The Never Boys

Chapter 3 - Ashton

-January-    

    He was tired. Tired of everything. There wasn't anything exciting or special about his life. He had an ordinary life, he did the same thing day after day, week after week, and year after year. Ashton loved adventure, he yearned for it. He had always loved reading books and loved getting lost in another world full of fantasy and adventure to escape from his boring one. He would always get so involved with a character's life that he'll sometimes manage to forget about his own. The world he lived in, it was a strange place. One moment it's a fairytale and everyone is overjoyed and full of happiness, laughing and cheering, and the next there was disaster, family's were broken apart, people were dying, and it seems like everyone has a little personal rain cloud following them everywhere they went. Ashton had always thought of the world as a cruel and evil place. He didn't understand it or how it worked, but then again who did?

   Ashton could easily get caught up in his head, lost in his thoughts, it usually happened during class. Who even actually pays attention in class anyway? School was just a place for kids to suffer from long, boring lectures about things they would never have to even think about later in life. But that didn't mean he necessarily had all failing grades. Ashton kept an average G.P.A, he wasn't a super genius who got all A's, took AP classes, and participated in every single club the school had to offer, and he wasn't a complete idiot who had trouble with every little thing evolving work and actually using his brain, he was just in between, average.

--------------------Time Skip--------------------

-February-

It was a regular February night and Ashton decided to finally do something to spice things up in his life so he left his house to go to a party that was rumored to be "huge and awesome". He overheard someone mention something about the party tonight when he was getting things out of his locker. He thought everything through and once his mom and two younger siblings went to bed, he slipped out of his bedroom window and started making his way on to the party.

After hours spent drinking, dancing, and talking with random strangers, Ashton decided to head home. On his way back, he couldn't help but feel as if something had been out of place, Ashton then decided to pick up his pace and hurry back home. He arrived panting and almost completely sober, he panicked when he saw that his front door was bashed in. There was two police cars in front of his house, red and blue lights lighting up the house and the front yard, and an ambulance with paramedics rushing around. Ashton raced inside to find his mother lying on a stretcher, her face was pale and her hand hung off to the side. Lauren and Harry were hugging each other in a corner with tears running down their faces. After staring blankly at his mothers still body and looking to and from each police officer and EMT, he came to the conclusion that his mother had a heart attack. His mother had a weak heart, well that's what the doctor would always remind them every time they went in for a check-up. One of the officers lead Ashton outside and tried to explain what exactly had happened and how they had to break the door down to get to his mother. Everything the cop told him sounded like gibberish, he understood nothing coming out of her mouth, he was too caught up with what had happened in the past few hours.

That night was one full of tears and choked, inaudible words for the Irwin siblings. Lauren and Harry clung to Ash's shirt all night. Neither of them slept, but instead just stayed together huddled into a corner, quiet in a dark, depressing silence.

The next day they went to the hospital together, where their mom was put in.  Ashton rushed to the front desk, "I'm here to see Anne Irwin, I'm her son."

The nurse typed in a few things into her computer and looked up from the screen, "I'm afraid Ms.Irwin can't take any visitors at the moment, she is still in a very critical condition and is under very close watch."