I Remember Us ~ ashton irwin

~_~

7th July, 2015

I groaned and glanced at my watch again. My girlfriend and I had gotten into a huge fight two weeks ago and I hadn't heard from her since. She called me this morning and asked me to meet her for lunch and I guess I got too excited because I practically got ready and left the second I got off the phone with her.

She wasn't supposed to be here for another half hour and the wait was torturing me. My leg was shaking and I was drumming my fingers against the top of the table. I immediately stopped when I realized what I was doing and I picked up my phone instead; desperately trying to find something else to do whilst I waited for my girlfriend... or whatever she was now, to arrive.

Before I knew it I was scrolling through hundreds of pictures of my girlfriend, smiling as I remembered what we were doing the exact moment every picture was taken. My heart started racing and my breath hitched as a photo with Ashton and I came up. I didn't even realize I had gone that far back in my camera roll. I just sat there staring at the photo; unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to do much of anything. Despite the fact that my heart was racing and my eyes were beginning to sting from the tears that were threatening to spill the corners of my lips tugged as I remembered the day the photo was taken.

I was in an extra bitchy mood and I didn't even want to take the picture with Ashton. I remember he was high on energy and excitement because he had just gotten back from buying an engagement ring for Adria. I was mad at him because he had asked Luke to help him instead of me. Granted I probably would've ended up blowing his cover; I was hurt. But in all fairness I had kept his secret. We all did, actually. None of us ever told Adria that Ashton was planning to propose to her because that would just have made it that much harder for everyone.

More than remembering the moment the picture was taken out I remembered the moment I had found out that my best friend died. Adria had called and I almost didn't answer because I had thought that she and Ashton had another petty argument and I was in no mood to play referee. When I answered the phone Adria was in tears and basically the rest of the phone call was just a blur.

Now, every time I saw her there would always be this silence between us. Yeah, we still hung out but it just wasn't the same. Whenever we were all together we were painfully reminded of the fact that there was a huge part of us that was now missing and I know that none of us really wanted it to happen but we were slowly drifting apart. I couldn't even remember the last time I saw Luke and we used to talk every single day. I don't think Ashton would've been happy with what we became, how we all lived with each other now. I don't think he'd like the fact that the memory of him was so painful the only way we could come even remotely close to soothing it would be to just completely avoid everything that reminded us of him.

I'd removed all the photos I had of him from my phone a few months ago. It was just too painful for me to delete so they were on a flash drive that hung off the keychain with the key to my apartment. It was sort of my way of keeping him with me all the time. I had no idea how this photo was still on my phone and my finger hovered over the tiny icon of the rubbish bin as I debated whether or not I should just delete the picture.

It had been exactly a year but time did nothing to lessen the pain it felt. I never really knew just how much he meant to me until I woke up on 8th July, 2014 and he wasn't there.

I didn't know how much I still needed him to be around until the first time I saw my girlfriend and the first person I wanted to text about it was Ashton or when I wanted his opinion on what the next colour of my hair should be.

I didn't know how important he was until he left and took my friends with him.

...

When I got up this morning I didn't plan on even leaving the bed. I'd called my boss since the night before and told him that I wasn't feeling well and I won't be able to make it in.