Hazel Eyes | Lashton

Chapter Seventeen

IMPORTANT A/N: It is important to note that Luke and Ashton won't be in any sort of romantic relationship until Luke learns to forgive and love himself. He simply cannot love Ashton and start to date him when he doesn't love himself. It would set them up for a toxic relationship and would, realistically, end horribly for them both. I know that some facts in this story are totally off and unreasonable given the circumstances, but I want this aspect to be correct--in my eyes at least. Furthermore, if the two did get together the story would be over because there's nothing left to write; they'd already be together. I don't see the point in stories where the two main people are put through all these horrific trials and stay together instead of breaking up. It's just not healthy. Plus, writing fluff gets absurdly boring if it's the same two people over and over again (well, for me). I'm sorry if this isn't how you like your fanfictions, but I'm purely writing for myself and this is how it's going to be! Happy reading (:

"Sometimes we all lose strength, please don't lose your faith in me. After our time has passed, we're like light through stained glass. We go on and on and on; in the end we're never gone. I will be yours to trust, this is not the last of us. We go on and on and on, in the end we're never gone or erased." -Madness (Sleeping With Sirens)

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"You what?" Harlow dropped her mouth open at Ashtons' confession and stilled her pencil on her History of Art homework, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"You heard me," Ashton wined back, blushing profoundly. "I told him I had his charger when I really didn't, and now I've made a big fool out of myself because that was two days ago and he still hasn't called back or texted or anything." Harlow sighed at her best friend and went back to her work, clearly unamused by the boys' whining. Ashton resisted the urge to hit her with the rag he was using to wipe down the tables with and instead started making the icing for the cupcakes that were cooling on the rack.

"I'm not saying you're an idiot, but you're an idiot." Harlow said after a moment of writing in her notebook and reading off the dim light of her laptop screen. "I mean, you and Luke spent the past two--almost three--weeks together. He probably wouldn't mind if you called him and talked to him like a normal person, but you went and screwed it up by lying to him." Harlow scrubbed her bare face with her hands and tucked a loose strand of hair her yellow hair that had fallen from her bun behind her ear. There were specks of paint on her shirt (which obviously wasn't hers because it was huge and had a band's name printed in a block font on the front; Ashton knew she didn't like block print. She said it was "too loud". It was probably an old boyfriends' or girlfriends' if anything) and her sweatshirt was draped behind her shoulders. The purples under her eyes were getting increasingly darker every time Ashton saw her, but she usually acted as hyperactive as always. Harlow clasped her hands in front of herself and held an unfocused gaze for a few seconds before blinking her way back to reality.

"Look," she started. Her gaze was steadily left on the dark browns of the glossy wooden table. Her voice was soft when she finally spoke again, "I'm not gonna lie to you; you fucked up. You really did. That being said, you need to be an adult and own up to it. You need to stop being a baby and hiding when you're the one who screwed up in the first place. Take control of your actions and apologize or do what you need to do to make it right. And just stop-" Harlow cut herself off mid sentence and dropped her head in her hands, causing her next words to be muffled. "Stop bloody running around the situation like a chicken with its head cut off."

Ashton opened his mouth to reply but clamped it shut. Instead of answering, he turned away from Harlow to continue on the task of mixing the icing sugar ingredients together.

The two friends worked in a tense and weary silence. Harlow continued her work silently--it was more angry scribbling in the margins of her notebook than anything else, really--and Ashton swallowed past the lump in his throat and he scrubbed at a random invisible spot on the counter.