Heat Waves // Calum Hood 5SOS

Chapter 8

•Dionne POV•

I don't know why I had never even considered the possibility that Ashton would have his own place - like Michael does - rather than live in student accommodation like I do. It seemed like he did live with someone, but they weren't in tonight. We made our way to the front room and I settled myself down on the couch as Ashton decided to go to the kitchen and get some drinks and snacks ready, and I have to admit... I was feeling pretty excited.

"You like sweet or salty popcorn?" Ashton called from the kitchen as I observantly glanced around the room I was sat in.

"Both." As I answered, my eye caught sight of a small set of drawers next to the couch; on top of it was a small, brown leather book. I couldn't help but lean over and look at the cover, thinking maybe it'd be a cute journal or date book or something, only to see the gold text on the front that spelled out 'Holy Bible'. "Oh." I muttered to myself in pure surprise - I definitely didn't expect to see that. I was even more taken aback when I realised it was full of sticky note tabs - like someone had been studying it and taking notes of important sections... Definitely not something I'd even seen before.

I sat back against the couch, unsure what to think about what I'd just seen, and that's when I noticed that it wasn't the only piece of religious memorabilia in this room; up on the wall by the front doorway hung a decorative wooden cross, next to a framed picture of Ashton and what looked like his family... From there I could only guess that he was the one that the bible belonged to - although I didn't want to make assumptions.

I had no issue if he was religious, but... well, I hadn't exactly had the best experiences when it came to religion. My own family were Christians - and I'd had some conflicts with them, that's for damn sure. That was partly the reason I struggled so much with that photography prompt - what is family to me, and how do I portray that in a way that doesn't just expose things about me that I don't want to be exposed? How do I explore that without being vulnerable about things that I kept hidden for a reason?

I could hear Ashton coming back into the room, and tried to shake those thoughts out of my head - they weren't necessary. Whatever Ashton's relationship with religion was... had nothing to do with my own, or my family. My brain didn't need to go down that rabbit-hole. Not now. All I need to do now is... watch High School Musical and eat snacks. Normal stuff - not pondering over family trauma and conflicted relationships with religion. Definitely not the topic for a date.

-

I think I did a good job at pretending I wasn't thinking about the heavily annotated bible to my right when Ashton and I started watching the movie. In fact, we got all the way through it - yelling, singing and eating popcorn all the way - without it even being brought up. But I will admit that I was picking up on behaviour of his that I would've thought nothing of beforehand... like the fact that he didn't swear. Who knows, maybe that's nothing to do with his possible faith... but my brain couldn't help but connect the two.

He didn't have a problem with me swearing though - I did notice that of all our differences, whether it be alcohol consumption, dietary choices or way of speaking, he was never really judgemental. And though I didn't want to stereotype, that definitely hadn't been my experience with religious people in the past. But hey - there's still a chance I'm wrong, isn't there? Maybe he's not even religious, and I'm just reading into it. Not that it would necessarily be an issue...

"Hey." I caught him off guard by impulsively picking up a piece of popcorn from the bowl between us and launching it at Ashton's face.

"Hey!" He laughed, picking it up from where it fell on the couch and putting it in his mouth. "What was that for?"