For you I would ruin myself

twenty-five

Lyla's mouth is physically frozen and doesn't know how to respond. Ashton thinking that she couldn't hear asks again, too awkwardly.

"So... party on the Friday of the week school ends, anyone's welcome it's probably a whole year thing."

"I don't know Ash," she stutters.

Rather afflicted, "Why?' he asks.

"Well, the last few times we've been to a party together, whether it was planned or not, nothing went well. Either we got at each other's throats or you went to hospital," Lyla tugs nervously on her shirt. "I just don't want to ruin what we have right now."

"Kids, Dinner's ready!" Lily announces from the kitchen.

Lyla sighs in relief or regret, she isn't sure, "Hey, we'll talk about it after dinner. It's not a definite no," she attempts to not let Ashton lose too much hope.

It is a very nice evening, so they decide to dine out in the background. The 3 kids sit on one side of the table while the 3 adults sit on the other side, having conversations of their own. 

Luke asks Ashton about how his GCSE's exams are going, the first Lyla's hearing about them actually. They all exchange their experiences in the exam rooms, which turns out to be a comedic shit show because all the things that could've gone wrong for people went wrong. They're having a good laugh about all sorts of things to the point where anything is funny.

"You two planning on going to the party?" Luke breathes out, grabbing his stomach from laughing too much.

Ashton hesitates as he looks towards Lyla desperately for an answer.

She coughs to buy more time for an answer, "Um... not sure, but we're probably gonna go," she shrugs, unsure with her own answer.

Ashton returns a smile of contentment, happiness. It makes Lyla warm inside to know that the plain possibility of her going to the party with him makes him happy.

Lyla replies again, with more confidence, "Actually, yeah, I'll definitely be going. I don't know about Ash." Both the boys have bewildered expression and it takes Lyla a few moments to figure out why they're so confused. "For you information, I get my own invitations to a lot of parties, I'm good friends with Elsie," she scoffs in an offended tone. "I do not need to go to parties with your invites, Christ."

They all laugh it off to keep up the spirit of the evening and soon enough they all head back inside to enjoy desert that needed to be prepared fresh, so once again, the kids were asked to wait for a few minutes, away from the kitchen of course. 

Lyla and Ashton choose to hang out together out on the porch just to enjoy the weather for just a tad bit longer, you never know when the next rain cloud is going to make its way over and pour for 5 days straight.

"Are you sure?" Ashton gently asks out of the blue.

"About going to the party?" Lyla queries to confirm.

He nods.

Lyla smiles, genuinely and soft, "Yeah, I've thought about it and I actually haven't been this sure about something for the longest time. I need to keep reminding myself that you don't want to relive what's happened the few previous times as much as I do."

"You'll be fine," Ashton grins, and looks as Lyla as if she's just hung the stars. "We'll be fine."

"Promise?" she holds out her pinky in front of him.

He shakes his head while he giggles and locks his pinky with hers. Then pushes Lyla's head blissfully onto his shoulder, "We'll be fine, because we always take care of each other right?"