Misfile fanfic: Alone Again

Based on characters and situations created by Chris Hazleton. All misfile characters copyright Chris Hazleton

Ash felt a bit odd, walking to class by herself. She had been dragging the angels around for so long, she almost expected to hear their footsteps at her side. But after Vashiel’s humiliating lunchroom revelation, she just couldn’t stand to be around them. The hallways were quiet, as all of the other students had already made their way to the after-lunch classes. Then she suddenly did hear another set of footsteps hurrying in her direction. Could it be Vashiel coming back to apologize yet again? Or repeat his protestations of love? After the public embarrassment, followed by Kate reissuing her challenge, Ash was in no mood for anything more exciting than a dropped pencil. Dreading what she would find, Ash turned to see a boy she vaguely recognized as a fellow junior, breathing hard from running after her.

“Ash,” he said urgently, “could I please speak with you?”

She wasn’t all that surprised that he knew her name. She had, after all, achieved a fair bit of notoriety among some students. Many of them knew her name, if not her face; however, most of them didn’t actually come up and speak to her so familiarly.

She sighed in exasperation. “I’m kind of late for class,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean now,” he explained, breathlessly. “But you have ten minutes between sixth and seventh period, and you’re just going from room 211 to 212. Could you please wait for me outside of 212?” Without waiting for an answer, he ran back the way he came and ducked into one of the rooms at the end of the hall.

Ash just stared after him for a moment. How did he know her schedule so well? If he was a stalker, he was a particularly inept one. And what could he possibly want from her?

Shaking her head, she continued to her class, slipping into her desk at the back of the room. Her English teacher gave her a brief hard look and then ignored her.

As sixth period ended, Ash debated with herself as to whether she should just ignore the boy or wait and see what he wanted. In the end, curiosity won out, and she stood in the hallway, watching the traffic of students walking to their next class, some walking quickly and some stopping to chat with friends. She really wished that her path and Emily’s had crossed before this, so that she could see what her friend thought of this upcoming meeting.

And then he was there, taking her elbow and leading her to a relatively calm place in the hallway. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, Ash,” he started, “but that new… new boyfriend of yours is always with you.” Then he spoke faster, fidgeting and looking away from her. “And I didn’t want to do this over the phone. I know you don’t owe me anything. I just hoped – I thought, maybe you could help me understand what happened. If I said something, or did something…”

Ash listened, patiently. What in the world was this boy babbling about? As far as she could remember, she had never even spoken to him.

Paying no attention to her lack of reaction, he continued. “And after you were so insistent on keeping ‘us’ a secret, I just thought… I figured that if you were going to suddenly announce that you were dating somebody else, you would at least have told me first that you were breaking up with me…”

Ash tensed. The conversation was leading to ideas she didn’t want to consider. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she answered him, hoping that she had misunderstood.

“I mean ‘us’, Ash. You and me. We –.”

“I don’t know you, do I?” she protested.

That stopped him. Confused, he fumbled in his pocket for his wallet, pulled out a piece of paper and thrust it at her. She flinched when she saw it. It was a product of one of those old-fashioned mall photo booths. A strip of four pictures; only it was torn in half so that only two pictures remained. But it was the contents of the pictures that sent a chill through her. They showed the two of them, with her obviously sitting on his lap. In the first picture, they were smiling for the camera, their faces pressed together. In the second, they were kissing. Ash felt the bile rising in her throat at the idea. Even worse, she suspected that if she were to search her bedroom, she would find the other two pictures, and didn’t even want to imagine what they might show.

She stared at the boy in horror. “Get away from me,” she whispered.

“Get away,” she repeated. Then she all but screamed, “Leave me alone!” and ran for the shelter of her classroom, ignoring the stares of the other students.

It took her a while to calm down, and paying attention to the teacher was all but impossible for several minutes. Thoughts about the encounter kept playing in her head. He hadn’t followed her, hadn’t tried to stop her when she ran, and didn’t seem all that dangerous – if she could just avoid him, she would be safe. ‘Safe from what?’ she asked herself. She had no answer. Maybe she had overreacted. Maybe she could just have spoken with the boy, made him see reason. Or maybe not – those pictures had hinted at a relationship that was just unthinkable. And he clearly wanted to continue it.

Envious thoughts tormented her – as a boy, Ash had never been able to find a girlfriend; this boy didn’t seem all that special – why should he have been able to find one? Then the ludicrous aspect to the question struck her – she herself was the girlfriend he had found. Boy was he going to be disappointed when the misfile was fixed!

By the end of the day, Ash had still not worked out what to do about the boy from the hallway. Chances were that she was not going to be able to avoid him forever. It was just luck that he had been kept away until now by Rumisiel’s presence. She didn’t want to have to rely on that forever.

Walking home with Emily, she debated with herself over whether to tell her friend about the encounter. Emily might have some ideas on how to put him off; on the other hand, it was really embarrassing. She had been able to share a lot with Emily, but this touched on her manhood, and that was a really sore subject. Emily might not understand.

