A Certain Romance || Ashton Irwin

Life

"Are you ready to go?" Arrie stood in my doorway wearing the appropriate all black attire for the funeral.

The last few days in the house were quiet. Sometimes a mumble would break the silence, but nothing more. A big feeling of shock lingered within the house, my father, Arrie, and I trying to soak in the loss. The thing with loss was that it either felt like a joke or something temporary or it hit you hard and it was real. I landed somewhere in the middle of all those feelings and it was unbearable on my mind, forcing sleepless nights that involved me crying out every tear I had in me for that night until I found something to distract myself with. School work was usually that distraction. Michael or Ashton would bring me whatever I would miss just to keep me up to date with everything going on at school and didn't have a pile of missing work when I returned to school. It did looking rather reassuring that I'd be returning to St. Eugene's in a few days because of Reuben's help. He gathered other students such as Michael, Luke, Ashton, Callista, Zoey, Chey, Izzy, and Markos to come together and prove with valid points that my privacy was invaded while also pulling together evidence of Ashton and I being together in hopes to cover tracks that I didn't think really needed to be covered, but it was working and the last approval they needed was that of the superintendent.

"I'm never ready for anything that happens these days." I sat at the foot of my bed, slipping on a pair of black flats, staring at the floor so harshly I could burn a hole through it.

"Life does that sometimes." My only complaint about the way things had been recently was Arrie's philosophical tendencies that were uncalled for. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to lighten the mood that didn't want to be lightened.

"Well life shouldn't do shit like this." I angrily retorted.

"Ashton said he was going to fix this and I've already told you a million times I'm going to fix this too." He defended with annoyance in his voice.

"I don't need anything from you guys." I dropped my face in my hands. "I just want my brother back."

"And you don't think I want that too?" Arrie left the question open, not expecting an answer from me because he knew I couldn't pull together any answer that sounded intelligent. "I sat in a pool of my own best friend's blood, my brother. I watched him bleed out until the ambulance arrived and had them tell me that they couldn't do anything because he was already gone. I was in Mud for five years and never had I experienced something so traumatic and heartbreaking. I was taught to bluff, to simply scare people with the gun, but never actually pull the trigger, so to see someone actually shoot, to see someone actually pull the trigger on their own son - this is new shit for me."

"I'm sorry..." I looked up from my hands, rubbing the sad tingles forming at the tip of my nose that wanted me to cry, but I had to be stronger than my own sadness today.

"It's okay." He brushed off the small argument. "We'll heal. It'll take time, but we'll heal."

"The car is here..." My dad came up behind Arrie, announcing that the ride to further our sadness was ready for us.

Ashton greeted me outside, his outfit almost mimicking Arrie's. The truth was everyone would always end up looking the same at a funeral because a simple color as black left very few options for everyone.

The cold, brisk wind blew throughout the strands of the golden hair of Ashton, blowing it away from his face and I silently knew that he appreciated the angle he stood at in the wind because he hated his hair to get in his face. He just liked the effortless feel the wind brought, that was obvious.

"How are you holding up?" He ran the pads of his fingers up and down my upper arms, his eyes flickering between both of mine.

"You know the answer to that. It's obvious."

"Michael and I have teamed up to track Sienna down. Differences aside, our only similarity is you. If tracking her down and doing exactly to her what she did to Sam helps, then we'll do it for you." He kissed my forehead.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me." His forefinger quickly poked the tip of my nose. That action causing him to lightly giggle. "I'm doing this because I love and care for you. This is all going to be fixed, I can promise you that."

He pulled me into an embrace, allowing us to stand there with our bodies molded together until my dad was shouting at us because he didn't want to be late. I believed we had every right to be late since we were the ones grieving.

"I'll meet you at the cemetery. Mum's still getting ready." Ashton combed my now long bangs to one side of my face before tucking them messily behind my ear.

"I'll see you there."

His lips met mine, pressing against them like he was trying to absorb all of my sadness and hurt. "I love you."

"I love you too."

-

I sat through two long speeches about my brother. One from my dad and one from Arrie. There were only so many speeches you could make in a situation like this before you started repeating what those before you said. So when I was called up to say a few words about my brother I felt my body go cold and my eyes water over because I didn't want to stand before a bunch of family and friends and talk about my brother in the past tense.

"God...I've been questioning him a lot lately. He's not as good as people make him out to be. His plans are twisted. He's playing some sort of sick game with us all. He's somewhere looking at all of us laughing because we're all here today. But we aren't here for him, we're here for Sam..." I took a deep breath with my eyes closed. Deep breaths were key to not crying, for me personally. "Like any brother Sam was a pain to do deal with. For a second I thought I would be living in his shadow of amazing things when I reached my senior year of high school. He was a star football player, made the most perfect grades possible, took part in extra curricular activities, got accepted to the University of Washington. He was like the perfect all-American son you could ask for. Somewhere down the line he got involved with the wrong people after taking something a little too seriously and making it a reality for himself. Like any brother he made stupid decisions and like any sister I was there to let him know that he was messing with things he shouldn't be messing with. I sit back and feel like everything was my fault because I couldn't get a hold of helping him. I sit and blame myself for everything.

"Sam was a great person. He was willing to do anything for me, to make sure I was happy, had everything I needed, and to be positive that I was safe. I just wish I could've done the same thing in return for him."

That wasn't the original ending to my speech, but my uncontrollable sobs made it the ending. Arrie pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly and running a hand over my hair as comfort. The little jolts coming from his body were a sure fact that he was crying too and incapable of catching his breath, crying one of those ugly cries that we were all embarrassed of. Another pair of arms wrapped around Arrie and I, my dad's. Together like a family we stood comforting each other in some of the shittiest ways possible.

After we watched Sam's coffin be lowered into the ground we went back home and gathered around the dining room table for an important meeting called by my father. He mentioned wanting to donate Sam's belongings and remove every trace of him from the house because he couldn't bare the reminders of him. In response Arrie mentioned he couldn't sleep in Sam's room anymore because it was too hard for him and announcing he'd be sleeping on the couch now.

But both of those weren't the reasons why we were called to this meeting. My dad slid over an envelope with the University of Washington's logo stamped on the back.

"This came in the mail a few days ago." He smiled sadly at me. "I saved it because we had so much going on, but I think we're in desperate need of some good news right about now."

It seemed too early to be receiving a word back from a university I has applied to, in fact I didn't expect any of them to even get back to me with my reputation now.

We're happy to inform you that you've been accepted to the University of Washington...