A WALK IN THE WOODS

This chapter is dedicated to rachael_dobbin for reading since day one!!!

Jemma Ashgrove was bored. Very bored indeed.

She wore a pair of skinny jeans, a plain t-shirt and a pair of converse boots. Her spacious, square bedroom has matching wooden furniture complete with homely furnishings. The floor is wood and the walls are painted a light shade of blue. The room is done in summery colours and overall looks a bit old-fashioned. Among the first things one notices walking into the room is a small crack in the wall and a large mirror.

I was sitting on my bed listening to music through my headphones. I was daydreaming. Staring into the vast, densely populated space of my vivid imagination. I couldn't be bothered with fashion. I wore mix-matched outfits.

For her, clothes were a representation of her personality rather than her body or views. She looks deceptively innocent in the eyes of her fellow students and was generally viewed as an outsider. She has a close-knit circle of friends, each one unique in their interests.

A devout Christian, she went to church every Sunday, trying to take in the message that was being spoken. I usually just started daydreaming though. Her family had no interest in God. Every week I rode my skateboard to a local church, a helmet failing to contain her hair, dancing wildly in the gentle winter breeze, not suppressed by the views of her parents. She liked it like that.

I had earphones in, as always. While I listened intently, I leaned to the right to turn the board gently. The rubber wheels glided gently over the smooth surface of the pavement. My knees were protected only by the soft fabric of my jeans, and ripped jeans at that. I crouched low to make myself more stable. The dull beat of my heart acted as a backing track to the artist's voice in her ear.

I rode through the town, passing lonely houses with their brick chimneys and small, double glazed windows. The town was quiet and she could see her breath in the air. Her converse boots clung on to the board for dear life.

I was well over half way now. The streets were empty and she was relaxed. The roads surface began to change, bumps and potholes opened up and I was struggling for control of the board, but I was experienced and manage to stay onboard. My legs were getting tired, but I stayed on.

Tall, oak trees lined the area and a group of birds flew overheard. The suns harsh light had been replaced with a warm orange glow. Orange streetlights illuminated the road with it's neat, yellow lane markers.

Then suddenly I lose my balance. I lost my footing and the skateboard struggled for grip. In a moment frozen in time, she began falling. I was going at 8-10 miles per hour beforehand, this was going to hurt. As the ground rushed towards her, she fell into the arms of Nicholas Smith. She stared into his deep, green eyes and then regained her composure.

'You okay' he asks, his face lit by the streetlight's warm glow.

'Yes, thank you Nicolas' she says, clearly flustered.

'What you up to', Nicolas asks as Jemma stares at him with a peculiar look on her face.

'Oh nothing much' she says.

Then he utters the words that turned her world the right way up, 'Wanna do something?'.

She pauses for a minute, not really believing what Nicolas had just said. A beenie covers his, messy, brown hair. He is smiling to himself and has a pair of earphones in his hand.

'Yeh sure', she says, secretly the most excited she has been in a long time. Jemma's life wasn't boring anymore.

The duo walked and talked and walked some more. They shared a pair of earphones and both had their hands in their hoodies to keep warm. The two ended up in Burger King. Nicholas took a bunch of sachets of salt and tomato sauce and spread it all over the desk. The salt formed two round circles in the empty space. The tomato sauce formed a wide mouth. It reflected her feelings.

We moved on, Nicholas brushing shoulders with her as they left together, Jemma Ashgrove and Nicholas Smith. That had a nice ring to it.  We spent the next hour at a children's playground. I sat on the rain-covered swings and talked for awhile.

The cold air rushed around us, water droplets rolling down our faces. Their eyes met and neither was able to look away. Like many girls in Regmont High School, I had always admired Nicholas's looks. His messy brown hair, his deep, warm, golden-green eyes and his smiling face.

But sitting this close to him, I couldn't help but notice how innocent he looked. What was she doing? Nicolas was one of her best friends. I shouldn't be thinking about those things. But I did. Then, suddenly without warning I moved closer to him and hugged him. When I looked into his eyes once again, his expression was curious, almost in awe.

For a second, I thought that he was angry, but before she could think about it any more, he pulled her towards him. He kissed her. I was shocked initially but then I closed my eyes and got used to it. Then after no more than twenty seconds they pulled away from each other.

'Well then' I said, looking down at my converse shoes suspended in the air by the swing.

I was afraid of doing the wrong thing. I wasn't sure how to react. Nicolas helped me off the swing, avoiding looking into his eyes. As we made our way deeper into the forest I couldn't help but wonder if his heart was beating as fast as hers.