A Year On An Airplane,, .open

[Ashton Maines]

And even though New England intrigued us, thrilled us,
Our bones were cold as sticks and stones,

"Ah, christ." A soft, frustrated voice spoke out from a back table in the San Francisco University High School's massive library. Oh yes, it was a glorious library, a book nerd's dream, perhaps. Shelves after shelves crammed with books about any subject imaginable. Fiction, non - fiction, biographies, medical books, anything, everything, it was all there. There were also over a dozen PC's avalible for students. Along one corner of the library there were many large, wooden tables for studing, writing and just chilling at, along with matching, uncomfortable chairs. On this particular Thursday evening hardly any of the tables were occupied, but there was one that was covered in papers, notebooks, and plenty of thick books. Behind all this chaos sat Ashton Maines, one of SFUHS's college freshman, working steadily on a paper. "There's no way I can finish this," he mumbled, gripping his pencil tighter as he scribbled more notes.

As he completed writing one of his many notecards, he tossed his pencil across the table exasperatedly, producing a slight moan and pressing one hand to his forehead. It had been two and a half hours now that he had worked on his paper nonstop. It was an English research paper. Twelve pages long, due in three days. Saying that Ashon was feeling the heat would totally be an understatement. But, sadly, his paper wasn't the most frustrating thing that he was dealing with that day. Around lunch he had headed over to his father's house to visit, perhaps try and convince his dad to let Ashton treat him to lunch, but ended in a huge argument. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't seem to get his relationship with his father quite right. Some days were better than others; other days were like living through a war. He loved him, but one thing he positivly could not stand about Will, his dad, was the fact that he always had a smart - ass comment to say or could never be wrong about anything, no matter how much proof you had to prove him otherwise. Will was stubborn as hell, and today he was no different than anyother day. To make matter's worse, Jessica, his step - mother wasn't even around to intervine to make them stop.

Ashton leaned back in the oversized, stiff chair and retrieved his phone from his pocket, checking it for any messages or calls. He gave a slight frown when he had nothing. He had texted Jessica earlier but after a while with no response he called her, only getting sent straight to voicemail. Seeing as how her phone was dead and he'd already sent a text, he decided against leaving a voice message. He hated to seem like he was using her as a crutch everytime something went wrong between him and his father, though Jess seemed more than happy to be one. "I know how hard headed your father can be, kid." she would tell him, "But I'm always here to help you deal." Ashton could visualized her perky, round face framed with bleach blonde hair flashing him a huge grin as she assured him to never hesitate to come to her with a problem. As far as step - parents go, she was by far the best.

Returning his mobile phone to his backpocket, he stood up, stretching as he did. After all this work, Ashton had decided it was well time for a study break. After asking the librarian to please keep an eye on his table, he headed towards the double doored exit of the library, pushing open the heavy doors and out into the sunshine of the bright San Francisco day. It was so sunny, not a could in site. It was normally the kinds of days Ash hated, but today he was just happy to get a break away from his nasty research paper. Between paths of concrete sidewalks, there was a wide grassy area that a lot of students enjoyed hanging out at between classes. But like the library, it was pretty much abandoned today. A quick lie down couldn't hurt, he decided, finding a nice spot to lay and rested his arms behind his head. The sun warming his skin was a nice change from the cool air conditioning in the building. Now Ash's only worry was trying not to nod off on his short break.

[Kat Lyons]

