Chapter 1 – The Good Life
Thursday, September 15, 2310.
Ashley could hear her mom yelling from downstairs. She hated her mother's proclivity to shout commands from one end of the house to the other. Ash rolled her eyes behind closed lids and buried her head in her pillow, trying to savor a few last moments of warm, comfortable sleep before the grueling process of waking and preparing for school began.
Her mother's voice in the doorway startled her. "You're going to be late."
"So," she said, the pillow swallowing her flip reply.
She heard her mom bark a similar charge at Geoff from down the hall.
Today was Ashley's fifteenth birthday. She didn't see why she should have to go to school on her birthday, but she rolled from bed and pulled on a jersey.
In the hallway, as she stumbled toward the bath, Geoffrey sprinted past her. He reached the bathroom first and slammed the door in her face with a hurried, "Sorry Ash, I gotta go!"
"Damnit, Geoffrey!" Ashley pounded the door with her fist.
Back in her room, Ash calculated her options and fell back into bed.
"ASHLEY-ERIN-FOX! Get up now!" Her mom screamed from the downstairs kitchen.
Ash sat up to yell back, "Geoff's in the bathroom!"
"No, I'm not!" her brother replied from the kitchen table.
A few minutes later, she stood in the bathroom doorway, her face flush with rage.
The room was a complete mess. Pools of water stood all over the floor, a towel lay soaked in a corner. The counter was covered with spilled soap and toothpaste, sloppily smeared about.
"Geoffrey!" she screamed in frustration.
Later, outside, Geoff and Ash headed down the front walk. Their parents waved from the doorway.
"Take care of your brother, Ash," her father instructed, as he had every day for almost the entire past year.
Ash waved goodbye to her parents. As they turned away, and the door closed, she brought her hand down across the back of Geoff's head.
He yelled and spun to confront her.
They rarely got into fights. Geoffrey was four years younger and even angry he posed little threat, which usually fueled his frustration, rather than tempered it. "What the heck?" he yelled.
Ash stepped toward him scowling.
Geoff took an involuntary step back. "What did I do?"
"I told you a million times to stop leaving the bathroom a mess! If you can't wait till after I get out, at least keep it clean."
"You could use the one downstairs," he argued.
"So could you!" Ash walked through the gate, holding it open for him. "Come on."
"You didn't have to hit me," he said, as he passed her.
"Tomorrow, I go first," she answered.
"I just really had to go," he said.
"You leave it a total disaster every day."
"You never hit me like that before." Geoff glared.
"I'm sorry, but you have to think about other people sometimes." She put an arm over his shoulder, but he shrugged her off and stepped forward, moving out of reach.
"I'm sorry. You're right. It was mean. I won't ever hit you again."
"Promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
"You have to say it," he said.
"I promise I won't hit you again," Ash said.
"Ever?"
"Ever."
Geoff stood still. It was apparent he didn't genuinely believe her.
"Come on," she smiled. "I didn't hit you that hard."
Geoff wrinkled his nose as he rubbed the back of his head.
Ash stepped forward and put her arm around him again, walking them toward the shuttle stop that would take them to school.
“You’re using the downstairs bathroom from now on, understand?”
Geoff didn't argue, but he didn’t push her arm off his shoulder either.
As Ashley and Geoff approached the walled campus, Ash's friend Mandy waved from the gate. Ash and Mandy stood roughly the same height, both tall for their age, five foot seven and female, but the similarities ended there. From Mandy's short wavy blonde hair, to Ashley's relatively straight jet-black locks, they were as different as night and day. Mandy was a bright student who never studied and barely did her homework. She got straight B's and didn't care. She was friendly, and everyone liked her.
Ashley was her polar opposite; aloof, cynical, and sarcastic, she rarely smiled. When it came to schoolwork or athletics, she was always at the top of her class, not in the top five, or even the top three, Ashley was always number one. When she wasn't, it was because she consciously let someone else win, or because she wasn't in that class. She was the ultimate type-A personality, but not because she tried; she put forth as little effort as possible. If the other kids had known she was sleepwalking through school, they'd have hated her that much more. Even the boys were jealous, especially of her athletic abilities. Not to mention the fact that her courage had been tested and proven, against an infamous serial killer.
Ash and Mandy seemed an unlikely match as friends, but they genuinely liked each other. Then again, Mandy had lots of friends. She couldn't name an enemy. Ash was fascinated with her.
A few years earlier, a ballet instructor had taken some time to explain that the ability to turn enemies into friends was what truly set people apart. Her explanation had so impressed Ashley, that she too believed it to be the only skill worth actually having. Of course, it was the only thing she'd been unable to master, or even become functional at.
Most of the other kids avoided the ultra serious Ash. She couldn't pinpoint why. Perhaps they felt outclassed, out-gunned. That was fair and relatively accurate. Ashley didn't try to beat the other students, but they did seem have an air of deference and defeat in her presence.
It wasn't her fault that school, really all of life, was arranged as a competition. She'd heard that in other, more dignified cultures, there was a greater sense of teamwork. Unfortunately, that was not where she lived.
Ash and Mandy didn't feel compelled to define their friendship, which existed almost exclusively at school.
Together, the three of them, Ash, Mandy and Geoff, slipped across the courtyard. The first bell rang, Geoff smiled, waved to Ash and set out toward his classroom.
Two steps later he returned and hugged her. "Happy birthday," he said. Before she could reply, he'd run off toward his wing.
Mandy grinned at Ash. "It's your birthday, huh? I had no idea."
"Yeah well," Ashley replied.
"It's the fifteenth, your golden birthday!" Mandy smiled. "We should do something. We should have a party for you this weekend."
"I can't. I've got... so much stuff this weekend."
"You've always got stuff," Mandy said.
The girls stood quietly for a moment, Ashley's usual and predictable rejection of weekend companionship still lingering in the air.
"What are you gonna do?" Ash asked softly.
"I don't know, watch cartoons, eat pizza and ice cream." Her clipped words clearly expressed her dissatisfaction, but she immediately adjusted her tone. "Find a party, I guess."
Ashley looked down, but didn't offer to join her friend. The girls stood silently beside each other.