The Billion Dollar Girl

(Chapter 33)

One Week Later

***

ῼ Ash Castillo ῼ

Wow. The Principal’s office. I haven’t been in this place for a long time…though it’d been way too short for me. I’ve never been sent to the Principal’s office in the history of my school career, though I’ve probably committed three times the amount of felonies than anyone else. I used to be “invited” here all the time so the Principal could congratulate me on mostly imaginary and sometimes ridiculously tiny achievements. Example:

“Well done Mr. Castillo, you were voted the fifteenth best reader in your English Lit class!”

Only twenty people in my class. Nothing much to be proud of. I’m pretty sure half of the class are practically illiterate – or only know text language, anyway.

“Asher, you just qualified for the first round of Junior PsychOlympics!”

Qualifying for the first round of Junior PsychOlympics is no big deal either. All you have to do is be between the ages of eleven and nineteen.

“Fantastic! You have been nominated as our school’s best toothflosser! Here is a certificate!”

Okay, maybe I just made the last one up, but you get the point.

It was obvious why he did it. So I would go home and tell my Father how “kind” my Principal was, so he could squeeze more funding from my Dad. He’d gotten it seriously wrong. Me and my Dad barely even talked, let alone live together. Eventually I think he realized this and the “invites” dried up pretty quickly. I didn’t mind.

But today, for the first time in what had to be several months, I’d been called into the office. I wondered idly if the school was planning a new section of the library or something and needed some more cash. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to give it to the old guy. I would just sit this whole thing out, nod in the appropriate places and then rush back to the roof. I knew Ella was waiting for me. We’d settled into a sort of pattern. In the mornings, we would go to school together. Break times, we would go to the roof and eat together. At lunch time, Ella would always have to revise for some distant test that she “had” to study for (though now exam week was over, it was getting a lot better) and I would moodily waste away the minutes either watching James smoke his lustful cigarettes or go down to the paltry racetrack I’d made my Dad build in the school and burn some rubber. I would have to go to the other racing arena in the evenings, while Ella would go home, sometimes getting a lift from Zack or James. Though I didn’t like them, I didn’t mind them either. I trusted James and I knew Zack would never have the balls to make a move.

No, it was Will I was constantly worrying about. I couldn’t tell if he was serious about Ella. If he wasn’t and was just playing with me, then all I had to do was fight with him a little and then he would back off. If he was serious…well, then, we had a problem. Even as kids, Will could never let go. If he wanted something, he would stop at no means to get it.

Will seemed to be getting serious, which was what I was worried about. This was why my Mother had always told me I should marry an ordinary girl – so that she would only look beautiful to me. All those years ago, my Mother had proven her own words true and now, thirteen years on, Ella was proving them true again.

I sighed. I was beginning to notice something. The lunches and the evenings spent away from Ella were the longest and the most painful parts of my life. I was also enjoying the weekends a lot more than I used to. On Saturday and Sunday, me and Ella had pretty much spent the whole time holed up at home, doing couple-y things. Even things that seemed so boring to me before were the complete opposite with Ella. Like watching girly movies. Thank God Ella hated them as well.