You would think it to be weird to see Kat back at University High School since she had graduated from the place almost a year ago now but then Kat was always one to appear in places that you wouldn’t expect. She had always been like that actually. It was just the way she had always been. Going to places that you wouldn’t expect to see someone like her there, but that’s just looking at her general appearances, if you knew her the first places that you would check would be places nobody else would be in. She still, even at 19, though she looked about 17, would go to the play centers you can find at some of the restaurants and stuff. Just for the pure fun of it, hence why she loved loved loved amusement parks. But then she either only went with herself, or riku and his family. Josh always acting like the one that wanted to run away, Emily and her pushing kuu right to the next ride, which kat tended to do to josh at times as well. She knew he loved her nonetheless. And kuu was always gladly the one coming along as well. Though Kuu had always been the only person she enjoyed going to amusement parks with. But now it was even more fun just because she got to drag along more people. Kuu and Kat normally being the ones that got paired up. But still the same she got them to come with her whenever they could. Which was normally weekends, Kat would live at the amusement park if she was allowed to. Too bad they didn’t have such facilities to let her do that. She always thought it would be amazing to work at one of the amusement parks but because of what she liked most of the time she decided not to work there, plus she still liked working at the bakery she did, and she normally gave her free cookies and stuff to bring home if she helped make them.

Today though she did actually have a certain reason to be there. Since on a Thursday her classes had let out early and she did know that Noel worked here, and she hadn’t seen him in a while she had thought of catching him just as his classes ended and before he ran home to jakie. She basically had forced him today to spend some time with her. As much as she wanted to see jakie as well she couldn’t talk the same around jakie as she could around noel, just because they both seemed to get along in a weird sort of way, her and noel. And it was hard for Jakie to keep up she thought, especially for the random things that kat liked to talk about. Even jakie couldn’t figure out what she was talking about and he was slightly insane as well. Kat had actually caught him in the middle of the class but she didn’t have a problem going and pouncing on him even so. Him teaching drama t was basically a bunch of insane people anyways. Drama having always been her favourite class here. Having spent a few hours with him till he finally begged off to go home and see Jakie she went to wander around the school. She didn’t really have anything to go home for other then to feed her pets a bit later on. That was the downfall of living alone and basically a lot of her other friends being paired up with someone or another. Actually she didn’t like it at all which honestly was why she was thinking of just going to England once the semester was finished. Because then at least she would be able to be with her brother assuming he wasn’t living with anyone. Basically kat figured there was nobody insane enough to ever want to be with her anyways and her imaginary friends were good company most of the time. By this time the school was fairly quite, most people either in there dorms or out and about somewhere else.

Walking along the main floor she came to the library which she looked in but doubted to see someone and literally almost ran into someone coming out, since se cant walk and look elsewhere at the same time though she ended up actually being able to dodge around him which he didn’t seem to notice anyways. Watching him head out the building she wasn’t sure what made her want to follow him but after waiting a few minutes in the deserted hallway she wandered down and outside feeling the slight breeze that was in the air as she blinked and put on a pair of sunglasses that she had on top of her head that day to shield her eyes from the sun. Kat was all for the big sunglasses, just because that was how she liked them and the little ones looked ridiculous on her. She didn’t like though how some people would wear big sun glasses and they would just look absolutely horrid on them. It just made her want to take there sun glasses away from them and push them into a shop that sold them so that they could find a better pair. But this was also because she seemed to have a notice for what people wore, what people liked and stuff like that just because of the fashion class that she was taking. One of the best things she ever took and she noticed really a lot more things that she never had taken before. She had never really thought as being in fashion something that she wanted to do. She still doubted she would do much with it, she was always more of an actress at heart. But anyone who knew Kat would also know of this small fact.

Seeing the guy lay down on the grass patch a little ways away she grinned and bouncing along with a quite giggle pounced onto his stomach where he laid down ‘No sleeping mister. Sleeping is bad. You might get a sun burn, or get trampled by people that randomly come across. You never know what will happen if you just lay there’ she said poking his nose. This is definitely saying that she didn’t even know the person or anything. She was just being..Kat. There was no other way to describe Kat’s actions. She was insane but that didn’t even sum up how she was. But even if she was insane she could normally get even the quiet people to talk. Though with her random introductions like this she probably ended up half scaring the person off. Though he didn’t exactly have a choice but to stay there since she was sitting on him and all. Looking down at him she grinned happily thinking she had found a new friend. Plus she recognized him, she didn’t know where but she definitely had seen him around someone. Maybe he went to this school or something. She really wasn’t quite sure but nonetheless he looked interesting to talk to as long as he didn’t go and fall asleep on her. Because that would be horrible. Kat and sleeping would never get along well, its just a given fact basically. ‘Imma Katherine. But you can call me Kat, Kit, Kitty, Kats orr whatever name you can think of’ she said pushing her orange hair back from her eyes. Really by now she was used to people to understanding where she either got her energy or where she got what she was even saying or how fast she talked. A lot of things she didn’t get but still people seemed to like her just because of how happy she was. She didn’t understand that, when people told her that once in a while. But really if someone treated her wrongly she probably would get a bit depressed. Which is soo not Kat. Because Kats a happy bunny who makes everyone else happy.

