Ashlynn's eyes had shot from me to Ava within seconds, as though there had been no delay. While it had appeared that Ava had only heard that, it had still meant that she was pretty much forced to give her an answer, in one form or another. Ava sat up, and looked with a somewhat awed expression at Ashlynn. Rightfully so, as she had likely been the last person Ava had expected to see in this place.
"What don't you want me to know?" Ava turned her head to me, and then looked back. "Fucking tell me-"
Before Ava had been able to say anything else, Ashlynn had wrapped her arms around Ava quite tightly. In that moment, within just a simple hug, it had felt that they had exchanged their words. Had that been their bond, a closeness of which they could just speak through such simple movements or gestures?
"I can't tell you." Ashlynn continued as she let go of Ava. "I'm not going back home. I'll get a job here and find a place to rent a room. That's all I'm going to say whether you like it or not."
Turning my head, I had found myself looking at the tip of the sunrise. Just how long had Ava and I been there in the parking lot of the mall? Had I seriously walked around for that long, allowing Ava to follow me like that - even though she had been clearly exhausted, and out of breath? What had I been thinking? Had I really been that upset over something I had known was coming? Or had it been the fear?
Had it been the fear of losing yet another person? As I had let go of another person, I hadn't been left with much else. Yet, what I had been left with were two valuable people. Why had that scared me, then? If Ava and Mack had been that valuable to me, then I hadn't needed the fear within me. It was my own mind creating things, creating problems out of nothings.
Had I been scared of losing them, too? Had I been scared of the life I would live without Ava in it? Would I have gone back to that darkness that I had loved so much? Would I have decided to jump off of that ledge, or blast my brains all over a wall? Had I been that desperate for someone to be my lock and key, someone to protect me from that edge?
Had she been that lock and key for me, or could it have been anyone that showed the slightest bit of care towards me? Had Ava truly been that relationship I had needed to find myself in again, or had she been no more than a consistent piece of ass? Had anything I had felt up that very moment been real, or had it all been a setup for more failure?
I had been so lost in my own thoughts that I hadn't caught onto their voices growing from a normal talking to a near yelling at one another. The yelling, however, had been somewhat one-sided. Ava had been nearly demanding that Ashlynn would tell the truth to her, and yet she hadn't bent. Ashlynn had been set on not telling Ava, even if it would have further ruined their relationship.
"Aiden. We're leaving." Ava angrily stood, demanding that I go with her. It had been the angriest I had seen her. While I had seen her sad, and even mad, I had never quite seen her this fed up. The sharpness that had come from her eyes at that moment had even shocked me some.
Standing myself, I looked down at Ashlynn. "We can't just leave her here. Let's just talk about this while we take her to a hotel or something, yeah?"
Ava's eyes had went from sharp to even sharper, angry to outright pissed. If looks had been able to kill, that had been the look that would send me to an early grave. "You're going to side with her? Do whatever you fucking want, then!"
"Gah. What a clusterfuck..." I sighed, brushing my hair back. Again. "I wouldn't leave you out in the middle of nowhere, would I? I don't care if you're fighting, or whatever, but I'm not going to have the possibility of someone getting hurt resting on my shoulders."
Ain't that a bit hypocritical? I already had the black cloud of a lost life hanging over my head.
"So, you're just going to leave me here or tell me to walk home alone?" Ava averted her gaze. "There's no fucking way I'm going with her."
"Would you stop being such a fucking selfish kid for a second?" Ashlynn stuck her nose in, pointing at me. "Be happy that you have someone who cares about you, unlike Jacky. He just wants to make sure that nothing happens to anyone."
Ava shook her head, she had been furious. As much as I had wanted to side with her, I had morals. As much of a piece of shit I was, I still had morals. I surely hadn't been about to let a girl walk around alone in the early hours of the morning, where it had still been quite dark. I had obviously wanted Ava to come with me. While it had been for my own peace of mind more than anything else, I clearly hadn't wanted to see Ava in that emotional state.
Unlike myself, I had cared if she was happy or sad, angry or mad. I had always wanted her to smile, to laugh, and to be everything she could be. Ava had taken over my life, and had become my world. She had become my day, my only constant. Ava had, honestly, been the reason that I got up every morning instead of sleeping in until noon.
