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Lexi spoke to Ashtray a number of times she can count them on one hand, but maybe she's being just extremely generous about it: half of those times was them meeting at the shop, or at his house, and politely nodding to each other.
However, it was still a progress compared to the first times, in which the boy barely looked at her and left her nod unanswered, before he walked away to do who knows what. Though, months passed and her blossoming friendship with Fezco grew and grew and maybe once Ashtray surprised her with an hey while he was leaving the bathroom near the kitchen where she was about to enter, and another time he told her that Fezco wasn't at the shop that afternoon. He was sitting next to the cash register and didn't even bother to give her further explanations, but his serious face clearly expected her to leave. She did and that one time was another one in which he, at least, nodded her way.
Now, sitting at the boys' kitchen table and watching somewhere vague in front of her, Lexi doesn't even hear footsteps approaching from the nearby hallway. She's just too tired to mind anything at all, after that the adrenaline left space to her usual anxiety and everything is replaying in her mind like a loop that never ends and always starts. It's painful. People's faces are painful to remember. She's so absorbed by what happened and all the consequences that she'll have to face soon or later, that she doesn't even realize that her right hand is squeezing a spoon so tight that her fingers are turning unnaturally pale. She doesn't even notice teh person walking into the kitchen and freezing in the middle of the room, eyes scanning Lexi sitting alone at the table, looking like she's somewhere else and holding that poor spoon like her life depends on it.
"Are those my cereals?" Ashtray asks, voice too deep and serious for a thirteen years old kid, eyeing back and forth the girl and the red pack of colorful fruit cereal rings lying on the table. Almost like his voice just called her back from another dimension, she blinks and her eyes fly to the younger boy. He blinks back and, for a moment, they just stay in silence, staring at each other.
"Yeah" Lexi exhales in the end and she even sighs, almost like thinking that everything is painful for her. Ashtray almost plans on backing out from that situation, running away and pretending he doesn't really care about confronting that girl about anything, even less her problem. He looks at Lexi Howard and he sees a big, huge, problem, he sees troubles, because she talks too much about things she's the only one to know anything about and because this thing about her and Fezco ridiculously tiptoeing around each other is honestly bullshit. Ash loves his brother, he deeply does and wants him to be happy -he deserves that-, but he also knows that someone like Lexi doesn't fit with Fez and his kind of life. Ashtray doesn't have a lot of experience in living a normal life and to understand people, because he simply tends to not trust anyone, but he's pretty sure she's the kind of person that should end up with someone good and educated, someone cunning like her, someone that she can see herself make plans with. Contrary, not making plans is exactly what Fezco and Ashtray can relate to: they live every day like it might be their last, watching their backs and don't trust anyone. How can she fit in this? Ashtray wonders, while his eyes stay in Lexi puffed ones. "Hope it's not a problem. Fezco said-"
"'S fine" the boy interrupts and, after a moment of hesitation and pondering, he grabs a bowl from the kitchen counter and avoids looking straight to the early sunlight coming from out the window. Even though he's not a talkative person out of the business crowd, he's a lot less grumpy after waking up than most people: still, he needs his time from bright lights and cold air, he can't just run out the house first thing after he slips out of the bed. He needs time to adapt. So he's not bothered to actually sit in front of Lexi Howard wearing Fezco's t-shirt and a pair of shorts -Lexi is gonna crash in the guests room, his brother had said the previous night, almost like he was determined to make a point with that- and grabs the box of fruit cereal and the milk next to it. He pours himself a bowl full of colorful rings, under Lexi's confused, maybe even scared, stare. Once he puts everything back on the surface between the two of them, he lifts an eyebrow at her. "So, the play-"
It's not a question, not even a joke said to mock her or something, because his tone stays extremely serious to the point that, for a moment, Lexi is more worried that the boy knows how to crack a smile, than the real consequences of his words. Then every single one hits her and she sights, almost giving him the impression that she's about to start crying. His chest starts to panic, eyebrows furrowed, because the last thing he knows is how to comfort someone and he really doesn't want to find himself in that position. However, she eventually builds a facade -a little trembling, but still- and shrugs, making the milk in her spoon fall in the process and back in the bowl, with it a couple of blue and lilac rings following. "Fezco probably told you how bad it went"
"Nah. His mouth didn't say a word" he tells her, but he's not offended that she's insinuating that the older brother might have gone to the younger and spilled everything out. Her tone makes it sound like she doesn't have a problem with that actually, with Fezco confiding in Ashtray, so Ashtray doesn't take it personally. Maybe she even sees it as something loyal, something she might be jealous of. "I guessed it went to shit, when he told me that ya would have crashed in the guests room"
"Told him I could have slept on the couch" she tells Ashtray with a whisper and after a long look at her spoon, now full of milk and food again. She brings it to her lips and swallows.
