Rescue // Ashton Irwin

thirteen.

Adley.

When I awoke the next morning, Ashton was still sound asleep beside me, his arm lazily draped over my body.

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I thought about what I was going to have to tell him.

I contemplated letting him wake up on his own before dropping the bomb.

But, it was eating away at me and I knew I wouldn't last much longer.

"Ash," I whispered, shaking him lightly.

"Good morning, babe," he whispered through half shut eyes.

"I have to talk to you," I said, jumping right into it.

I didn't want to waste any time.

I wasn't sure how he would take it, but I knew that he deserved to know, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I kept it from him.

"Please just hear me out before you get mad at me, okay?" I added, looking him up and down in an attempt to gauge his reaction.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

The pain in his voice was so evident that it almost made me cringe to hear it.

"No, no, of course not."

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Okay, go on then."

I took a deep breath before starting, making sure to avoid Ashton's stare as much as possible.

"So last night when I got that phone call, it was Luke. He was at a bar drinking because Michael told him that he didn't love him even though he said he did when they had sex-"

"Wait, what? They had sex?"

I had completely forgotten that I hadn't mentioned any of it to him.

"Uh, yeah, at the party. I kind of walked in on them at the party when I was looking for something for Maddie. That's why Michael wanted to go home."

"Wow," was all he said.

"Yeah," I nodded, "So I guess when Luke went to talk to him he said that it all meant nothing to him. So, obviously, Luke was pretty torn up about it and he went out drinking."

"He needed a ride home, so I told him I would come pick him up. He told me all about what happened and it was really messy. He cried a lot, but he eventually was okay enough to go home."

I could tell Ashton had no idea where the story was going, but he kept his eyes on me, listening intently, the entire time.

"And we were just about to leave when I saw Noah."

"No," he gasped, his eyes widening.

"Did he say anything to you? Did he touch you? Did you get hurt?" he asked, questions coming at me faster than I could even comprehend, let alone answer.

"Slow down there," I laughed, "Just let me finish, yeah?"

"Fine," he sighed.

"He was sitting by the exit, so we had to cross paths with him to leave. I thought we could do it, but just as we were almost in the clear, he saw us."

"He didn't touch me, but he did say some pretty nasty things to me. Luke jumped in and tried to get him to leave us alone. He eventually did, but he had to kiss me to do it..."

There it was, the part that I knew was going to crush him.

His face immediately dropped, a mixture of disappointment and sadness etched into his features.