he nearly whispered. Shivers went through my whole body. I couldn’t answer, I couldn’t speak, so he hummed, “hmm?” I just nodded through my shallow breaths as his lips inched closer to mine. I leaned up to invite his kiss and he accepted happily with a little growl. Electric coursed through my body, I had never felt like that before in my life. We kissed for a while as his hands explored all but the most scandalous parts of me. He slowly led me back to the seats in the balcony and I sat on his lap.

After a while I stopped kissing him to say, “what about the movie?”

“Hmm,” he moaned against my lips, “it’s awesome, best movie I ever saw.” I giggled and he let out a soft chuckle and continued kissing me. He asked me to be his girlfriend at some point during our make out session and we were all over each other from then on. Everyone at school teased us for our public displays of affection but Ash was all hands and I couldn’t tell him ‘no’ even if it was a little embarrassing. We snuck over to the theater sometimes during lunch and eventually he took my virginity there. Right on the gross popcorn butter stained carpet of the closed down theater. He explained to me that they kept electric on in the building to show it to potential buyers. We would “watch movies” sometimes, which was really us making up stories as we stare at the blank screen. He did different voices and accents and even sung some songs for the “musicals” we watched. He was amazing and I was so in love, he was everything to me.

One day the tinkling sound of glass hitting concrete floor changed everything. It was reading time in on of our classes and we had just gotten back from a smoking session out back at the end of lunch. Ash was sitting right behind me absentmindedly playing with my hair as we both read “Catcher in the Rye” for class. I heard the sound, and everything seemed to go in slow motion as I turned and saw that Ash’s bowl had slipped out of his pocket and landed in the middle of the floor.

“WHAT is THAT?” the teacher demanded. But it was pretty obvious what it was, but more importantly to me personally, it was also obvious WHO’S it was. I gave my boyfriend a panicked look and he smiled at me. What was there to smile about? He leaned forward and grabbed my shoulder.

“It will be fine,” he whispered as he stood up to go face his consequences, though I felt like I was the one being punished. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. He was expelled and then his parents had him go live with his aunt two hours away. He had no car and no way to see me. We talked on the phone, trying to salvage some sort of relationship but one night my fears were realized.

“Listen Sabrina, this is not fair to you,” he said.

“Don’t even start that, I want this,” I said.

“You’re young, you have so much ahead of you, I hate thinking about you sitting there waiting on me, not going out and having fun, please know that I care about you, that I’m doing this because I care about you,” he said.

“But you’re breaking up with me,” I sobbed.

“I’m so sorry but I think this is for the best,” he said sadly, I could hear in his voice that he was sincere. But it wasn’t good enough, I wanted to be with him. Forever. He was too nice of a person for me to yell at him. So I reluctantly let him go with a vain hope that someday he would come back.

But he was right, life happened. I moved on, I got over it and got engaged. That ended and several other relationships came and went, some not so important and some that were important. I learned about love and pain and heartbreak more than I could ever express. I was with an abuser, got pregnant by someone with a girlfriend and talked into an abortion. I gave up on love, I gave up on trying to be with someone. I was happy single, I was finally at peace. But, I was a little lonely. Not in a real way, I had pets, friends and family and most importantly God. I didn’t need a man to complete me, I finally learned how to be happy on my own. And just when I was ready to be single forever, I got a message.

“Hey how have you been?” it said, it was Asher, after twenty-two years. Curiosity was the strongest emotion I had. I had always remembered him fondly, after being so thoroughly mistreated, the one person who had treated me the best out of all my boyfriends stood out as a diamond in the rough. I was sure I was going to be nice to him, he was great person and I had heard of his life changes through my cousin Matt a few times over the years.

“Hi,” I said back. And we haven’t stopped talking to this day, in fact we got married. All the times he said ‘I got you’ back when we were young, he proved it. He became an even better man that I could have imagined. As good as he was back then, he was still a bad boy, it’s what attracted me to him. But now he’s a great man who takes care of us and all our pets and our houses. He has one we share and I have one of my own for writing. It is a love story that can’t be overstated. And this time, the times when we kiss, or make love, it’s like the first time all over again. Only this time, it’s a million times better.