Page 8 of Forgotten
Flipping a card, Ashford looks down.
“Well that’s a problem,” he says.
For a moment, I think he’s referring to the UNO card. Maybe he doesn’t know if it is a red nine or a red six. I know it is a nine, because there is a line right at the bottom, so theoretically he could play over my green nine. But I get it that it can be confusing. “What is?” I ask carefully, studying Ashford’s thinking face.
Ashford plays his nine over my nine. “You’re Ash. And I’m Ash, too.”
“Hum.” It’s like it has never hit me before and suddenly I feel very stupid. Surely in the two years we have been friends, I could have thought about this.
“But you’re Ash. And I’mAsh.”
It makes total sense to me, he’s Ash with the red hair and the loving quiet family. I’m Ash with the brothers and the dad who yells, brown hair and crazy eyes that sometimes are blue, sometimes are grey. But I can hear how stupid it sounds. I stare at my cards and there isnothing I can play, so I pick a card and it is another plus four. My hand shakes as I put it down, not believing myluck.
“Blue. UNO,” I whisper.
Ashford crosses his legs and studies me. “We could find you another nickname?” he suggests.
“No. Please.”
I can feel my heart beating wildly in my chest and I know, this is the moment where Ashford will get angry that I’m winning and he will tell me to leave. I will be alone again. Alone with three brothers and Mom who is always tired and Daddy who is always angry. “I don’t want to be ‘Ashley’,” I explain.
“What do you mean? You are Ashley.”
I simply shrug, eyes focused on the cards laid out on the carpet before me. I know I should have not played the plus four, Ashford will hate losing again.
He picks four more cards and adjusts his hold, struggling to keep all of them in his small hands.
“Oh. You don’t like your name? Why not?” Ashford asks, ignoring the game completely.
I look up and I’m surprised to see his brown eyes on me. Is he making fun of me? “It’s a girl’s name,” I tell him, because it is what everyone has been telling me my whole life.
“But you’re not a girl,” he says so easily, as if it is enough for him. “Are you?”
I blush furiously. “No, I’m a boy.”
“Okay,” he replies, and I wait for him to say something else; to play a card. When he does neither, Iturn back to the lonely blue card in my hand. This is it. One last card. I called UNO, I called blue. There is one last thing to do. I discard the card, and the blue eight rests at the top of the pile. Nervously I lift my empty hands to showcase my win.
Ashford grins at me and nods approvingly. “I’ll be Ford then.”
“Ford?”
“Yeah. Like Ash-Ford. But just Ford. So you can be Ash.” His tone is final and I wonder how often he has thought about this before.
I want to argue, tell him that it is not necessary.
He does not let me. “Rematch?” Without waiting for my answer, he’s shuffling the UNO cards again.
We play three more rounds, our voices as low as whispers so that his parents won’t come in and find us awake, still. Ashford wins all rounds and it’s like the world is balanced, again.
When we finally turn the light off and lay on his large bed, I know it is really late. There is enough space between us for our favourite stuffed animals, my brown teddy bear and Ashford’s blue dolphin.
“Ash?” I call him softly but he just breathes in the darkness. I wonder if he has fallen asleep already.
I try again, a little louder this time, and the entire bed starts shaking with Ashford’s giggles. “What?” Confused, I turn to lay on my side.
“You are so bad at this. We said I would be Ford from now on,” he whispers at me.
I watch him as he finds my teddy bear between us and squeezes it to his chest. The brown of the toy matches the shade of my friend’s eyes. What a coincidence.
