Legion Of Rockstars

+Jimmy+

I glanced again at Asher, and again she didn’t notice. I’d been glancing at her at regular intervals for the past twenty minutes, bracing myself for that moment when she’d laugh in a psychotic, demented little way and drive both of us off the edge of a cliff into the deep unknown, at the bottom of which the Grim Reaper would stand, waiting for our arrival in a smoking heap of burning, crumpled metal. Okay, so maybe that’s a little melodramatic, and maybe I really should be trusting Asher rather than thinking about how she could kill us, but I’d spent so long seeing Asher blonde and perky and pop clone-like it was taking longer than expected for me to get used to Asher being, well, Asher again.

I glanced at Asher again. She gave her head a little shake, and her long bangs cascaded down from behind her ear, falling across her cheek to obscure her left eye and most of the left side of her face. Her hair caught the high-noon sunshine just right, and for a moment it glowed the navy blue of a crow’s beating wings. Then, her head shifted just slightly, and the moment passed.

Asher’s hair had been one of the many things she’d changed about herself to convince the pop morons she’d “crossed over” to their side. The platinum blonde wig she wore over her rocker chick locks never covered her face, and frankly, it didn’t look good on her. She was still beautiful—nothing could change that—but with her hair pulled away from her face all the time, she just didn’t look the same. Out of nowhere, I could see every minute imperfection or flaw on her face, whereas with her normal hair, she always looked messily flawless, like she’d pulled it all together in the space of five minutes, which more than likely she did.

Could I trust her, though? Sure, she let her normal hair out from underneath the suffocating wig, and she spoke of the pop clones like Asher always had before this incident, and she seemed to be slipping out of that pop façade and into her regular, everyday self again with every moment that passed by. But, deep inside, was she still Asher? Or had her heart decided it liked to be Ashley better?

I heaved a great sigh and leaned over, resting my forehead against the slanting, narrow window of the Ferrari. What the hell was I thinking? Had this experience really changed me so much that I couldn’t trust my best friend? Sure, she’d hit me—and she doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of a light punch—and she had lied to my face, but she also saved my ass from something much worse. She thought on her feet and came up with a brilliant plan using the resources available to her. She not only managed to get us out of that pop Hell, but she single-handedly turned the Jonas/Cyrus Operation against itself, weakening it as she did so. Didn’t she deserve my gratitude? But I’d only been a cold-hearted bastard to her, deciding to jump to conclusions about her true motives instead of trusting her from the get-go.

“Well, we’ll have to disinfect all of your clothing,” I began, my voice breaking through the thick silence that fell upon the car from the moment Asher finished her explanation. “And after kissing all three of the Jonas Brothers...why, your lips might not make it.”

I looked around at Asher, straightening up in my seat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the desert being swallowed up by trees on the horizon, and knew we were close to Headquarters. But I needed Asher to understand that I forgave her and trusted her before we got there.

Asher slowed the Ferrari as we neared the line of trees, and looked around at me as well. She watched me, no doubt calculating my expression, before her somber expression cracked into a small, relieved smile. I reached over and curled my hand over hers, squeezing reassuringly.

“And about what I said earlier...” I continued, wanting to make amends fully.

“I know,” Asher interrupted, flipping her hand over beneath mine and lacing our fingers together. “It’s okay.”

A mountain burst from the trees to our right, quite a distance away but close enough that I felt we were almost home again. Asher slowed the Ferrari and turned onto an obscure dirt trail winding through the forest towards the base of the large, sand colored mountain. I lifted her hand and brushed my lips across her knuckles in thanks, knowing, somehow, everything would eventually be okay.