Burn ▹ Ashton Irwin

forty eight

It only took me a week to completely lose myself until I didn't even feel like Skylar anymore.

Everything was falling apart, a lot quicker than I had originally anticipated. I woke up on park benches and on vacant parking lots each morning and found myself more miserable than the day before. And as much as I wanted to look at Ashton and feel secure and happy, I couldn't find the strength to do so.

Since arriving in Los Angeles last week, we have traveled around the city at least 50 miles on foot. Each morning we woke up on a cold, hard surface at the crack of dawn and limped through whatever part of town we were in, looking for a store to rob or a bag of pills to sell. Karma has taken it's toll over us; out of the 30 people Ashton has already tried to persuade into letting us work for them, they've all rejected him. They've rejected us because everyone's caught onto what the infamous Ashton and Skylar have been up to lately.

They all hate Ashton's guts. They don't want us to earn some quick cash because they want him to die just as much as Derek does. And each time we face rejection, another year of my youth and my innocence is stripped away like rice paper. Each day I grow quieter and stray away from telling Ashton anything. Each day we lessen the number of words we exchange between each other. The honeymoon phase is over. I don't think either of us has have enough strength anymore to let the other know that we love them. I haven't even thought about the fact that I love Ashton in days.

Days upon days have slowly inched by and the southern California sun has started to become all too familiar again. And instead of leaving my hair warm and my skin gently sun-kissed, it has left me feeling dried up, sleepy, passive, and unmotivated. These past few days have been so incredibly hot, I've felt as though the city was trapped inside of a pressure cooker, just to give Ashton and I a bitter-sweet taste of what Hell is going to be like. Maybe that's where we're both off too; eventually we'll be there together.

I haven't had a full meal in four days. Ashton and I have reserved only a tiny percentage of cash to fill our stomachs once a day, but splitting something from the dollar menu and drinking from community drinking fountains hasn't been enough. My muscles have been growing weaker with each agonizing step that I take, trailing after a staggering Ashton who was just as weak as I was.

I look at my reflection in the windows of other peoples' cars and find it hard to recognize myself anymore. Around 7 months ago, as I was living alone in New York, having the time of my life, I would've never expected me to end up in this state so quickly. My face has sunken in and I have developed dark purple circles around my eyes that causes them to droop even when I don't try. My skin has been drained of it's color and has been left as a ghostly pale complexion that hardly radiates off my cheeks anymore. I can no longer stand up straight, for I feel as though if I do, my spine will break in half with a loud snap. My clothes have been feeling looser for a long time, but now it's very obvious to see I've been shrinking in size due to my malnourishent. I hold my jeans up as I walk and my dirty shirts hang off my shoulders. My hair is a greasy mess that I've had tied up for days. I seemed to have forgotten how to fake even the slightest smile.

Ashton's the same way; as of right now, he truly is the visual representation of a zombie. He's even worse than I am, now that I think about it. When he speaks to me (which is hardly ever, now), his tone never changes. His voice remains as a melancholy vibration in his throat that slips out like he barely even remembers how to speak. His skin has turned so pale that it almost looks yellowish in some circumstances. He never blinks and he never looks me in the eyes anymore. He walks like his left leg is about to snap off and his hands never stop twitching. We would walk a few blocks through the city and he would have to stop to catch his breath. He would cough, and then those coughs would turn into repeated wheezes that rumble deep in his chest.