More Than a Teacher - Ashton Irwin

12

The week slowly went by and I now feel more emotionally drained than ever. Nothing appeals to me, nothing excites me and I'm in a world of worry just waiting for my father to find me.

Not to mention I have no money and I haven't had any shifts at Wendy's to earn it. I'm back to secretly rotating from friends' houses, staying a few nights here, a few nights there. Anything to keep me away from my parents. I've been doing this for about a month and a half now and it's really exhausting. I don't sleep well on different mattresses every night, there's no consistency or routine in my life and everything just feels so messy.

By the weekend, the soreness in my abdomen had faded but I'm still left with a green and yellow bruise. My cheek bone is the same coloured bruise but the cut has healed and the swelling has gone down. I'm grateful things are healing, I seriously thought I was going to die at one point and need hospital treatment. That was something I did not want to go through. The nurses would be able to see through my lies.

They know an assault injury if they saw one.
There would be no way in hell I would get away with saying 'oh yeah, I was wrestling with my friend.'

Although I told Mr Irwin it was a silly accident, I can tell he's smarter than that. Every time I get hurt, you can see in his eyes that he just knows. Knows exactly what's happening to me and what I'm going though. He'd never say the exact words himself because I mean, he couldn't be one hundred percent sure it is what he thinks. Abuse.

There's no hard evidence except for the regular bruises and shitty moods. But I think he's one hundred percent sure now. I blurted it out in front of him for god sakes. It was in the heat of the moment, I was frustrated and not thinking straight.

I had a class with him everyday of the week and despite the fact I yelled at him in the passenger seat of his car after he was still trying to be nice and help me. I assumed things would be awkward between us but instead, he went about as his normal self, greeting me with a soft smile as he always does as I shuffled into class. It's like I take things to heart and make them into such big deals but he just brushes it off as if it doesn't affect him. Like water off a duck's back. I aspire to be more like him, I want him to teach me how to be more like him.

I fell asleep in his class on Thursday afternoon, sleeping through the bell to lunch and waking up to Ashton's hand pressed to my back in an empty classroom.

"Sorry to wake you," He whispered as I looked up at him with groggy eyes. "Wanna go lay in my car? You look exhausted." A concerned frown appeared on his face.

"M'fine, sorry for keeping you in." I sighed and threw my bag over my shoulder and kept my head down feeling some kind of shame.

"Ava," He called as I made my way to the door.
"Please come find me if you need me. Don't let what happened in my car get to you, It's fine, I didn't take it to heart." He chuckled lightly "I don't blame how you reacted ok, I get it."

And with that I nodded and walked off with my mind swirling. He gets it? What could he possibly understand? No one can possibly understand my life.

I'm now currently situated at the laundromat, washing my clothes with the few dollars a had I collected from my pockets. I don't want to be a pain and wash my clothes at a friend's house, plus that would be kind of strange since I have every piece of clothing I own with me and no one is supposed to know that.

Popping open the dryer, I take out the pile of wet clothes from the machine, transferring them to the one above. I sit myself up on one of them, swinging me legs and watching people stroll down the side walk outside. It brings me great anxiety being out in public on my own. I don't know who I might see or what might happen to me. In other words, my father could happen. I just don't know where he could be and it scares me.