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[Ashton Maines]

I crossed some standard state lines,
I finally found myself so far away from home,

Ashton let out a long, quiet sigh. Lying here with the sun warming his skin had a way to make him totally push him problems aside, but just for a moment. Worry was an inevitable part of Ashton's makeup; he just fretted over anything and everything. He was the kind of person that had to have things perfect and problem free, but even perfection wasn't enough for him. Such as his relationship with his father. Things would be grand one day, maybe lasting as long as a week, or even a month if he was that lucky, but he could never be totally calm. He knew that it was only a matter of time before his father made a smart - ass comment or Ash screwed up to ruin everything he'd worked so hard on. He also found time to worry about insignaficant things, things that didn't even matter at the point in time, like never getting married and having a family, or having trouble finding work after college. Yes, he knew it was crazy to worry about little things like that, things he didn't even have to worry about just yet. He also knew it wasn't that much healthy either, but yet he could never change.

But for now, he just tried to enjoy the moment. Soak in some sunshine, feel the warm breeze brush across his bear skin. Plus, it was pretty much noiseless out there with the lack of students. It was. . .peaceful, something Ash almost never let himself experiance. It feels amazing out here. He let his thoughts roam freely as he relaxed. But, not even five minutes later, Ash had actually dozed off into a light sleep, something he did not intend to do. In fact, it was the last thing he wanted to do. He still had his paper to finish, still needed to call Jess back, who had actually called only moments after he'd fallen asleep, and still needed to get home to his apartment and clean up his smelly, man - mess. Ah, shit, he'd be kicking himself in the ass when he woke up for this one. Getting sidetracked and not having things go as planned was one of the many other things that he hated and fretted over.

Suddenly, it wasn't so quiet. Ash blinked a couple of times, trying to comprehend that fast - paced talking in his ear. '- trampled by people that randomly come across. You never know what will happen if you just lay there.’ For a moment, Ash was feeling a bit disoriented. "Huh?!" His hand shot up to his nose that had just been poked. He sat up quickly and looked to his left. Sitting beside him was a small girl with short orange red hair, continuing to babble onto him with a grin plastered across her face. 'Imma Katherine. But you can call me Kat, Kit, Kitty, Kats or whatever name you can think of.' Ashton rubbed his knuckles over his eyes for a second, and looked back to her. "Uhm, hi, Katherine," he said, searching his just woken up brain for words. "I'm Ashton," he returned. He stretched his arms and back a bit, and then asked, "What brings you out here?" instead of what he wanted to say. Why the heck did you wake me up and poke me in the face?! Ash gave a small smile, not wanting to seem too unfriendly.

Suddenly it was all coming back to him, everything that he needed to be doing instead of sleeping and talking. He grabbed his cell phone from beside him to check the time, but saw that he had a missed call instead. He checked it quickly. It was from Jess, but he couldn't call her back now, not with some person sitting with him, trying to make friends with him, or atleast that's what he thinks she was trying to do. Plus, he still had his paper due in four days! But how was he supposed to get away from this girl to do that? She seemed pretty determined to be friendly and nice, considering she woke him up with a grin and an introduction. Well, I guess I did do a lot on my paper today, he thought to himself, considering just not working on it anymore, though he knew he'd be at home tonight writing a draft of it more than likely. But he still felt antsy on the inside with the urge to call Jess back, but he couldn't just blow Kat off now, he'd already invited her into a conversation by asking what had brought her out.