rainfall | ashton irwin au | completed

one

It started off as a normal day, or at least a normal day for the town of Heatherly. Thick fog engulfed whole buildings and I could barely see past my hand. I liked it. I liked not knowing what was in front of me until I got there; I liked how captivating the river running next to my house looked with wisps of mist hovering above it.

What I didn't like was Anna's instant gesture, signalling me to go over to her, as soon as I entered the school premises.

I rolled my eyes, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear and readjusting my school bag on my shoulder as I made my way to her locker.

"What?" I demanded immediately, already in a foul mood. Why was it I couldn't even have two minutes to myself without one of them involving me in some kind of witchy drama? I had made it perfectly clear that I wasn't interested.

Fortunately, Anna expected my short temper now. She had learnt to ignore it after many months of my bad attitude. I didn't mean to be rude; I just didn't like people. Everyone around me was used to it by now and I didn't see the point in acting as if I liked people when I didn't.

"There's a new guy at school today," Anna told me far too excitedly, her sickly sweet lip glossed grin spreading across her face.

"So?" I sighed, looking around momentarily. It didn't take long for me to feel bored when I had Anna babbling in my ear about God knows what.

"So we think he might be one of us," she whispered, leaning against her locker.

"And why is that?" Great, the last thing we needed was more of us. I found it difficult enough to avoid them anyway; adding another to the mix would just make it even harder.

"Because I overheard my dad talking to his mother on the phone, and my dad was asking if he knew about his powers yet." Anna's father was the least secretive person in the world, which was how Anna learned about us in the first place; he kept diaries from when he had been in a 'coven' himself with our own relatives. He made no effort to hide them properly, and Anna often told us about things she had overheard him talking about to our parents.

I faked a gasp. "Interesting," I said, my voice dripping in sarcasm. "Are we done now?"

"Yes," Anna huffed, clearly giving up on conversing with me, "just keep a look out for him. I think his name is Ashton." Her green eyes shifted around quickly as she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

I nodded and continued down the hallway to my own locker. It was when I was putting a few books into it that I felt it.

My skin prickled under his gaze and I didn't have to look to know somebody was watching me. I supposed that it was another one of my witchy powers, sensing things that others couldn't.

I glanced to my left quickly, my eyes finding an unfamiliar face. It must have been the new guy. In a town so small, it was rare to see somebody you couldn't recognise instantly, and in this school I was certain that I knew almost everybody by face and name.

I raised my eyebrows as if to ask 'what are you looking at,' and he averted his gape back to his locker, his fingers hastily putting the key in the padlock. I shook my head as I locked my own locker. It was as if people had never seen an antisocial pale teenage girl with painfully average looks before.

I could hear Michael-–or as I liked to call him, Electricity Boy--talking to the new kid behind me and I knew the poor boy was about to be pounced on by the whole group.

"She's weird, right?" Michael asked, obviously noticing him gawking at me earlier. "Don't worry about her; she's a bit of a loner. She's alright once you get to know her."

Liar, I thought instantly. Nobody in this entire school had gotten the chance to know me, including Michael and the rest of the coven. Plus, I wasn't 'alright.' I was withdrawn and probably unnecessarily rude.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll bother," the boy replied. Good, I thought, don't bother. What had Anna said his name was again? I had tuned her out, just like every other conversation I had with her. It wasn't that I didn't like Anna, it was just that she was so positive all the time and honestly, it was annoying. Nobody is that happy, especially not in a town where it never stops raining and is void of any kind of excitement. Of course , it was I who made it rain most of the time, but that was beside the point.

Michael chuckled and I rolled my eyes again. "Anyway, welcome to Heatherly High School. If you wanna hang out sometime, let me know." Typical Michael, sucking up to the new witch kid. I remembered him talking to me in the exact same way. I remembered that it was like listening to some cliché teen movie.

"Thanks, I will. My name's Ashton, by the way."

Before I could listen to any more of their horribly forced small talk the bell rang and I began to make a move to my first lesson of the day: English Literature.

"Lilah," a voice called from behind me. I searched for its owner and found Calum Hood, the one of the six I disliked the least, mostly because he was like me: sulky and pessimistic. "Hey. Did you read To Kill a Mockingbird over the weekend?"

I exhaled and smirked slightly, already knowing what he called me for. Calum, being the typical bad boy he was, didn't do homework, and he used our mutual situation of having 'unique abilities' to ask me for the homework answers every Monday, without fail.

I quickly summarised the plot of the novel for him as we walked into class before taking a seat at my desk. I didn't particularly mind helping Calum. I didn't blame him for not doing his homework; the only reason I did my own was because I needed something to do. One drawback of having no friends was that I had too much time on my hands, so I mostly spent it studying, reading or going on long walks through the forest with my earphones in.

I sat a few seats behind Calum, so that when he turned around to me and motioned towards the door with his head I could instantly understand that he was trying to show me something, or rather, someone.

It was the new boy, Ashton, walking into my class and taking a seat a few places to my right, his head looking down timidly. I didn't get a chance to look at him properly before, but now I could see him clearly. His large brown glasses took up almost half of his face, creating frames around two hazel eyes staring widely as he took in his new environment. His dark blonde hair created wisps around his chiselled face and sweeped across his forehead, and he wore a simple black shirt with jeans that looked dangerously tight. Why anybody would choose to wear jeans that are capable of cutting off your blood supply I will never know.

I realised I was staring at him and got my novel out quickly, staring down at the pages but not really absorbing the words as I felt him looking at me again. I untucked my hair from behind my ear, allowing it to fall to the right side of my face as if creating a wall between his gaze and me.

One of the few times I was paying attention to Anna, she had told us that when our coven was complete our magic would get stronger. I never thought much of it before, but now her words echoed in my mind as I felt a new sensation pulse through my veins. With Ashton here, completing us, I felt stronger than ever. It was as if he was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and when it was slotted in, we were finally whole. I internally groaned at the thought of the inevitable meeting tonight by Ivory Lake. I'm sure Anna would rant for hours about how she was right, and how now Ashton was here we would have more power, and how we needed to tell Ashton about us and blah blah blah.

The only thing that made me hopeful was that maybe, with this much power, I could do more than just make it rain. Maybe I could create a storm.

AN: hiiii to anybody reading this. Sorry my chapters have been short so far but I felt like it was a good time to end it and they'll be longer when more stuff starts happening. If you are reading this, please let me know what you think, it would mean so much. Thank you to anybody reading!