Tremble

“Asher,” her voice whispered against his neck as he tipped her head onto his shoulder. Her finger smoothed against the sensitive blue vein that protruded from the pale skin. The sheen of want and lust filmed over her eyes as she pressed his hand into her, his thumb pushing deeper into the pressure point.

“Yes?” he whispered close to her lips, teasing her with his chilled breath that washed against her lips and landed straight onto her taste buds. He held her close and possessively against his chest, his arm locking diagonally on her chest to keep her snugly placed.

Her body shivered and trembled with continuance as she rolled her head closer to him, her mouth so close to his that the notion drove him mad with want and need. She moved her lame hand to his side and grabbed his other arm, wrapping it around her waist as he tightened it with a snake-like grip. Her petite form went slack into him, allowing him to support whatever weight she possessed. Her lips skimmed against his, teasing and driving him more mental than he already was.

With a soft whisper, she spoke into his mouth as her lips moved with his, “It’s time to wake up.”

Asher’s eyes snapped open and a short gasp left his lips, the sun was briefly shining through the covered window. Without even missing a beat, Katherine pushed Asher’s door open with a bright, sunshiny smile and full-around happiness blossoming over her features. “It’s time to wake up, sweetie.”

He sat up when he saw her, jumping to his feet with formality. Nodding once, Asher, with his eyes kept tight with his aunt’s, moved toward his closet. “Yes, ma’am.”

An almost sad smile wafted over Katherine’s lips as she nodded and placed her sun-tanned hand on the doorknob, her thumb rubbing over the shiny gold paint. Her smile brightened a moment later when she realized what a tragic mess Asher’s hair was, sticking up and curling out of place like a mad scientist’s would. “Do you want a ride today?”

This had been her fifth time asking this question, and all five school days, Asher had respectfully refused the gallant offer. The school was only a few nice blocks away from his aunt’s house; it wasn’t but a fifteen minute walk to the torturous, Hellish place. “No, thank you, ma’am.”

Another sad smile hit the elder woman’s lips in a fit of proper rejection. She nodded, “Okay.” Backing away from the door, she started to pull it closed to the amount that he liked it, and retreated from the narrow hallway. Asher listened to her footsteps and stayed like a perfect statue until he heard the echoing footfalls land in the kitchen. Only then did he move to pull the closet door open and grab a navy blue form-fitting V-neck and a pair of dark grey low-riding skinny jeans. Shoving a hand through his hair, he scowled at the fact that he had such a restless sleep that his guardian had to see him so out-of-character.

His fingers raked through his hair as he moved to the nightstand beside his bed and grabbed a pair of black socks and plopped down onto his bed once again. Pulling on the worn out Doc Martens, he readjusted the pant legs to go down over the leather, luckily, he had enough leg room to maneuver this perfectly.

He walked down with his dark grey messenger bag slung easily onto his shoulder and moved into the kitchen. His aunt had finally picked up on his eating habit and set four pieces of buttered Texas toast on a small round plate, waiting for Asher’s dark red lips to bite into them. He smiled for a second at his aunt as he sat himself down at the table to bite into the toast and then allowed it to flit from his lips as he chewed. It was easily seen by the lack of the smile lines in the corners of his mouth that he didn’t smile very much at all. If he was smiling, it was with gentility towards his aunt or maniacally towards whatever he had decided to manipulate for the moment.

As he distantly ate the toast, his mind flitted back to the night one week ago that he had terrified the girl into the point of tears. Asher had slipped his finger against her bottom lip once more before he winked with that curling wicked smile and walked away into the darkness down the street. He hadn’t attempted to speak with her since then, especially without the presence of Callum. It was like hitting two birds with one stone, he scared Kaden and then in the same second, he infuriated Callum until the point of instantaneous hatred. Asher was still trying to rationalize this hatred on if it was because he intimidated Callum in a way that he didn’t understand, or because he intimidated the innocent Kaden? Or perhaps – Asher smiled wickedly – it was because Callum, just as well as Asher, could see that obvious attraction Kaden held for the manipulator.

