adulation | l.h.

adulation | | luke hemmings

adulation

a•du•lat•ion~ noun

obsequious flattery; excessive admiration or praise.

synonyms: affection, adoration, love
"I'm afraid that if we just forget about eachother you'll get worse. And you'll cut again. And I can't live with myself not knowing that you're okay. And I can't live without you because you're all I have." Luke sighed from rambling, and repeated,
"You're all I have."

Ashki's POV
(Ashki is pronounced Ash-Key lol)

"Luke, can you please tell your friends to stop teasing me?" I spoke with confidence.

I had confidence?

"Sorry, I just..." He trailed off, twiddling with his fingers.

I make boys nervous?

"I...I just think you're beautiful."

"Mrs Waters." Our geometry snapped me out of my daydream. "Can you tell me the value of x?" She asked, pointing to the chalk bored on the wall. A lot of people call me Einstein Waters instead of Ashki, I wouldnt mind if they even called me Ash. It might be because I got a perfect score on my ACTs. I never knew why, but it kind of makes it hard to think I'm normal.

"The value of x is pi squared." I said. She looked at the problem again, and scoffed. "Pay attention next time." She said. I sighed, thinking I got it wrong. "But that is correct." She sighed and rolled her eyes.

The bell rang.

"Have a nice winter break. Bye." She said in her monotone voice. "Ashki, stay back please." She said. "Ooooh, goody two-shoes is getting in trouble for once." One of my brother's friends, Michael said. I stuck my tongue out at him, and he scoffed. "Dick." I said under my breath and walked over to her fearfully. "Ashki, I think you are exceptionally smart. You may need to move classes to the ap geometry next semester." She said. "Would it be okay if I recommended you to Mrs Holly?" She asked. I nodded, it shouldn't be that hard. "Thank you, and have a good winter break." I said and walked out of the room quickly.

•

"How's it going Einstein?" Michael stopped me in the hallway. "How's that key on a kite of yours?" Michael laughed at his joke, that was completely irrelevant to Einstein. "Ben Franklin, you oath." I scoffed and pushed past them. Even Luke. He was always quiet about Michael messing with me, but sometimes he'd join in. "What'd you say?" Michael turned swiftly. "I called you a dumbass." I spat. I only have confidence around Michael, not Ashton, or Calum, or Luke. Especially not Luke. Michael is really the only victimizer in this "game" we play. The others just watch, including Luke. "I swear to god if your brother wasn't my bestfriend, I'd slap a bitch right across the face." He said through gritted teeth. I almost laughed, "Not the pink haired boy! Please!" I fake begged. Behind him, I saw all of them laugh, Ashton turning away with Luke to hide it, Calum not even caring to laugh out loud. Michael tried to shut them up, but they wouldn't obey, so he just turned back to me. "Awh, your big bruddah is coming." He said, and put his arm around me. We both fake-smiled.

I was pretty good at that.

"Hey, Ash." Drew greeted me. "Hi." I said. "Sup." Ashton said. "I was talking to my sister, dumbass." He laughed. I turned to Ashton, and mouthed,

"Told you."

"We gotta go home." Drew dragged me behind him.

•

• two weeks later

•

"We have a new student in our class this semester." My new geometry teacher said. "Ashki, will you please stand." She said. I rose from my seat in the back, and everyone turned. I didn't see any familiar faces, except for one.

Luke Hemmings.