How would have Ava felt if I had told her that she was the only reason I cared about living? A girl I had known for less than a year had been the one I set my sights on. I wanted her as long as she had wanted me. I hadn't planned on going anywhere until she had told me to fuck off and die - in which case, I would have gladly done both.
"Fuck the both of you. I can't believe you, Aiden." Ava turned around and took off, walking a mile a minute.
"I'll be fine." she picked up her bag. "She probably won't talk to you for a week if you don't go after her."
"Then I won't talk to her for a week. I didn't do anything wrong, and she knows it." I replied, taking her bag from her and throwing it over my shoulder. "Does a hotel sound good? There's a pretty decent, cheap place near our school. I kinda need to look for a place to stay myself. Long story."
After a distant nod, we began to slowly walk, even through the slight pain that had been running through my legs. Had I really walked as much as my legs indicated, or had it just simply been my complete lack of exercise? I had been guessing the latter, though both had been realistic. While it was really quite annoying, it hadn't been enough to keep me from walking.
The walk had been quiet, and both of us had been so lost in our own heads that we might as well have been alone. Ashlynn had been completely distant, void of words. I had a good number of questions, most of which she wouldn't have answered, obviously. Yet, one thing had stuck to me when she had been talking to Ava. 'Be happy that you have someone who cares about you, unlike Jacky'. What had she meant by that?
I mean, from what I had heard, he fucked up hard, really hard. However, he hadn't seemed like a bad guy at all. He seemed like your run-of-the-mill Hank Hill-type who played sports, thus making him automatically popular. How had his fuck up led to him not caring about her? It hadn't seemed to add up. The math hadn't added up at all. Fucking up had never meant not caring, and not caring hadn't always been in relation to fucking up.
"Hey. Tell me something." I stated, avoiding trying to make it sound like a question. "What did you mean when you told Ava that she has someone who cares about her, unlike Jacky?"
"Ava would probably kill me if she knew that I told you, but she's already pissed at me. So whatever." she looked at me, and gave a small shake of her head. "Jacky cheated on her three times with the same girl."
"Good thing he killed himself." I sneered, questioning what I would have done if he had been alive. "Are you going to tell Ava? What happen-...Actually, what's been happening your whole life?"
"What are you..." she bit her lip, sighing just enough to hear. "Am I that readable, or is it just you?"
"If Ava couldn't ever tell, then it's probably just me." I answered with some level of confidence in the area. "Ava isn't stupid, and she isn't one to not care about the people close to her. So, you've done a good job hiding it, I guess. If that's anything to feel good about."
Suddenly, Ashlynn had stopped walking. Her hair and the angle of the lighting had made it impossible to see what her expression had said. Had it been sadness, or had it been pain of some sort? Rather, what emotion had been strong enough to make her stop walking, or anyone for that matter? She took something of a deep breath, then two, and then three.
"Why the fuck am I saying this to you, and not her?" she muttered. "I never told her that Jacky cheated on her, until she was about to move. She had no clue it ever happened, and she didn't believe me. That's why we were, and still are, fighting.
Now, I finally decided to leave home, and she wants to know why. How could I ever say something like that to her...? It would kill her if I told her, when she hadn't known even though she lived right next to me."
"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending, eh?" I surprisingly regurgitated a quote I had heard in one of my classes. "So what if it kills her? Don't you think she's prepared for that, if she's asking you that insistently? She's not a child, and neither are you. Don't you think you both should act more like adults?"
Why had I said that? Repeating a quote, and then giving advice are two things I never did. They had also been two thing I never planned on doing. Ashlynn looked up again, revealing the expression she had carried before. What exactly had happened to this girl before coming here, what had been so bad that it could have forced her away from home and not tell Ava? What had been so bad that she had risked losing someone so close to her?
"You're right." she began to catch up to me and her bag, smiling just a little more than before. "But you do know that you are more childish than the both of us, right?"
"Yeah. Probably." I cracked my neck. "I think my looks make up for it, though, yeah?"
She laughed ever so slightly, finally having shown more than just two emotions.
"Yep. If you say so."
ns 172.71.222.127da2
