Fiction: Pattern of Firsts
This is a story for my
50prompts prompt table. The story is for the prompt: pattern.
I don't think anyone will like this. It was more of a challenge to me than anything else. It isn't very good, but I didn't expect it to be. I hope if you do read it, you will let me know what you think, right?
Title: Pattern of Firsts
Author: jailynn24
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ashlee's life is a pattern of firsts
Word Count: 1444
Character/Fandom: Ashlee Wolfe, Guiding Light
Prompt: Pattern
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just borrowing the character from CBS, P&G daytime and others
Warning: This is a dark story, angst, character death
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The first time she knew her family was different was when her friend, Mary, asked her what her dad’s name was when she was five. Until that moment she never really thought about it. After that she couldn’t forget. What did her father look like? What was his name? Did he know about her? Did he want to if he didn’t know about her? Would they ever meet? Questions without answers, Ashlee got used to that.
The first time she was really teased about her weight, she was twelve. The cutest boy in school, Jake Mullins, stopped her cold in the middle of gym class by oinking at her. She never really noticed the looks she received before he did that. She was in a safe little bubble. From that day on though, she couldn’t ignore them. Had could you ignore something like that when it was thrown in your face?
The first time Ashlee realized that she felt really alone was when she was seventeen and Nate left her at her prom. She was always on the outside looking in, but could brush off the pain and make the situation about something else. Books were her drug of choice. She could bleed into the pages and zoned out the real world. That night was different though. He was with her and then he was gone. Nate-Jonathan--- she had to stop thinking of him in terms of Nate--- made her feel special for a brief second. Maybe that was why it hurt so much when she ended up alone.
The first time she was really kissed, she was taken completely by surprise. Her heart was breaking and she was sure what little hope she had that Coop might feel something for her was gone. The feel of his hands against her shoulders, warm palms pressing into her soft skin, was like an incredibly surreal moment. He turned her around and kissed her. His lips were like silk on hers. The moment etched in her mind for all eternity as one of the most perfect and most shocking to her.
The first time she realized she was in love it was calming. All the emotions Ashlee couldn’t understand made sense. The planets aligned and she breathed easier knowing what was going on in her heart. She never dreamed that Coop would feel the same way. It was almost better to think he couldn’t. No expectations meant that there was a greater chance that her heart would stay whole. She could pretend that she wasn’t desperate for him, she was used to pretending.
The first time Coop made love to her, she was terrified. He would see her. All of her and she didn’t want him to be as disgusted with what he saw as she was. She should have known that Coop loved her, rolls and valleys, chunky thighs and large arms. He saw what she couldn’t. He had already seen her and he loved her anyway. After he kissed her nude rounded stomach so gently, Ashlee cried. Tears flowed from her eyes as he took her in his arms and joined their bodies. Pain blended with pleasure, love melted into lust, and peace found its connection in a storm of emotions. Afterward, while he ran his fingers through her hair, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. His scent followed her into her dreams. She wasn’t scared anymore.
The first time she saw him after the break up, she wanted to hide. His blue green eyes were haunted and hollow. He looked at her like she had killed something inside of him. What he didn’t know was that she had killed something inside of herself as well. The easy conversations they always had were nowhere to be found. Everything was stalled and forced and she ended up finding a way to hide after all. A quick excuse about needing to find Daisy was her exit and she took it. Ashlee couldn’t be around him. Because being around Coop forced her to face the fact that she had no heart beating in her chest anymore without him in her life. She realized even then that her pain was her fault.
The first time she saw Coop with her, Ashlee’s stomach contents ended up on the sidewalk in front of her. Beth was a horrible, bitchy joke. She meant for him to date her as a gag. She never thought…Ashlee had leaned against the wall and prayed for the remote from the movie “Click” to appear in her hand. She wanted to rewind to before she knew. Ashlee wanted to unsee what she had already seen. The glutton for punishment that she was came out and Ashlee sadly peeked at them again. It was then that all the bricks from the sky fell upon her. He had officially moved on and she hoped someday she could do the same. Beth pushed away from him and walked toward Alan, Ashlee didn’t stay for what was coming next.
The first time she heard he was dead, she didn’t believe it. Her ears needed to be checked because Coop couldn’t die. He was alive and well with another woman that didn’t deserve his good heart. Frank stood at her door, his face white as the dress shirt he was wearing. The blue of his eyes were dull and blank and that’s when her knees buckled underneath her. The black swarmed her mind, clouding what little comprehension she had. Coop was dead. The words sounded like they were from another language. Ashlee felt her body demand to go numb; panic warred with regret that was being butted by disbelief. She woke up in the hospital hours later, an IV in her arm and her mother gave her the news again when she asked why she was there. This time, she recognized the truth. This time she didn’t fight the numbness.
The first time she stood at his grave site, Buzz was at her right and her mother was on her left. The dirt was freshly dug. There was a hole waiting to accept his too-young-for death body. The casket was closed. The accident that Alan caused made it impossible for it to be opened. Not that she wanted to see anyway. The air was cold, but there wasn’t a dot of snow on the ground. A priest read from the bible in his hands. Words sounded like white noise in her head. Doris gripped her hand tightly, giving more support than she ever had before. After the service they lowered Coop into the ground, Buzz picked up a handful of dirt and sprinkled it into the hole where the shiny black casket was now resting. Frank went up next then Marina, followed by Daisy and finally she went. The cold earth slipped through her fingers just as tears she hadn’t been able to shed slipped from her eyes. The numbness she felt since she heard the news broke, shattered all around her.
The first time she shot Alan Spaulding, she was out of her mind with pain. Her bullet missed his heart by inches. Luck was on his side. Ashlee didn’t know then that she would be standing with a gun pointed at him again. Her life was about patterns. This is just another. Alan stepped off the elevator, like he did that day last year, of the Beacon with Beth at his side. A cold feeling spread throughout her body. The gun didn’t shake in her hand. Her hearing was clear, her mind was filled with images of Coop, and of what these two did to him. Pain fueled her actions before and grief pushed her this time. The minute Alan and Beth were within range, she pulled the trigger. Beth hit the floor first then the second bullet hit and Alan followed suit. They lay in pools of red, bleeding from wounds that Ashlee knew were fatal.
Walking calmly out the Beacon door while everyone else went to help the dead couple, Ashlee tossed the gun into the huge lake by the lighthouse. She watched the waves carry it to its watery grave. The patterns of firsts stopped now. This time she wasn’t going to be scared, confused, blindsided or hurt. She sat on the banks of the lake, pulling her knees up and cried for Coop, for the love she lost and for all the time she wasted because she didn’t let him know that she loved him still before it was too late. When the police came she would be ready. There was nothing for her in the world anymore, prison might be a blessing.
*nervous* It sucked, didn't it?