the doorman » a.i au

nineteen; "timezones can suck my dick."

If I could have the chance to travel back to any period of time, I wouldn’t. Laying flat on my back with my head on Ashton’s shoulder as the sun shone into his bedroom, I was genuinely happy.

“This is perfect,” I smiled, inhaling the beachy and floral scent that was emitted from his air freshener, “It’s like we’re in some kind of holiday. I’m really, really, really obsessed with the fragrance. And you. But mostly the fragrance.”

“It’s girly,” he rolled his eyes and scrunched up his nose in slight disgust.

“How sexist,” I reached to slap his chest playfully before he caught my wrist and locking it. He was laughing as he kissed the tip of my nose.

“I love you. No matter what happens,” his features were serious and his voice modulated. Immediately, I sat up.

“Okay, tell me what’s up.”

“What do you mean?” he slowly said.

“You’ve been really weird ever since we had dinner with your parents. Tell me what that whole whispery conversation was about.”

The dinner was two weeks ago. For the next two days, Ashton refused to pick up my calls or reply my texts. According to him, he was busy and at that time, it sounded legit. When we finally met, however, he acted different – almost as if he was putting up a wall between us, one that I couldn’t break through. Our conversations became short (and not even sweet, for that matter) and sometimes, I’d get the vibe that he was uninterested. We had agreed to hang out at his place for the day and I thought we were back to normal. But now that he was being all serious out of the blue, I could no longer shake off the heavy feeling I once shoved into the deepest part of my mind.

“I’m not ready to tell you, Kare,” he sighed, and eventhough I wasn’t looking at him, I could tell that he was roughly rubbing his face in frustration.

“Don’t do that, you don’t get to be frustrated when I’m the one who has absolutely no idea on what this is about. Just tell me, Ashton. I’m not going to walk out of your place without an answer.”

“Then stay the night,” he smirked. A while later, he wiped it off his face as he realized I wasn’t smiling. “I just… I don’t know how to tell you, okay? It’s difficult for me too.”

I replayed the conversation in my head, picking out bits and pieces that had kept me up at the previous nights. “I need more time. I can’t just tell her that I’m ch-“ he said, before I had interrupted them that day. Of course, I had my suspicions. But I wasn’t going to accuse him of it because I knew who he was. I knew what he was like. Most importantly, I knew he wouldn’t stoop as low as that.

“Just spit it out,” I said, growing more and more agitated by the second. My voice was caught in my throat as I braced myself for the worst. I felt my lips quiver and vision blur and at the same time, the need to hold myself together. Because if my suspicion were right, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry in front of him. He wouldn’t deserve to see me cry for him or for us.

He took a deep breath and looked at me straight in the eyes. “I’m checking into a university dormitory within the next four months. I was accepted into NYU about a week ago.”

I interrupted him as I let out a muffled cry. It was a cry of miserableness, anger (from the fact that he had hidden it from me for so long), the realization of what was to come but most importantly, relief. Thank god my suspicion was wrong. Ashton brought me to his chest and whispered words of comfort as he let me shake and sob, completely disintegrating myself from the world and drowning myself in my emotions.

“So you’re really not cheating on me, right?” I choked out once I had sorted myself out. Or attempted to, anyway.

“You know I could never do that,” he whispered ever so sotto voce, making me cry again for another good three minutes.

He held me in his arms, making sure that I was entirely calm before wiping the remains of my tears off my cheeks. I didn’t like being vulnerable in front of people and Ashton was no exception.

“I’ve spent the last few nights of my life contemplating what I’d do or say when you finally tell me you’ve been cheating on me, y’know,” I paused, “But tell me about it. How come I never knew about you even applying for NYU?”

“I applied late last month. I didn’t wanna tell you because I had a strong feeling I wasn’t gonna get it. I didn’t want you to think any less of me.”

“But I wouldn’t and you know it, Ash. No amount of rejection could change the way I think of you.”

“Should have told me sooner,” he pouted, clearly trying to lighten the situation. He leaned in to kiss me but I dodged it, putting a hand on his chest. As happy as I was for him, I was still mad. It still angered me that I knew nothing about his application or plans at all but I held back from starting an argument. At least not today.

“So… NYU, huh? Law?” I asked.

“Law,” he confirmed with a smile. I felt the tears coming again as I thought of how often he had talked to me about wanting to pursue a degree in law. And now he got it.

“Don’t cry again,” he laughed, “Hey, I haven’t confirmed it. I could put it off for another year. You’d have graduated by then and you could move in with me.”

“I’m just really proud of you. And no, I’m not going to be the reason you’re putting your one chance off. If you wanna stay, stay for a good reason,” I smiled, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, “We’ve got four months?”

He nodded, his smile faltering.

“That’s thousands of miles away from here, Ash. What are we gonna do?”

“Hey, listen,” he turned my body such that I was facing him, “We could skype, text, call everyday. Timezones are difficult-“

“Timezones can suck my dick,” I interrupted.

He laughed, and for a moment I considered the idea of recording and setting it as my ringtone just because it made me feel like I was the happiest girl alive. Definitely one of the things I’d miss the most.

“Timezones are difficult but I’ll do whatever it takes, you hear me? We’re going to be fine.” he continued.

My response was a simple, solemn nod. My eyes hurt from all the crying I did in the span of half an hour but I couldn’t stop the ones that were about to come. What was I going to do without him? I mentally berated myself for sounding so needy but I couldn’t help worrying about how things were going to work out. Would we really have the time for a long distance relationship?

As if reading my thoughts, Ashton held me tighter.

“We’ll make it work. We’re going to be fine,” he sounded stern, though to me it seemed as if he was truly trying to convince himself instead of me.

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important hint: the drama's only just starting.