terrible things - ashton irwin

two

So my song of choice for chapter two is going to be Life Changes by Good Charlotte because it's significant to this chapter because both of there lives are about to change! Keep reading :)

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"Did you hear that?" Ashton called. I'd have told him he sounded gobsmacked, but he'd never let me forget that particular vocabulary word, either. Of course, John hadn't heard anything, not even Ashton's question. So Ashton pushed away the doughnut and stared at me liked he'd never seen me before. It's not often I can surprise him, so I was enjoying this.

"Did you ever read that copy of On the Road I gave you?" I demanded. Now Ashton looked sheepish. "I started it..."

I rolled my eyes. I'm forever giving Ashton books and he's forever giving me music, but since he's distractible and my iPod is dead, that's usually as far as it gets.

"Well, Sal- who's really just Jack Kerouac, the author- and his friends go all over the country, and they meet crazy people and dance n dive bars and climb mountains and bet on horse races. We're going to do that, Ashton. We're leaving this dump behind and taking an epic road trip Oregon to New York City- with stops along the way of course,"

Ashton was blinking at me. Who are you? The blinks were asking.

I sat up straighter on my stool. "First we're going to see the redwoods, because those things are totally mystical. Then we'll hit San Francisco and Los Angeles. East to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. Than Detroit- Motor City, Ashton, which is right up your alley. Then because your such a speed addict, we'll ride the Millennium Force at Cedar Point. It goes, like, a hundred twenty miles an hour! Well go to Coney Island. We'll see the temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We'll do anything and everything we want!"

I knew I sounded nuts, so I take out the crumpled map to show him how figured it all out. "Here's our route," I said. "That purple line is us."

"Us," he repeated. Clearly it was taking him a while to wrap his head around my proposition.

"Us. You have to come," I said. " I can't do it without you." This was true, in more ways than I could admit to him, or even to myself.

Ashton suddenly started laughing, and it went on so long and hard I was afraid it was his way of saying no way in hell, you totally insane person who looks like Lavender but is clearly some sort of maniac.

"If you don't come, who's going to remind me to have a doughnut with my coffee?" I went on, not ready for him to get a skeptical, sarcastic word in edgeways. "You know I have a terrible sense of direction. What if I got lost in LA and the Scientologists find me, and suddenly I believe in Xenu and aliens? What if I get drunk in Las Vegas and marry and stranger? Who's going to poke me in the ribs when I start quoting Shakespeare? Who's going to protect me from all that? You can't let a seventeen-year-old girl go across the country by herself. That would be, like, morally irresponsible-"

Ashton held up his hand, still giggling. " and I may be a scallywag, but I'm not morally irresponsible"

Finally, the guy says something! "Does that mean you're coming?" I asked. Holding my breath.

Ashton gazed at the ceiling. He was torturing me and he knew it. He reached for the plate and took a thoughtful bite of cruller. "Well," he said.

"Well, what?" I was kicking the counter again. Hard. He ran his hands through his hair, which made his lose curls stick up at all angles.

Then he turned and looked at me with his large, golden, sly eyes. Well," he said, very calmly, "hell yes."

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word count - 623