Belief

1.2

I pulled against Ashton's grip, all of my power focused on getting to Luke and Michael. Ashton frowned, clearly not pleased with the position this was putting him in. If he let me stay, I would get sucked into the whirlpool of uncertainty and chaos created by the boys. If he made me leave, I would be forced to watch them drown, with no way to help save them.

I kept hearing him mutter "it's for your own good" and "c'mon Madds's please" but I blocked his words from entering my thoughts. I had one focus right now, to figure out what was going on. To my dismay, Ashton had other plans. No matter how hard I fidgeted, he somehow managed to get me into his car.

I sat in the passenger seat, head in hands. I could feel Ashton's worried stare burning into me as he drove to get my car from his apartment. I was trapped inside my mind, racking my brain for answers I didn't have. I always had the answers. Why couldn't I find them now? I imagined the scene I had just left. I pictured Luke storming at Michael. My mind finished the scene for me. Each version it created became more unnerving than the last.

Ashton pulled up to his home, guiding me over to my car. He lifted my chin to look at him.

"Listen, I know you hate not having the answers written out in front of you, but there are something's you are better off not knowing. Sometimes it is better to wonder than to know. The things you imagine are a whole lot better than the truth," he softly pushed my hair out of my face.

"Is it because of me?" I ask him, needing to know.

"You are a smart girl Madds, if you think hard enough I'm sure you will figure it out," He gave me a hopeful smile. I doubted that. I could figure out an equation, I could ace a test, but when it came to this I was helpless. A clueless wanderer.

"Is it always going to be this complicated?" I sigh. My thoughts running over all the conflicts I have faced this week. It was as if the perfectly placed pieces of my life had managed to get strewn and displaced. I was stuck trying to fit the pieces back together.

"It doesn't have to be. It'll pass. It always does," he tried to lift my spirits, but the deep worry lining his eyes tell me he doesn't believe the words leaving his mouth.

"Thanks for bringing me back, make sure Luke is okay for me?" I bite my lip. Ashton nods, promising he is heading back over there now.

I got into my car, letting out a deep sigh. Just when it seemed as if the world was back on our side, a new complication interrupted its orbit.

Good things lead to high hopes, but what goes up must come back down. I was on my way back down. As soon as one question was answered, a new one was formed. An endless cycle of the unknown becoming the known.

As much as my body was urging me to drive back over there, to storm through the gates and find out what was happening, I fought the impulse. The worry in Ashton's eyes haunted me as I drove through the desolate roads. They boy who was always optimistic, always believing, was caught in this newly formed cycle of struggles. How long until the cycle stretched one of us to our snapping point?

I drowned out my melodramatic thoughts the only way I knew how. Work. The endless chapters in my textbook pushed the worries to the back of my mind. If they began to resurface, I would shove them away with any homework I could find. By the end of the night I had finished everything that was due within the next three weeks.

My fingers kept tapping on my phone. Waiting for a text or call from one of the boys. Waiting for the answers I would never receive. As my eyelids began to weigh down, the room becoming a blur with the thoughts in my mind, sleep almost finding me, I finally received a text. It was short. It was simple. Yet, it eased some of the bubbling anxiety in me.