Second Chances, Bad Habits

What the hell did I just get myself into, was the only thing I could think as Ashley walked back over to his friends.
“What was that all about?” Ruth asked curiously from behind, also scaring the bejeezus out of me.
“AH!...oh, erm I-I’ve got a date….at lunch.” It sounded more like I was informing myself rather than her. She raised her eyebrow at me, ‘hmphed’ and walked back to where she’d been working.
Great. I have just dug myself into the biggest hole possible. I’d agreed to go out with my girly-named, usually-naked, saved-me-the-first-time-I-met-him, neighbour. Delilah, you my dear, are an idiot. He’s kind of cute though don’t you think? What the fuck?!? Now I’m having mental conversation with myself.
“Gawd dang it!” Oh shit, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Ashley and his friends gave me a funny look, as did Ruth, and the freak at the counter. I still needed to find out his name. FOCUS DELILAH! Cursing to myself, I ignored the weird looks and went back to unpacking the boxes.

***************

Literally 2 minutes before my break was meant to begin, I ran into the staff locker room when Ruth wasn’t looking.
“Shit! What am I gonna wear?” I harshly muttered to myself. I hadn’t realised Ruth behind me.
“Put these on, they’ll suit you better than what you arrived or work in.” Ruth said, handing me a pile of clothes, that weirdly were my size. Unlike my ‘uniform’. I quickly slipped them, hoping that Ash would be late too. Ruth had given me some ripped black skinnies that had chains dangling from the belt loops. A silver and black studded belt, that had strategic paint splatters on it, a long-sleeved top, that had white and black stripped sleeves, but a devil holding a plate of cookies on it. Ha ha cute! I kept my shoes on, and my Hello Kitty jewellery. I really hope I don’t mess this up.
I’ve only ever had one date/boyfriend before, and that was when I was 5. Not quite the same somehow.
I slowly walked back into the main shop.
“You have 2 hours, take ya time hun.” Ruth’s voice muttered to me as she swept past.
Looking up, I saw Ash standing over by the rack that random jewellery on it. Taking a deep breath, I managed to make my feet work well enough to carry my body over to him.
“Hey.” I said, honestly I thought he wouldn’t have heard, but he turned round with a warm smile on his face. Jeez he has amazing eyes. DELILAH!
I quickly snapped my head from staring at him and looked at the floor. Great, now he’s going to think you’re a complete loser, and he’ll regret saving you from that jock.
“Hi there,” He spoke. Besides you shouldn’t be so nervous around someone you don’t know. So what if you saw him naked, it was for like 2 seconds, and you didn’t mean to. It would only be weird if you carried on staring. Ewwww mental image. I may be 18, but gawd I have an innocent mind.
“So do you wanna go grab some food?” He asked, snapping me out of my babbling mind.
“Erm…sure?” I still refused to look at him. Maybe if I don’t look at his eyes, I won’t make myself look like such a dork.
“Great, where do you want to go?” He bubbled while bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Surprise me,” I said smirking at looking at his nose. Ha see, not eyes, and I’m fine.
“Alrighty, one surprise coming up,” Ash said as he grabbed my hand and dragged me from the store. And I thought I was the childish one, well that was until he manoeuvred his hand so that he was holding min properly. Queue butterflies.
I hadn’t really noticed where we were until Ash squeezed my hand to grab my attention. Apparently he’d been talking to me for the past few minutes. Oh dear.
“What do you want? I’m paying,” He smiled down at me. I’d say he’s tall, but I’m 5ft3, everyone’s tall to me.
“Erm whatever?” I really was all that into food unless it was fruit, so this was a bit out of my depth for me. I just hoped that he didn’t order anything with meat in it. I’d feel sorry for him to witness the scene if he did. You loser why didn’t you tell him that then?
“Hmmm how about the Meatball Monday Special?” He suggested. Oh for fuck sake, really? Hmm…play it cool Deli, don’t ruin this by being picky! You can survive one sub!
“Erm yeah…sure”, I’m going straight to hell.
“You don’t sound too sure there”, Ash pointed out. Oh you choose now to be perceptive.
“No, it’s fine honest”, just make sure you sit near the nearest toilets.

*************

We’d ordered, we’d eaten, and surprisingly I hadn’t even gagged once. Maybe I’m converting. Ash was now walking me back to Hot Topic, I’d accidentally on purpose forgot to tell him I had two hours not one. Mainly because if this had gone wrong, I wanted a good excuse to leave, but now I kind of want to say with him. We’d been talking about random things, but strangely enough, I hadn’t learned one single thing about him. Instead we’d only talked about me.
“So who else lives with you? I mean you can’t live there alone right?” He asked.
“No I live with my mum, my 2 sisters and my brother.” I explained. He had this way of talking that just made you smile, not matter what he was saying. Star struck much.
“Nice. Well here ya are. This was nice, we should do it again some time,” Ash suggested, still holding his coffee. I smiled and nodded before waving bye and heading back into the store.
“How was it? Did you kiss? What happened?” Ruth was like a leech, she was there in seconds. Even the boy at the counter had looked up in interest.
“Why are you so into this?”, I chuckled.
“Because it’s THE Ashley Purdy!” She almost screamed. Luckily there were no customers in the store.
“Erm, what do you mean ‘THE’ Ashley Purdy?” I asked confused as hell.
“You really have no idea who he is do you?” She seemed stunned by my lack of knowledge.
“No, I don’t” I said. Ok what the hell is going on.
Ruth just burst out laughing, and headed back into the staff room. Well that was weird.
“Hey, Newbie! C’mere.” The boy called. I walked over to him cautiously.
“What?” I said, a bit ruder than I intended.
“Have you ever heard of Black Veil Brides?” He said.
“Not really, I think I’ve heard a song or two of theirs, but I dunno much else about them, why?” I asked, getting more and more confused by the second.
“Maybe you should check them out a bit further.” He whispered to me, before placing his ear-plug back in and returning to his magazine. This has got to be the strangest kid I have ever met. What the hell has Black Veil Brides got to do with anything? Needless to say, I think I’m safe in completely ignoring the nut job.

***********

After my shift finished for the day I headed home. All I could think of is why Ash hadn’t answered any of my questions. I hadn’t really noticed it until now, but he’d skilfully dodged every question, and changed the subject each time back to me.
I was completely lost in thought until I walked into something. I should really stop doing that. I’m going to give myself a concussion one day. Rubbing my forehead I looked up to see what I’d hit this time.
“Shit!” I spat. It was the jock from before, except this time he had friends. Looking down the street, I realised we were completely alone. No-one was going to save me this time.
“Well, well, looky here, if it isn’t Miss Rude from yesterday. I think I still owe you that’ll little present.” He smirked, cracking his knuckles. My heart was pounding in my ears, my vision going blurry. I was completely frozen. I couldn’t move to dodge the blow that connected with my stomach. Nor the blow that quickly followed hitting my face.
This is going to be a nice mess to explain later. After hitting me numerous times, the jocks had finally walked off. I had blood dripping down my face. Breathe, it’s probably not that bad.
Luckily when I got in nobody was around, so I quickly shot upstairs into my en-suite. Turning the light, I couldn’t help the tears that fell. It was that bad. I had a huge black eye already starting to show, blood was dripping from my nose. My lip was burst and bleeding too.
Why? Why did they do this? All I did was walk into them by accident. I was too numb to really think. I began cleaning myself up, and got ready for bed. Not caring whether the blind was down or not, I collapsed onto my bed, and immediately went to sleep.
How the hell am I going to explain this?