Trouble (Harry Styles story)

One Month Later

Harry's POV:

I'd told Ashlyn we'd see each other again, but that really didn't happen. After the whole journal situation, my friends were paying even closer attention to who I hung out with. Every time they would call Ashlyn a 'creep' or 'freak', it made me sigh, thinking about how it felt when people used to call me that.

I used to get bullied in middle school. Ashlyn's the only one that knows that, except Louis. Ashlyn and I… We've pretty much always known each other, but we've never been that close. Although, I am ashamed to admit, that she was my first kiss. I tell everyone my first kiss was with some girl when I was twelve, but if I was to be honest, that girl would have been Ashlyn. Before I began to get bullied, she was pushed down the slide by her friend, and she landed on me, knocking me over. We kissed that day, I wouldn't have considered that my first if it wasn't for the fact that we kept kissing, and we didn't stop. It's not like I'd had any experience with that before, but it was just... Easy, with her.

But then getting bullied changed everything. I closed myself off from everyone, afraid that if he found out that I told anyone that he'd beat me up, or something stupid like that. Trevor Morris, what an idiot.

So maybe that's why my hands began to shake while I was sitting in math, first period and Trevor walked in the door.

"Alright class, this is Trevor, a new student here." Chirped Mrs.Danick, the math teacher. I looked at Trevor, recognizing his cold, pale blue eyes. I felt bad for the kid though... His parents had abandoned him, crashing their car into the river, committing suicide. A gruesome thing, but it happened. Maybe that's why I never told anyone who bullied me... Because I could understand the way he felt. After all, my childhood wasn't that great either.

He walked through the rows of chairs and tables, sitting next to me at the back. His black hair was underneath his hood, covering his right eye. Although it was covered, I could tell he had a black eye, and it looked like his lip was split previously. I frowned, turning my attention back to the front of the class.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The bell rang, and I began to leave when I felt someone's hand on my shoulder. I turned around, shaking the hand off when I noticed it was Trevor.

"Styles?" He said, grinning. "What do you know." He laughed, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Hi Trevor." I said, raising an eyebrow. "How've you been?" I asked, just trying my best to keep up small talk. I was a terrible conversationalist sometimes, with people I didn't trust. I had a hard time coming up with things to say. We carried on talking until I reached art, my second class. He walked in after me.

"Seems our schedules are similar." He said, raising an eyebrow.

"Looks like it." I said, heading for the back of the class. I looked up to see Ashlyn, early as usual. She always showed up to art early and helped set out the supplies for the class.

"Mr. Styles, can you come here for a moment." Mr. Baker said, standing at the front. I walked over to him, he had his arms crossed. "Please explain this." He said, pointing to a picture on his desk. It was my last art project, I hadn't finished it, and it was just a messy blob of charcoal smudge on the paper. We were supposed to draw our inner selves, or someone that knew the true us.

"I'm sorry, sir." I apologized, not truly feeling bad. I'd become quite good at telling people what they wanted to hear.

"I was expecting something great from you for this one." He sighed, shaking his head. "How about instead of working on this week’s project, you finish that. Great." He said, handing me back my smudged paper, and a box, containing charcoal. I sighed, going back to my spot in class as the bell rang. I glanced at Ashlyn as I headed to the back. She was talking with Trevor, laughing as they sorted papers and different shades of colors.

I looked at the wall for examples. Some people had drawn outgoing, happy cheerful people; some had drawn darker things, themselves surrounded by monsters, or words describing bad assets of them. Somewhere drawn in pencil crayons, others in pastels, some were paintings. I was the only one that had chosen charcoal, aside from Ashlyn. Hers was a girl, sitting in the middle of an empty room. Outside of the room, you could see it was really someone's head, and they were smiling. It left a lot to wonder...

Was she empty inside? 

Did someone take something important away from her?

Does she always feeling like that?

I looked at the clock, realizing I'd spent about twenty minutes just wondering about her drawing. I guess that shows good art? 'Or what an idiot you are.' I thought. I looked at the smudge and began drawing. The smudge soon became an eye, which grew into a face, which grew a body. Only the body had nasty scars and bruises all over it, and even though the face was fine, you could see the area near its heart was bleeding.

Wow. If that's me on the inside, I might need some band aids...

I picked it up as the bell rang, crumpling it up and tossing it in the bin. Time to draw some happy guy singing, or something.

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Ashlyn’s POV:

We were supposed to draw something to represent ourselves through nature. I came up with the idea to draw a tree with only one leaf left, and then next to it a small tree growing. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to represent, but I never really knew. I just created something, and left it at that.

I stood up as the bell rang, and turned around to see Harry starring at the paper on his desk with a hard look on his face. He sighed, crumpling it up and tossing it at the bin. He didn't make sure it got in, as it landed on the floor with a soft pat. People walked on past it, kicking it or ignoring it completely, I walked over to it, picking it up and un-balling it. I stared, wide eyed at the gruesome picture in front of me. The actual drawing was good, but the idea was pretty... Harsh.

I tucked it into my backpack and left the classroom. If this was how Harry felt inside, I was determined to help fix some of those bruises and scars.