Wanderlust

It felt like ages since Ashlyn had seen Tom. In reality, it had been two whole days. Ashlyn didn’t really enjoy the feelings that she had indulged in since then. The ones that kept her thinking about what Tom must be doing most of the time. But she wrote it off as her being curious as to what he did in his spare time and her being sort of infatuated with him.

But still, she was more than ready to hang out with Tom as the day approached. It was a Saturday, leaving most of the day open for them to do whatever it was that they wanted. While Ashlyn had some things to get done early, she would be ready to go out around noon and had let Tom know that when she had stopped by his cabin to drop off the clothes that he had wanted washed. The cabins were old school enough that they didn’t have laundry hookups, so Ashlyn usually had the pleasure of washing the clothes, unless the tenants went to the Laundromat in the next town over.

But at noon, Ashlyn was still rushing around to get her hair put up in a halfway decent way. And she didn’t even know why she was bothering, but she was. And then the knock came at the door. Luckily enough for her, she was the only one home as her parents and Amanda were off at the specialists and wouldn’t be home until the following day since it was about a five hour drive to where Amanda saw the doctor at.

“Hey. Am I early or something?” Tom asked, taking one look at Ashlyn’s stressed to no end face and thinking the worst, like that she was going to cancel the date to do something else.

“No, no. Why do I look that bad?” She asked, a smile on her face. He just shook his head and held out a hand for her to take. She took it without a single thought.

“Are we taking your car or mine?” She asked, looking back and forth between her little SUV and his new BMW that still had temp tags on it.

“Well, what do you think? Are we in need of four wheel drive wherever it is that we are going?” He asked, twirling his keys around his finger. To be honest, Ashlyn hadn’t really had a set place in mind for where she wanted to take Tom on their adventure.

“Let’s take my car. Because I have no idea where I want to go, or where you would want to go. I just want to get out of Wells for a while,” She told him honestly. The entire week had been the week from hell. She had gotten into it with Amanda more times than she could count which, in turn, caused her to fight with her parents. Ashlyn had never really had a problem with Mandy being babied and her side being taken all the time before. But this week it was just petty bull shit. It had taken every ounce of her will to tell them that the last thing that Mandy needed was to be babied and taken care of every step of the way.

“Rough week, love?” Tom asked, slipping into the passenger seat, hoping that she didn’t drive like every other bird he had ever rode with. Ashlyn rolled her eyes at his question as she started the car and backed out on the road.

“That, my friend Tom, may be the understatement of the year,” She told him and then fiddled with the tape deck so that she could slide the converter in for her mp3 player to transmit through the car.

“Not even an iPod?” He asked her, teasing her gently, trying to take her mind off the obvious stress that she had endured during the week.

“I’m lucky I have this one. Mandy tends to take my shit and claim that it belongs to her all the time,” Ashlyn said, “But I really don’t even want to talk about it.”

“Good. Because Amanda is not part of today’s discussion or excursion. This is you and I, love. Just you and I,” He told Ashlyn, squeezing the hand that rested on the armrest between them with a smile on his face. Ashlyn smiled at him and started towards the roads that would lead them up the coast of the lake before making it to the bridge that would take them across it . There were a couple places that they could sit and hang out for a while.

“Do you want something more laid back to do or do you want to go to the city?” Ashlyn asked, making sure that the direction she had decided she wanted to take would be good for him.

“I’ve seen so much of the city that a laid back countryside would be more than appreciated,” He told her and slipped the ever present Ray Bans onto his face as they drove along, with a quiet melody of The Beatles playing over the old stereo system.

They drove for an hour, quiet conversation coming easily to the two as Tom told her what it was like to be Draco Malfoy for more than half of his life and Ashlyn returned with what it was like to live in a town like Wells for her entire life. They talked music and books and everything in between. It was as though they had known each other their entire lives, as cliché as it was. But with every new statement that passed between the two, each discovered something very new and intriguing about the other.

So when Ashlyn pulled into the parking area off of Route 8 and turned off the car, Tom turned to smile at her.

“This looks promising,” He said and she returned the fantastic smile that he gave her. During the trip up, she hadn’t even thought about her parents or her sister. It was the first time in a long time that she didn’t think of anything but herself. She wasn’t used to it.

“It’s one of the most beautiful places that we have up here. I try to come up here whenever I can, but it’s been rough since the accident,” She said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s alright, love. If you ever want to tell me what happened, be my guest. I’ll wait until you tell me though,” He said and grabbed the cooler that they had put into the SUV earlier. She grabbed the small backpack and he allowed her to take the lead for a while until he came up beside her, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. It had been a long time since anyone had wanted to hold Ashlyn’s hand so she reveled in the feeling of having a boy hold onto her as they walked.

“So. Promise you’re not taking me in her to off me?” Tom asked as they made it to where a small creek ran through the trees.

“You caught me. Sorry, Tom. First I’m gonna make you sign all your money over to me and then I’m going to murder you and run off to Sweden and find sovereignty,” She said, a smile on her face as she slid the backpack off and opened it to pull out a sheet for them to sit on.

“Damn. Why don’t we just run off to Sweden together, love? I’ll gladly share my fame and fortune with you,” He said with a wink, causing Ashlyn to full out laugh as she spread the sheet down and slid her flip flops off.

“I’m so glad there’s no cell coverage out this way,” She said softly, looking at her old cell phone that didn’t even have a keyboard. If there was, she would have been bothered constantly by text messages and calls from her parents and sister. She sighed and shut the device off, sticking it in an outside pocket on her bag.

Tom just watched the girl beside him as she stretched herself out on the blanket and closed her eyes for a few minutes. She was beautiful in every sense of the word. But she had obviously never been told that. And she was turning into more and more of a puzzle with every turn. She had at one point been able to be a normal teenage girl. But now, years later, she had definitely changed a lot.

Tom wanted to know everything about her. But he also knew that she wasn’t going to open right up and tell a complete stranger, especially an international celebrity, her entire life story.

He knew that he had to eventually tell Ashlyn about his past, as well. He knew that if he wanted anything to ever get anywhere between the two of them, he’d have to be honest about it all.

And he had a feeling that would be the hardest thing he had ever had to do.