I first laid my eyes on Ashton Irwin in year 9. It was the night of my sisters prom. Shed had dozens of boys asking to go with her and my parent and I had no idea who picked. I had a pre-prom party my school was holding that night, but no one had asked me to go with them. So instead, I planned on spending the night with my new friends, Ben and Jerry's.
Despite Evie and I being two years apart, we were nothing alike. Stereotypically, I was a nerd and she was a popular. If it wasn't for us living together, I could never imagine us being friends. My name would for perfectly on the top of her 'get after school' list.
At precisely 6pm, prom night, Evie jumped off the sofa with both our parents and stood at the door. She had warned me many times that morning not to go anywhere near her prom date, so that's what I did. When he arrived, I stayed in the living room and watched innocently from the window. She hadn't told me the reason why she didn't want me to see her date, but I had two theories. The first being that she thought I might steal him from her. However, I couldn't imagine that happening, because although we looked similar, she was way prettier. My second theory was that I would embarrass her, which seemed the most likely theory out of the two.
Evie's date arrived in a red sports car. I hadn't seen him before, but then again, I had never met any of Evie's dates. I assumed he wasn't able to drive yet, as I saw a woman in the drivers seat and he got out the passenger side. Evie normally went for tanned boys, so I was surprised to see a fairly pale boy leave the car. I wasn't able to see his favourite straight away as he spent a while leaning over and talking to the driver, but when he did stand up, I was in awe.
Ashton Irwin had me in a trance there and then. His brown-blonde hair was straight down, framing his face, complimenting his black suit and tie perfectly. I wasn't sure if Evie had met him, since I certainly hadn't seen him around the school, but I was sure as heck hoping I would see him again after today.
Fortunately for me, Evie decided that she liked Ashton and she wanted him to stick around. At first, I was surprised because Evie never has boyfriends, not that no one would have her, but because she only liked to go on dates and sleep around. She always said she was never prepared for the commitment, however, Ashton came along and her view on relationships completely changed.
4 months after prom, Ashton and Evie were still going strong. At this point, I wasn't yet allowed to meet him. I didn't have the courage to ask Evie the real reason why, so for those 4 months, I stuck to my two long term theories.
7 months after prom, Evie came home crying. She told us that she had made a big mistake and that things were over between her and Ashton. I didn't ask what she had done wrong, so in my mind I hoped it wasn't as bad as she made out.
8 months after prom, Evie confessed to myself and out parents that she had cheated on Ashton. This did surprise me. In fact, a couple of weeks after they broke up, I put that down as the reason why they broke up. I really hoped he was okay. I couldn't imaging such a pretty face so upset.
A year and 2 months after prom, Ashton came back into our lives. Evie and him had patched up their relationship and from what she described it as, things were "better than ever", much to my displeasure.
A year and 10 months after prom, Ashton stopped over for the first time. Like always, Evie warned me not to come out of my room and I tried my best to do as I was told. However, at 1am I needed the loo. I couldn't wait, and after over thinking a lot, I had come to the conclusion that the possibility of Ashton coming out of Evie's room at that exact moment was incredibly low. I hoped he was either fast asleep, or too caught up with Evie to even hear me.
Everything was going fine at first, and I had gone to the loo and washed my hands without anybody hearing me. However, just as I was about to open the bathroom door, the handle started to jiggle. I had to think quick, and that's why I ended up behind the shower curtain at 1:15am. Just as I thought, it was Ashton, and luckily he didn't turn the light on. Unfortunately, me being the extremely clumsy teenage that I was, I managed to slip.
The pain in my ankle was unbearable and even though I was 99% sure that Ashton had heard me, I still stayed as quiet as possible. The shower curtain drew back and Ashton immediately tried to help me up. At fist, the darkness worked in my favour as he mistook me for my mum. That was until he turned the light on and saw otherwise..
Once he saw that I wasn't who he thought, Ashton looked at me with a really confused face. Up close and in the light, he looked even better than what he did when I first saw him. Even though he was only wearing jogging trousers and a band tee, he still managed to pull off the 'hot' look. As you can imagine, he began to ask questions. To which all except one, I told the truth. Name? Lizzy. Age? 15. What was I doing in Evie's house? I was her cousin from London and I was visiting for the week.
Being the naive 15 year old girl I was at the time, I believed Evie's warnings and knew I had to stay away from Ashton. Hence why I lied to him about the last question.
A year and 11 months after prom, things started to get weird. Evie started to receive lots of mail, and she would run off for weeks at a time before coming back. She would never tell us where she was running off to, so we all assumed she was staying with Ashton.
One night, after everyone returned from school/work, we realised it wasn't Ashton's she'd been going to when he turned up outside of our door and said he hadn't seen her in nearly two weeks. At this point, we started to worry.
2 years after prom, I received a letter. It was from Evie. This was the first time anyone had heard from her in a month. Evie told me she was pregnant, and had run off with the baby's father. At first I thought it was Ashton who knocked her up, but he kept turning up at our house, even though she was gone.
The very last time Ashton turned up at outside our door, he began to cry. Mum told him Evie had gone away, but she spared the details, trying not to hurt him. Watching from the window, like I usually did, I tried not to cry. I was furious at Evie. Not only had she cheated for the second time, and got pregnant, but she didn't even have the decency to tell the boy who loved her.
That night, I decided Ashton and I should meet again. I hadn't spoken to him since what happened when I met him for the first time. Evie wasn't as mad as I thought she would have been when she found out. She only warned me about the consequences, then let it go.
Now that she wasn't around, I could talk to Ashton whenever I wanted. I knew I had to think of a way to tell him the truth without him thinking I'm a complete nutter. A nutter who wasn't Evie's cousin, but instead her not so sister sibling.
