Starry Eyed. Lashton AU

5.

The first day of the third week, Ashton said his first word to me aloud.

Well, words.

"I can't quite figure you out," he'd said. I was in art class, and I had decided to sketch an eyeball, then paint the irises in dedication to Ashton. I'd been trying for the majority of the class period to capture the color and brilliance that lived and danced inside of Ashton's eyes, but I just couldn't get it right.

It was always too brown or too yellow, never enough sunshine.

I was beyond frustrated with the piece and on the brink of giving up when a smooth voice came from over my shoulder and I could almost feel the warmth of the boy who stood behind me.

He wasn't even in that class with me, so how he had even found me in the first place was beyond me.

I spun around, confused, not even recognizing the voice at first. But all it took was one wiff of the scent that followed Ashton wherever he went; axe body spray and peppermint and I immediately knew who the man behind me was and felt at ease.

He smiled down at me from my place on my stool and I stared up at him in awe.

"What is it that you can't understand?" I asked, turning back around and mindlessly painting over my previous tireless work, not minding anymore.

"You," he said, the smile clear in his voice as he made his way to the opposite side of the table as me to sit. "I can't quite understand you. You have every reason to be happy. You have a great best friend, you're the captain of the football team, you're brilliant, you're handsome, but when I look at you, and you're smiling and laughing, it doesn't seem like you're really happy. And I just can't figure out why," he said, a frown covering his lips.

I put down my paint brush, finally, making sure the boy across from my had my full attention. That was the first time I saw him frown, and that was the first time I decided I would do whatever it took to see his smile as much as I could.

Because when he was frowning it was like an eclipse; like the sun was being blocked out and I just couldn't see anything.

"Luke,"

And his eyebrows did this thing where they furrowed up and his forehead wrinkles and it's adorable, but I couldn't see his dimples and I missed them.

"Lucas," Ashton repeated.

"Hm?" I hummed in response, running back in to his words.

A sad smile spread across his lips and my heart leapt forward in my chest at the sight of it, almost like it wanted to jump on it and kiss it until it was in it's usual happy form again. "That's what I mean," he said, sadly. "You zone out, and it's like you just aren't there, like you're not happy. At least not here, but wherever you go in your head, when you zone out, you seem content, at least, there."

My brain slowly killed over his words and I thought back over my day, trying to rack my brain for the memory of me taking my pills this morning. "I have a hard time focusing sometimes," I mumbled when I concluded I'd forgotten them again.

Ashton continued to talk to me about things that I just couldn't focus enough on his words to understand because I was too busy watching the way his pink lips formed the words that left his mouth or how whenever he said a word that contained the letter m, his dimples shone through at me without even trying.

And I spent the rest of the hour kicking myself for not being able to pay attention to the words that fell from his mouth because I wish I would have because this boy kept mesmerizing me with everything else and his words were just as beautiful as his lips. But the way he kept licking his lips and brushing his hair out of his eyes kept messing me up and I lost all hope of concentrating a minute into trying and instead I just tried to memorize the way he made me feel.

I tried to trace my thoughts back to the origin, how had I thought all of this? One thing has led to another, and then finally I had started wondering what it felt like to run my fingers through his hair. And I went through the thinking process as I often did in my head. I went back to my first thought. I had been trying to listen to him but I just couldn't, and I wondered if he noticed, and I wondered if he knew that I had a disorder that made it impossible for me to focus and if it would make me imperfect in his eyes or if it's make him leave me or if he was even with me. But it wasn't my fault because I took medicine which made it easier to concentrate but how was I supposed to pay attention to anything else when he kept running his hand through his hair and I wondered how it would feel to run my fingers through his hair. And that was why out of the blue I blurted, "I have ADD."