Perfectly Unseen

38: soul-capturing eyes

S o u l
         capturing eyes
          ~+~+~+~

"Seriously?" Emma stopped straightening her hair as I walked into her bathroom in the outfit she had picked out for me.

Self-consciously I fiddled at the material of the short dusky rose peter pan dress, "Does it look silly?" I bit my lip, twirling a little as I checked myself out in the large bathroom mirror. It was loose enough to be comfortable in but still had a cute feminine look to it with the pockets and collar.

"Are you kidding me? You look so good in it! Why haven't we put you in a dress sooner?" Emma shook her head, finishing up her hair by straightening her bangs into the perfect little bump to make them bouncy.

I shrugged, feeling my cheeks heat up.

"Well Liam is going to have a heart attack when he sees you --your legs look so long and good in it. I'm officially jealous." She sighed, turning the bathroom light off after a quick look over of her barely there makeup. "Plus your hair is naturally perfect as is, so don't you dare put it up." She warned me, looping her arm with mine as we headed towards the door.

Time for school. Just put me out of my misery now.

~+~+~

"Remember, you guys," Mrs Dawson called out to the class as we hurriedly packed up our bags for our next class. "Tests are worth fifty percent of your grade, so be prepared and study for Friday. I don't want any excuses when you get the results back."

We all monotonously groaned, waiting impatiently for the bell to sound out seconds before the shrill ring finally went off.

"Study!" She called out warningly as we rushed out of the stuffy math class; needing to be free from the awful cage, like wild animals.

Well, most students felt that way. I however, wouldn't have minded if math class lasted all day. As soon as I'd step out of that door, I'd be fair game. I would be hunted down like it was Ailie Dawn season out there.

Lucas was not happy with me. I gathered as much when he attempted to trip me right in front of the teacher then later on tried to corner me in the hallway while I was coming back from the washroom. He was taking risks and it made my skin crawl thinking about how desperate he must be to hurt me. He hadn't gotten his revenge on that sucker-punch and I could tell it was eating away at him and boiling his anger into pure rage.

"I'm going to get my hands on you." Lucas sneered suddenly into my ear behind me, causing my heart to pick up speed and throat to close up. His hot breath rolled down my bare skin as his chubby fingers brushed my hair back from my neck and slowly traced my collarbone disgustingly. "Just you wait."

A shiver fell down my back as his other hand held my arm tightly, keeping me in place as he shamelessly violated my space. "Stop it." My voice was weak and shaky as the crowd kept me hidden away and refrained me from acting out unseemly. I felt stuck and unable to do a thing as he invaded my personal space. I had never felt so disgusted in my life --there's nothing worse than being touched by someone you don't want even near you.

"Once I find you alone without your bodyguard, I'm going to show you all the things I've been thinking about doing to you since we started speaking." He chortled darkly as his lips brushed my ear. "I'll be counting down the seconds until I get you alone."

With that stomach churning thought, he slipped away into the crowd leaving me trembling and far too cold. After a violent flip in the pit of my stomach, my jaw clenched and I found myself rushing towards the bathroom; unable to keep my breakfast down.

"Ailie?" I heard a concerned voice call out behind me, seconds before I was head down in the toilet bowl; mercilessly throwing my guts up.

I did not miss this part about my long-forgotten past. But at least this time I wasn't head-spinningly drunk.

"Ailie, are you okay?" Ashton's distinct voice drifted from outside the stall.

With one last gag resulting in a dry heave, I flushed my insides down the drain and fell back to the dirty floor --unable to care about what type of horrifying diseases I could potential catch. My empty stomach kept churning and the temperature was still below freezing, yet sweat was dampening my skin. The very thought of Lucas waiting to do god-knows-what to me was killing me with the stress and anxiety.

"I'm coming in, Princess." Ashton mumbled, creaking open the door as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. "Jesus, kid. What happened?" He asked worriedly as I opened one eye to look at my problem pointedly.

"You happened." I grumbled, already feeling more at ease as the six foot giant bent down to my height and watched me with those sharp dark blue eyes. "-You cruel, cruel, arrogant, tattooed son of a bîtch." My tongue stuck out pathetically as I groaned in discomfort.

He rolled his eyes, "I'll announce to the world that you're an angel sent from above, Princess." His lips twitched up amusedly as if the thought of me being an angel was funny, "But I promise you, it wont make you any less sick. So leave my poor mother out of this." With a chuckle, he grabbed my bag off of the floor and stood up.

"I'm not sick!" I cried out in despair as he helped me up off the floor with one strong hand, "God, he's just so twisted, Ashton. I can still feel his hands on me." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was suffocatingly terrifying and so familiar.

"Lucas?" He growled lowly, his voice laced in a deadly danger.

"It doesn't matter." I whispered, opening my eyes and walking to the sink. My mouth tasted of vomit and my skin was paled like a corpse. What a horrible way to start the school day...let alone week.

"It matters, Ailie." Ashton held out a piece of gum for me knowingly as I gratefully popped it into my mouth immediately. "It matters, I promise." His dark eyes became glazed over in a sadness so strong I forgot about all of my problems as it took my minty breath away just seeing it reflected in the mirror.

"Ashton..." I turned around, grasping the navy blue material on his stomach tightly as I pulled myself closer to him in an attempt to bring him back down to earth.

His fingers touched my warming cheek gently as he looked down at me, "You matter, Ailie." He whispered so quietly that I would have thought I'd made it up if I hadn't had seen his perfect lips move. His intense eyes kept flickering from each of mine, looking at me with a desperation that stopped all air flow in my lungs.

I shook my head in disagreement, becoming unresponsive when his eyes pleaded into mine wordlessly. With a shaky inhale, I pushed back from him, casting my eyes down to the floor. "I get it, Ashton: you're feeling guilty. But that doesn't mean what you said wasn't true."

The warning bell went off as I quickly walked passed him, avoiding his soul-capturing eyes as I did. One thing about Ashton, he's observant. He sees things and points out the truth. Everything about me being ugly decor in a room was true. No one liked to look at me and really, even if he's being guilted into saying otherwise, no one would notice or care if I just disappeared. So why did I live and my mother die? It was my fault and yet I was the one that got to see another sunrise.

It should have been me.