fanboy ↦ michael clifford {au}

twenty-six: punch

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

| michael’s pov | 

As soon as the door flew open, I got a hold of his collar, pushing him back inside. I closed the door with my foot, and I didn’t even need to look back at it. All I was looking– glowering– at was Ashton, who looked confused, but I could care less.

“Michael, what the fuck?” He shouted, as I punched the right side of his face. My hand hurt like hell; I just hoped he was hurt even more.

I wanted to land another hit, but I stopped myself. I knew once Belle found out about this, she would beat the living shit out of me. 

“After you punch me, you stay quiet? Yeah, fuck you, too!” Ashton exclaimed, managing to pull my hands away from his shirt. There was a forming bruise at his lip, but that wasn’t enough.

I dragged him to his couch and harshly made him sit down. “Tell me all about you and Belle,” I demanded. 

He opened his mouth to speak, which I expected was to be a lie, so I warned him.

“No bullshit, Ashton. I want the truth.”

He gulped; the expression on his face instantly switching from anger to guilt. I knew it; Belle didn’t tell me everything. I knew she lied, somewhere in between her explanation.

“When you’re falling… you grab onto whatever you can hold,” he said, rubbing the side of his forehead. He tried to collect himself, probably thinking of how to come off clean. That’s how much I hated him yet knew him. 

“That’s… that’s probably what happened. I was lonely. I was fresh from a break-up, no family, no friends. What can you expect?” The same smile Belle gave me when she was telling me about the two of them showed. My tensed jaw slowly loosened; it was a little unexpected to see from him.  

Ashton looked up at me, eye-to-eye. It was sincere, yet I disliked where it was heading to. He was going to say something that would make me hate him more than I do now. “But she was there, Michael. She was ready to love me; she was ready to hold me in her arms. I couldn’t refuse that. I needed someone to make me feel like I wasn’t alone, and she was just that.”

A lone tear escaped his eye, most likely from guilt. It was slowly making me pity him, because I was the same– lonely and unloved. “Call me an asshole, but believe me, I tried to give her everything in exchange.”

My hands unclenched; I was starting to calm down, only a tad bit. I just needed to know one more thing before I leave. “Why did you break up with her?” 

“I can’t keep hurting her. Just because there was one thing I couldn’t give back– love.”