Page 18 of Forgotten
“Fuck, Ford. We have a family. You are my family. Even if I wanted to leave…” Ash sighs, dropping his head. “I’m never leaving you.”
Chapter 8
2008 - Ashley
When I change schools, I hope secondary school will be much better than primary school. After all, that’s what’s happened to Ford.
In primary school, I was his only friend. And he was my only friend. But when Ford moved to secondary school, I was left alone. It was a very long year during which Ford went on and on about his new fancy friends from rugby in the winter, cricket in the summer and every class he was in.
So when September comes, I can hardly wait. The smell of new books is exhilarating and I can’t stop fidgeting with my legs. I bounce them up and down until Edwin kicks me and Mom tells us both to quit it. But I can hardly control myself. I need Mom to drive faster—drop my loser twin brothers down at my old school and then finally I will be free. I will be a new Ash in a new school with new friends and a new incredible sport made only for boys. I start counting in my head until it’s time to get out of the car until eventually, I’m here.
New year, new Ashley.
First thing on my list: do not introduce yourself as “Ashley”. To anyone. “Ash” sounds so much cooler and I want nobody to start teasing me for being a boy with a girl’s name. I need to start new, start fresh, become a popular person that everyone wants to be friends with.
It lasts until the first class.
I choose to sit in the second row—not in the front because I don’t want to be a loser and not in the back because I quite like English and I don’t want to miss the entire lesson.
As Mr. Wilson goes through the list of names for the first time, he stops as he calls out the surname: “Andrews, Sydney.” The teacher stops. “Oh, I expected a girl.”
“Surprise.” Andrews, Sydney looks unapologetically, mahogany eyes sparkling with pride. He’s sitting in the second row as well, a few seats away from me.
“Alright. Moving on.”
It’s not long before Mr. Wilson lands on Bergman, and as I raise my hand shyly to make my presence known, the teacher reads out my first name. His eyes jump to me. “Ashley?”
“Shock, also a boy.”
The comment earns Sydney a detention, but the boy simply raises two thumbs up in my direction.
We are inseparable after that. We’re in the same class for maths, history and geography and he sits next to me for all three of them. Sydney talks non-stop, asking me a million questions and he does not wait for my reply before he goes on to the next topic. He does not laugh at my jokes; like when I tell him that Mr. Wilson remindsme of a Pokémon or when I pass him a pencil during maths and I whisper, “Make sure it islegible.”
I don’t really mind. I let Sydney do most of the talking and I follow him around, humming and yes-ing and wow-ing. When I’m with Sydney, nobody at school minds me. Nobody teases me for my name. Nobody follows me outside of school to tell me that my clothes are weird and too big for me. I wave at Ford in the corridors when I meet him, but I spend most of my free time with Sydney and Ford spends most of his time with his sports mates.
When Sydney and I meet Darshi, she is unlike any girl in school. She keeps her long curly hair closed in a thick braid down her back and refuses to wear the school skirt. She sits next to me during lunch one day and waits until both Sydney and I are looking at her. “My parents don’t want me to be friends with boys,” Darshi states.
“But we are boys,” I tell her, just in case she hasn’t noticed.
Sydney elbows my side and his eyes are locked on Darshi for the longest time. Finally, after what seems like forever, Sydney clears his voice.
“Nice to meet you?”
Without smiling, Darshi holds her hand out and tells us her complete name, but to please just call her Darshi. Sydney shakes her hand, then picks up his fork and resumes eating.
“I don’t get it. Her parents said-”
Sydney interrupts me. “That’s why she will tell her parents that her friends are Ashley and Sydney,” he explains, holding up two fingers and Darshi grins at me.
I don’t get it, still, but I don’t want to be alone. Since Ford is eating on the other side of the room with his rugby friends, without Sydney and Darshi I would be eating on my own. I pretend I understand. “Ah!”
I will get it much, much later.
The three of us are inseparable after that. Darshi is in a set lower than Sydney and I for almost every class, so we meet her outside or during breaks. Mostly we spend time together at lunch. Day after day, I learn more about my two new friends and with each new discovery, I forget that Ford is in the same school eating the same lunch as me.
Sydney is a wonderful storyteller. He tells us about the time he went to Cape Town in South Africa to meet his biological grandparents and all the delicious food he ate, the mighty animals he saw and the gorgeous beaches he visited. He tells us that his mother loved Australia and that she named him after one of the biggest cities there. He tells us that his adoptive parents Mr. and Mrs. Andrews are planning on going to Australia one day so that boy-Sydney can see city-Sydney. I wonder if there is a city called Ashley in the world, or one named Martin or Edwin or Erik. I don’t think there are. I wouldn’t be solucky.
Darshi is not as good with words so she tells us about a singer named Madonna instead, and she shows us the CD that she’s gotten for her birthday. With careful handsDarshi opens the CD and reads the song titles to us. Some of them I heard on the radio already, and Sydney and I attempt to sing them to gain Darshi’s approval. We don’t have to work too hard. Darshi claps her hands in excitement and promises that she will play the CD for us, later, if we want to go to her house while her parents are at work.
