His Bride

Chapter 3

It's after 4th period and I'm heading over to the cafeteria to grab my lunch and then meet up with Olivia and Ned to go over to our usual lunch spot in the courtyard. I spot them waiting at the end of the line for me with their lunches in hand, once I get through the line and join them we head over to our spot under a tree. It provides shade from the unforgiving sun and heat, once we sat down and get our selves situated we started to dig into our lunches. " What are you guys doing after school?"

Olivia shrugs " No clue, probably homework and then binge watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What about you Ned?" He just shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders and says "I don't know, home work then go workout before having to go to family dinner tonight.For some reason this time my parents insisted that I go to dinner because my father's boss and his boss's son is supposed to have dinner with us tonight. I can't even remember their names either, actually I dont think my dad mentioned their names. I probably should learn them before dinner tonight"

He makes this pouty face when he's done talking, and I make eye contact with Olivia and start giggling from his reaction to dinner with his parents and his dad's boss. "Maybe you should text your dad right now so you don't forget and ask for their names. You don't want to seem rude that would be bad for everyone." I look at my lunch and see what I got today, lets see PB&J sandwich, an apple, grapes, a chocolate chip cookie, and a Capri sun to go with. Yum, a perfect lunch.

"Yeah your probably right and I don't want to embarrass my dad either." Ned pulls out his phone while he's munching on his chips and texting away, me and Olivia eat out lunches and start talking about the upcoming English project.

 I unwrap my sandwich and bring it up to my mouth when out of no where Ned shouts "Akela and Eros of course! How can I forget names like those, When my dad told me the first time I think I laughed for a good 5 minutes until my dad smacked me on the back of my head for it."

While he was explaining all this I dropped my sandwich and felt my face turn sheet white. Olivia was listening to Ned and nodding along with what he was saying and didn't notice and Ned was too busy explaining.  

I can't believe he's this close to me, I mean of course he would have come around sometime , yet I was still grasping for some type of hope that he wouldn't. I also hoped that my parents were just playing a really good prank on me, but Ned talking about his father's boss and his boss's son claiming Akela was one of them makes it all the more real. And makes just that much harder to tell Ned and Olivia...

"Hey Ash are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost?" Ned's voice broke through my panicked thoughts about Akela. I look over to Olivia and she has a concerned look on her face, I switch my gaze to Ned and he wears a similar expression. I nod my head to Ned's question not trusting my voice to not give away how I really feel at the moment. 

They both look unconvinced but let it go and we all started talking about school and what sport is better soccer or baseball. Olivia plays soccer so that's obviously her vote and Ned plays baseball and I am pretty sure you could guess which one he's for.

While their fighting over  that my mind is elsewhere, thinking once again about the faceless Akela. Maybe I could get Ned to find out more information for me, or get him to take a picture of him  for me maybe. I know nothing about him or even what he looks like either, my parents refuse to tell me anything about him no matter how or when I ask. Olivia gets up and tells us she has to go to the restroom real quick and I take this as my opportunity to ask Ned about Akela.

"Ok Ned this might sound really weird but I need a favor." I speak really quick and he seems really surprised and looks slightly curious. "Of course, what do you need?" I take a deep breath and take a quick look around me to see if Olivia came back yet, she hasn't. I take this as another good sign and start speaking. "Ok, I can't explain why right now but I need you to get a picture of Akela for me."

Ned looks even more surprise than before obviously caught off guard with my request, his face quickly turns into a concerned one. "Ash you aren't trying to stalk my dad's boss's son are you?" I look at him like he's the one that's lost his mind " NO!, Look I just can't explain right now but please it's important to me" He looks like he's gonna tell me no, so I give him the puppy eyes.

He cringes " No, no, no not the puppy eyes.....ugh fine but you owe me." I smile and give him a giant hug and let him go and finished eating my lunch. 5 minutes later Olivia came back and we all talked until lunch was over. We got up and threw away our trash and started walking to our next classes, or rather  they walked to their classes and I walked to the library instead. Finally I'm going to get some light shed on this mysterious Akela.

Once I'm in the library and find a seat in the corner of the library behind the bookshelves, it's secluded from the rest of the library so I can have some privacy. I pulled out my laptop and some of my notes for my multi-cultural class to write a paper and while I do my phone goes off. I stop typing and picked it up to unlock it to look at the message, it's from Ned looking at it makes my stomach sink. I open it up and it says:

Alright Ash Spill it, Why do you want that picture?

I bite my nail trying to come up with something to tell him, I didn't want to tell them until I officially meet Akela. Yet it would be a relief to finally tell my best friend about getting married, but I'm scared that if I tell them they won't see me the same anymore like who gets married at 18 and engaged when not even in the world for an hour?

 I take a deep breath deciding to tell Ned the truth, but I don't want to tell him by phone. I tell him to meet me by the bathrooms and I'll explain there, I pack my things and head over there. When I get there Ned is there waiting for me already, and I take another deep breath in and I can feel myself shaking from nerves. "Hey"

Ned nods at me and looks at me curiously and confused on why I would ask him here instead of just telling him over the phone. " Hey Ash what's going on?" 

"Ummmm, well I need you to be open minded about something and to not tell anyone even Olivia." He nods his head and shifts his weight obviously uncomfortable with how serious this conversation is getting.

 " OK, so right after I was born my parents and Akela's parents made an agreement, and this agreement was that when I turned 18  me and Akela were to be married. I found out on my 16th birthday and we have yet to actually meet, I don't know anything about him or what he even looks like."

I rush over everything wanting to get this over and done with and hopefully pretend nothing ever happened, Ned is looking at me seriously and then breaks out laughing. " Seriously Ash, you didn't need to come up with a fake excuse just cause you have a crush on someone." 

When he saw that I wasn't laughing and had a completely serous face, he stops laughing and stares at me with a concerned look. " Ash you joking right? Please tell me your joking" when I shook my head he look at me with a pity look in his eyes. " Well fuck."