In the end, she decided to wait for another time; she could always tell later.

Over the next week, Ash kept an eye out for the boy. She noticed him in the lunchroom, and a few times during class changes. Often she caught him watching her with a mix of concern and frustration, but he did not attempt to approach as long as she was with the angelic brothers.

“Emily,” she finally asked one afternoon as they walked home, “have you ever had to deal with a boy who wouldn’t leave you alone?”

Her friend looked at her in surprise. “Is somebody pestering you? Even with everybody thinking that you’re dating Rumisiel?”

“Ash,” interjected Vashiel, “do you want to me to –?”

“No!” Ash responded, imagining the embarassment of having him ‘defend’ her. “You guys go on ahead. I want to talk to Emily.”

When they were safely out of earshot, Ash hesitantly explained about how she had discovered that her alter ego had had a secret boyfriend. As she feared, Emily’s initial reaction was one of amusement.

“Well, is he cute, at least?” Emily asked.

“Emily!” hissed Ash, mortified.

“Well, it sounds as though you’ve scared him away. If all he is doing is looking, you can just ignore him.”

“But what if he… does more than look? The only thing I can think of to do with a guy who’s giving me grief is to fight him – and that just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do, here.”

“No, very definitely not,” Emily agreed with a chuckle. “Unless of course he tries to force you into something. And as long as you aren’t alone with him someplace, that’s probably not going to happen. But you’re going to have to deal with him somehow. You could just tell him that you’re dumping him. You don’t even really need to give a reason.”

“I suppose…” Ash said, reluctantly. She just kept imagining how she would have felt in that situation – assuming, of course, that she had ever found a girlfriend. “I don’t really have any experience in dumping somebody.”

And she had still not reached a decision when, two days later, he was suddenly by her side as she headed back to class from the bathroom.

“Hey! Are you stalking me?” she shouted at him as he tried to take her arm from behind.

“No!” he answered her in the same tone, pulling back his hand. Then more quietly, “No. I just…” He sighed. “Look, I can see that something has happened to you. I just want to help.”

He looked miserable, and Ash felt just a twinge of guilt. After all, it wasn’t really his fault, this uncomfortable situation they were in. He was almost as much a victim as she was. She looked around and saw that there was nobody else in the hallway. He must have been watching for her. He must have been desperate.

She decided to be as honest with him as she could be – which wasn’t really all that much. “Look,” she started, “I don’t remember any of what you are telling me. I’ll believe it happened because of the pictures, but I just don’t remember it.”

“What do you mean, you don’t remember it?” he asked.

“Just what I said. I literally don’t remember any of it. I have no recollection of ever dating you.”

He took a moment to work that out, staring at her in disbelief. “Amnesia? Some kind of an accident?”

That sounded like as good an explanation as any. “I think so,” she answered him.

“But… wow, that’s really terrible. You… don’t remember any of… us? Being together?”

“Huh. What… what else don’t you remember?” Seeing the look she gave him, he caught himself. “I guess that’s a pretty dumb question. Oh man… Are you all right? Is everything…?”

“Well, obviously, it’s a little uncomfortable for me, having people talk to me as though I should know something I don’t.”

“Wow, you’re right. I can imagine.” The idea had him shaken. “And what about these guys who are hanging around you? Do they know about this? Are they… taking advantage of you?”

“No!” she replied. “They’re helping me. Rumisiel is supposed to be helping me. He’s trying to fix this. And his brother is… helping him.”

“So, this boyfriend bit is just an act?” he still seemed a bit unsure, and more than a little bit jealous.

“Um… sure! And that way… it just looks normal for him to be around me, and…” Inspiration struck. “… And keep people away that I might not remember, because that would be so uncomfortable for me, you see.”

“Oh… really?” He clearly wanted to believe her. He was convincing himself that it was all the result of some kind of accident. “So you mean… I…? You don’t mean… me, do you?”

“I’m sorry… until this thing gets fixed, yes. Then I’ll be back to normal, and I can go back to all of my old relationships.” Of course, she thought, I’ll be a boy again, and we certainly won’t be dating, but if you want to think otherwise, that’s your choice.

“Oh… oh…” He looked away, and sighed in resignation. “I guess I should have expected something like this. It was just too good to be true, somebody like me dating someone as great as you. And maybe… I guess… I’m really sorry, Ash. Please… remember that I’m here for you. If you need anything, I mean. I’m here for you. Anything you need. Anything at all.” And with a last, longing look, he reluctantly walked away, totally deflated.

Ash watched him go, emotionally exhausted. She congratulated herself on handling a difficult situation with a minimum of hurt feelings and shouting. She wondered what other surprises this revised life was going to have for her, and how she was going to deal with them. But as she returned to class, one thought was uppermost in her mind: “Rumisiel! Get off your ass and get me out of this!”