"Yeah. Sure" Ashtray comments and almost grins, helping Lexi a bit with that anxiety eating her from the inside and making her feel less like she's under scrutiny. She doesn't say anything about it, about the implication of Fezco letting her stay, but not on the old couch in the living room. She takes a couple of other spoons before realizing that this half conversation with Ashtray has been their only one since they first met. She's not sure why she's the one breaking the silence after that, when his head is down and he's showing her just his short black hair, while drinking his milk and eating his cereal rings like it's already the highlight of his day. "Everyone hates me now" she says, almost like she's taking a weight off her chest. She actually had that conversation with Fezco the night before, after the play, sitting in his car and darkness surrounding them out of his neighborhood. He was clearly worried about her being literally in pieces, in the middle of a continuous silent cry, but he gently dried her face and told her that she just showed everyone the truth, so it was time for everyone involved to get their shit together. Back then, she agreed -it made sense- but she spent the whole night half awake in an unfamiliar room, doubting that she shouldn't have written such a personal brutal play about her and everyone around her in the first place. Even less showing it to everyone like a fucking scandal. "I exposed everyone's affairs to the whole school. My sister won't talk to me anytime soon" a pause and a sigh. Another. "If she will ever talk to me at all"
"What happened to the sense of humor" Ash mutters and he gives Lexi a long stare, like she should get what he's talking about. Contrary, she wonders what he really knows about sense of humor when she has never seen him give anyone a genuine smile and, maybe, she asks herself if he's different when he's with Fezco. Lexi isn't sure, she doesn't know because she never saw the two of them together since she started hanging with the older brother of the pair and during those other previous occasions in which they met, back to when Fez and Ash started selling to Rue, Lexi always noticed how they barely interact between them. At parties, they would never have been sitting together: they would have done business in different crowds, with different approaches. People would have gone to Fezco and moved back with their lives after the exchange of money and drugs, while Ashtray was talkative. He built his crowd around a mouth that spoke fast and jokes of an old man that were clearly said just for money. No fun. He didn't look for fun, he was a businessman. He is, Lexi corrects herself, even though he sits now in front of her eating multicolored cereal rings that taste like fruit. "People talk shit 'bout each other on TV all the fuckin' time. Do ya see people complain? The fuck no. Tell 'em to go fuckin' themselves"
At that, Lexi laughs nervously and shakes her head. "Would you tell Fezco that? To go fuck himself, if you would in my place and he would be hurt and offended by something you did? On purpose?"
Lexi didn't expect some big revelation from Ashtray, she actually said those words without even thinking, except that now it takes her one second to realize the truth: the kid sitting in front of her, with the face of a young boy and the hardness of a man that has already lived a tough life, wouldn’t ever do anything like that to Fezco. There’s a weird and deep expression between his eyebrows and Lexi can’t describe with words what it is, really, but without the need of Ashtray to talk, she knows. Lexi loves Cassie, she really does, even when the older sister does stupid questionable bullshit (she does them a lot), but maybe there are relationship between siblings that goes deeper than fraternal feelings, deeper than protecting each other. Lexi looks into Ashtray’s eyes and, maybe she is under the influence of Fezco’s stories about growing up alone and with a kid to raise, but she knows that the stare of the boy in front of her is screaming at her that he won’t just protect her brother. Ashtray would die for Fezco and Lexi feel like an intruder just to see that amount of love in just one person for another.
She always thought she was someone that cared and loved too much, people taking advantage of it and her letting them, but maybe it was purely because Lexi and people around her took things and others' presences for granted. Ashtray’s dark eyes tell her that he wouldn’t ever take Fezco for granted.
Now, Lexi does think that the play has been cathartic somehow for her soul -she’s convinced of that, after all those years of being quiet- but maybe she could have handled it differently, in a gentle way, instead of throwing Cassie under a bus in front of the whole school. She can’t have what Fezco and Ashtray have, she’s not stupid, but she can make amends and still take care of her relationship with her family.
“Yeah. I would” Ashtray tells her, maybe too lightly. Like it’s not a big deal. Lexi knows he’s bluffing, because she’s sure now he wouldn’t ever do something like that and find him in her position by any chance. Then the surprise grows inside her and she asks herself is he trying to make me feel better? Months prior, she would have laughed about it. About the little weird drug dealer kid in Fezco's shop, that always looks like he's judging everyone just for breathing, now trying to help her. “If he’s my fuckin’ brother, he should forgive me. If I look like shit in someone else's house, eatin' their cereal and all. Right?"
Lexi knows he's just trying to cheer her up, maybe he doesn't even believe his words, but it can't help but make her crack a smile. A little one, before she whispers her next words like it's a secret between the two of them. "Thank you"
He shrugs nonchalantly and, after that, they fall back in silence and eat their breakfast in a quietness that it's not heavy. Ash just wants to enjoy his milk and cereals, while Lexi's mind is already drifting at Cassie and a plan to make peace and fix things. Have a talk, apologize and find a compromise, because Lexi is determined to not lose that little power and confidence she had earned.
Ashtray and Lexi are so distracted in their silent bubbles, sitting at the table like it's normal sharing food one in front of the other, that they don't hear a pair of feet coming from the hallway. They both look like they have been caught doing something wrong, when Fezco's eyebrows lift and he slowly and conduask them: "The fuck is going on here?"