Asher’s fingers swooped back down to the plate, only to come up empty with crumbs sticking to the pads of his fingers. He looked down and realized that he had finished his toast with confusion cluttering his expression. “Asher,”

His head snapped up to look at Katherine, remembering with fondness of how she wanted to claim Asher as her son and put Rachel in her place with the harsh truth. As far as he was concerned, Rachel hadn’t called Katherine since their great dispute. He composed his features to keep the wicked smile contained in his mind’s eye so that his aunt wouldn’t see it. “I’m leaving now, okay? I’ll see you after school, darling.”

She walked over to him and pressed a kiss into his mess of raven swirls, her fingers smoothing the hair at his neck down. Asher sat perfectly still as he silently allowed his aunt to express her love for him with the subtle gesture. He wished he smiled at her; he wished that he could wrap an arm around her and coil her into his chest with the comfort that she provided him. Just as well, he wished he knew what was stopping him from doing so. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t expressed love and compassion with family members since he was nothing more than a mere child, wide-eyed and gawking at everything that passed. Perhaps it was because he’d gone through such a great deal of abuse in the last eight years between the uncaringness fulfilled by his mother and the physical beatings and lashings provided by his father. As Asher watched his aunt smile once more at him before she slung her purse over her shoulder and walk out of the house, he thought that, perhaps, it was a combination of the both.

“You worthless, spineless, no-good, stupid, deranged fucker! Don’t you see what you’re doing to your mother? Don’t you…” Ben’s steel-toe boot connected to Asher’s rib, a deep gasping inhale resounded through the quiet hallway. “Don’t you dare look away from me!”

Asher stared at the clock on the microwave and shook his head, his hand pressing to the flesh covering his skull with a shaky exhale. Asher’s hand pressed to the right side of his ribcage and felt the unfixable crack in the fourth rib down. His breath fell out in a shudder, a groan stuck between releasing through his lips and sticking to the lining of his throat. “I will!” he screamed.

He cleared his throat, swallowing that clogging groan and threw his bag onto his shoulder. He walked out of the house and moved to the direction school called him.

***

His mind cluttered over, trilling with thoughts he thought he had banished from his mind. With his hand over his mouth and his eyes staring forward, he felt himself fall in and out of memory versus reality. Images of his father kicking and beating him, sounds of his mother’s shrill cries wailing and pounding against his eardrums, and the pressure lodged over his chest as he tried to remember how to breathe properly. His breathing had become forced, short gasps that he tried to keep quiet as his mind unraveled and his eyes clouded over from thought.

The softest caress pressed against his arm and his head snapped to the left as his hand grabbed whatever touched him. Slamming the hand down onto the table, his eyes cleared and he saw the pained expression drawn all over Kaden’s face. Her eyes watered as her hand was twisted in a way that didn’t seem possible. With his eyes flicking between her hand on the table and her tear-glossed eyes, Asher tried to breathe through his mouth without it becoming a wheeze.

His eyes turned toward everyone else in the classroom, twenty-four different pairs of eyes staring back at him with shock, rage, and fear. The hand that held hers down started to shake as he turned his eyes back to the hazelnut hues.

“Asher?” her mouth formed the name, but power wasn’t on her side. The name came out with barely a whisper, strained and choked from building tension and pain.

He was shocked and confused, those was his only excuses for not letting her hand go immediately. He felt locked in place and frozen in time with everyone’s eyes watching him as he watched Kaden with an almost apologetic gaze. When he turned back to the class once more, a floating, wild fist slammed straight into his eye. Falling backwards from shock and force, Asher cried out with a grunt and dragged Kaden, spinning and twirling, down onto his torso.

“Callum!” Mrs. Brigham screamed with hysterics.

Kaden’s voice fell through next with a breathy tone. “Callum, what are you doing? Stop it!”

Asher released his hold on the girl’s wrist and smoothed soft fingertips over it. His face was a mask of something only children wore when they were in trouble. It was a combination of glossy tears holding place in his eyes and parted lips that, by themselves, told you his apologies without words actually forming.

When Asher looked back up Callum, hands were grabbing his shirt and dragging him from the floor. Asher threw Callum’s hands off his chest and shoved him back hard into the corner of the table. A scream and a soft crack bounced off the walls of the room. Stumbling reversely into another table, Asher worked on breathing without getting lightheaded.

