Starry Eyed. Lashton AU

6.

Luke.

You told me something yesterday. I think that you were scared to tell me that, because as soon as you said it you looked like you were going to throw up, and I think you might have cause you said you had to go to the bathroom and ran out.

I tried to follow you but the teacher stopped me and I was "politely escorted to the detention room for being in the wrong classroom for over a half hour."

You weren't in English or art the rest of the day. I missed you. I missed staring at you. Maybe that's creepy. Oh well. I hope you feel better, L. See you in maths.

Ash.

The note in my hands was on yellow paper this time, written neatly, as if he was scared I wouldn't be able to read it if he'd wrote it in his usual sloppy writing.

Last night, I'd forced Calum to come over, where I'd shown him all the letters and told him everything that had happened that day. He comforted me and reassured me that Ashton wouldn't feel any different about me because of my disorder, but I couldn't shake the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I made sure to take the pills that helped me focus that morning so that I could focus extra hard on anything Ashton and I talked about today.

However, now I was wishing I wouldn't have so I'd be able to tune the world out and just be alone. I wasn't looking for another person to baby me, all the teachers already did that, along with everyone in my family, and everyone who knew about my disorder. The last thing I had wanted was for Ashton to join the long list of people in my pity parade. I wished I didn't tell him, that's all I wished for that morning, over and over again.

I slammed my locker shut just as Calum reached me, desperately wishing I could escape the incoming "what's wrong" and "what happened"s from him. But I couldn't. I was trapped.

"Woah, calm down Luke, what's wrong?" He coaxed.

His relaxing voice irritated me even more and I felt the urge to punch my best friend in the face for no reason. Instead, I focused on the real reason I was upset. "He wrote his letter differently. He wrote all neat, like I couldn't understand it—" I huffed in frustration. Why was I getting so angry?

I was starting to draw attention to myself, and Calum was trying to calm me down, and I could feel the anger bubbling up inside of me and I was starting to get scared of it exploding, so I just turned around and walked toward maths.

Ashton wasn't there yet which was strange, since he was always there before me, but of course this just made me more angry. My hands were starting to shake. I decided I should just sit down and put my head on my desk. So I did.

Not even a minute later, I heard Ashton scoot his chair out and sit down.

Then his hand was resting on my back, and it was red hot and I could feel it exploding inside of me, like a supernova, and I shot up and my jaw dropped open to yell. But as soon as his brown galaxy filled eyes met mine, it was like a black hole swallowed all of the explosion of anger. And then all there was in a matter of seconds was him and I staring at each other, and I was really calm, and I didn't even know why but I just was.

And it was nice. To just exist.

To be able to focus for once but still just exist. And to not be there but to be there all at once.

With him.

"Hi," he breathed.

"Hey," I said back.

"You get my note?"

"Yeah, it was different, why did you make it different?"

"What do you mean?"

"The paper. The handwriting. The handwriting."

"Trying to improve my penmanship, and all I had was yellow paper."

"That's it?"

"That's it."