(ON HOLD) Spellbound (BxB)

Chapter 10 | The Snail

He was nicer after that. Still a dick, but a nicer dick. Jackal Riley had become...not quite a friend, but an associate. An associate dick.

He'd returned to sleeping in the dorm at night, until he grew sick of Asher's filth. Then he threw the door open one morning with three large, un-folded boxes in his arms. He built them up and taped them heavily, and set them in the center of the floor.

"You're going to clean," he told Asher. "Because this is absolutely criminal."

"What?" Asher asked, still groggy with sleep. He sat up in his bed and said, "You want me to clean my room so that you'll be more comfortable sleeping in my room? And what the hell are you going to do?"

To which Jackal responded, "I'm going to teach you Latin."

And so Asher spent that Saturday throwing trash in one box, laundry in another, and donations in the third. And all the while, Jackal quizzed him on his English derivatives, which shouldn't have been such a challenge, had Latin not been invented by a total asshole. At one point, when trying to differentiate between Annus and Anas, Asher had melted into a puddle of defeat on the ground and sobbed to himself while Jackal laid on his bed and flicked through the pages of a comic book that had narrowly escaped a return to the library deposit box years ago.

And once Jackal had given up on Asher, and Asher had given up on Asher, they both laid there in the breeze of a small desk fan Asher had allocated from the thrift shop downtown. A wrinkled, discarded shirt caught Asher's eye and he held it in front of him, frowning at the text "I'm bored" on the front.

"Should I dress more like the people here?" he asked.

Jackal eyed him curiously from his peripheries. He shut the comic with his thumb trapped between the pages and said, "Stand up." So Asher stood. Jackal gestured with a finger. "Turn around." So Asher turned. And after a long moment of gazing, Jackal said "No," and returned to his comic. Asher returned to the floor.

When eventually Jackal left to attend baseball practice—though he was still out for the season with a phony wrist injury—Asher picked himself up and began cleaning again. He didn't know why, exactly. He'd never cared for clean spaces before. But he felt compelled by Jackal. He was a compelling guy, after all. So compelling that Asher had to be torn from his cleaning an hour later and dragged to his first therapy session since break had begun.

Lilly Whitman stared out at him from behind new cat-eyed lenses, placing a piece of candy on the desk before he could even take a seat. When Asher reached for it, she clapped a hand down over the treat, denying him. "How was your break, Asher?"

Asher eyed the glistening wrapping peaking out from beneath her hand. He knew that pastel wax-paper anywhere. Saltwater taffy. "My dad abandoned me here for good and I almost drowned in the ocean."

Slowly, Lilly peeled her hand back from the candy and watched keenly as Asher unwrapped the paper and devoured his spoils.

"This...near-drowning wasn't a second attempt at harming yourself, was it?"

"Nah," said Asher with a shrug.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" offered Lilly, sliding a second piece of candy across her desk.

"I—" Asher thought of his mother that night. Her rose hair, her shallow cheeks, her bony, gaping teeth. Her bone-fingers crushing deep into his neck. "Can't."

"And why not?" asked Lilly.

Asher shook his head, crushing the wax paper beneath his fingers. "Well, anyway. I didn't do it to myself. It was an accident."