“Asher, are you alright?” was the only thing Asher heard in a sea of screams and people asking the same thing to Callum. Kaden moved from off the floor and shook her head at her boyfriend with glaring eyes. She went to Asher’s side, concerned to a point that she didn’t understand.

Asher looked down at her already-forming handprint bruise, the grip so vise that it even made the boy cringe away from her skin. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kaden whispered slowly as she stared and analyzed the dark red blotch that covered over his right eye.

“I’m not,” Asher replied, his cool air forming back around him.

Her eyes narrowed and she looked around the room, her mouth opening with the anger that he wanted her to aim back at her, but was cut off by a sudden voice. “Asher! Callum! Deans, now! Then go to the nurse afterwards.” Her voice had come out so powerful and rough, all of the students – including Asher – widened their eyes at her tone. “Get out, go now!”

The dark grey eyes turned back to look at Kaden, whose eyes were flicking back and forth between him and her boyfriend as they gathered their things and moved toward the exit. Asher stopped in his tracks before turning to leave the table and dug through his bag. Pulling the black covered sketchbook, he handed it to Kaden, who stared down at the notebook and back up at Asher with misperception.

“Take care of that for me, will you?” she still stared at him with a hard, confused gaze. He cleared his throat and flicked his eyes at their short teacher. “Just say you will. You’ll understand why when you look through it.”

She didn’t say anything to him as she took the book of his grasp, his finger slipping against the side of hers as he licked his lips quickly. He didn’t move from his spot until she tucked the book deep into her bag and sat back down at their table.

Once they were out of the classroom and escorted by a dean who was standing around the hallway for some sort of activity, Kaden placed her hand in her bag. Touching the worn-out binding of the notebook, she bit her lip.

The dean had the sleeve of each boy’s shirt in each hand, holding them on either side of his body so they were separated. The three-minute walk from the second floor classroom to the giant dean’s office was silent and the air was stale. The heavy breathing of the thick man was loud, but everything else was quiet. And then, the moment they walked into the room, they were called into Mr. Richards’s office. He was a heavyset man, stocky and short whose voice was shrill and two octaves too high. He gestured to the two seats in front of his office and then to the door once they were in the confines of his room.

After they sat down, Mr. Richards cleared his throat and folded his hands through each other. “So, tell me what happened, Asher.”

Asher looked at Callum and then back at the dean. His mind was jumbled and he didn’t know how to explain what happened, because he truly didn’t really know what happened. Clearing his throat as well, Asher spoke slowly. “I slammed Kaden Grey’s hand down onto the table. I had no control over what happened because I was deep in thought and she startled me. Callum socked me in the eye with all his might, then. So, I pushed him into the corner of the table to make him stop before he really hurt me.”

“You say that like you planned on doing much more.” Mr. Richards arched a brow and spoke with a demeanor full of question and authority.

Asher leaned forward, his eyes slitting and narrowing in and around the dean’s figure. The boy’s hands gripped the edge of the desk and the muscles of his arms bulged out and defined his words. “Oh, Mr. Richards, I had well-more planned than words could describe. He had no right to punch me in the face, especially on school property.”

“You had your hands on my girlfriend, you freak!” Callum turned toward Asher and screamed his response, his hands rising above his head and slamming down into the wood of his chair.

“Maybe she wanted my hands there!” Asher screamed back, turning toward him with his eyes narrowed in around him now, locked and loaded.

“Stop it! Now, Asher – it is Asher right? You couldn’t possibly know how we do it down here, but touching a woman earns you two Saturday detentions and if it happens again, a week’s suspension, and let’s hope it doesn’t go on from there. As for you, Callum, you are suspended for two days because you deliberately rose from your seat and punched him.”

Callum’s face fell into outrage in that instant, hate and anger forming around his features.
“What? He slammed my girlfriend’s hand into the table and nearly broke her wrist and I’m the one who gets suspended?”

Mr. Richards turned his head back to Asher. “I’m letting you off easy this time, Asher. Don’t let it happen again.”

“I can almost assure you that it won’t happen, then.” Asher smirked, his eyes turning toward Callum as he held back a laugh.