Found // AU Michael Clifford

Chapter 19

I had managed to avoid Michael the next day up until lunch. I saw him sitting with Luke, Ashton, and Calum at their normal table. I walked past their table to where I saw Grayson sitting at her own table. I gave her a smile as I sat down. She perked up right as she saw me. "Hey Gabriella!" 

"Hey Grayson I'm sorry I haven't gotten the chance to talk to Luke for you, somethings have happened recently that interfere with that." Poor Grayson's face dropped from a smile to a sad puppy frown. "But there's no reason you and I can't be friends, right?" I figured if I couldn't spend all of my time with Michael and his friends I might as well make some of my own.

"Yeah I guess." She shrugged. "I just thought you were dating that Michael guy."

"Uh yea I am but we're not really agreeing with each other right now." I smiled slightly. "But I don't really want to talk about him. We can talk about you, like what do you like to do?" I changed the subject. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Michael.

"I'm really not very interesting." Grayson said shyly. 

"Oh come on there has to be something. You don't have any hobbies? What do you like to do after school?" I tried to start a conversation with her, but she was right, she didn't seem very interesting. 

"Well I played on the basketball team last year. I was named MVP and I was captain." Grayson played with her food, pushing around her mash potatoes on her plate. She made it very obvious that she didn't like talking about herself. "What about you, Gabriella? Do you play any sports?"

"I played softball. I was MVP at my old school too." This was true, even though I left out the part where I hadn't played in two years. 

"Do you know if Luke likes sports?" She asked, going off topic. 

"I'm not sure. He may but he seems to be more into the sound of a guitar and not the sound of sneakers squeaking on a court." Grayson let out a long and defeated sigh, This girl seemed to really like Luke and I wasn't doing anything to help her. 

"So what's going on with you and Michael anyway?" She asked, suddenly interested in having a conversation with me.

"We're just not talking to each other right now." I tried to leave out as little as possible. I had just met Grayson a couple days ago, I didn't want to go into detail about my relationship. 

"Is it because of my sister?" 

"Who's your sister?" I questioned. I had a bad feeling about what was going to come out of her mouth next.

"Sasha, she's my step-sister, but she constantly talks about Michael. That's kind of how I found out about Luke." I looked at Grayson in shock. Her sister was the reason I was mad at my boyfriend. And Grayson wanted me to get her in good with Luke. I wondered if he knew that Sasha's sister liked him.

I leaned in closer to Grayson and told her exactly what the problem was. "Well if you really want to know what's going on between me and Michael, it's your sister." She had a look of confusion. "Now if you want me to get Luke to like you, I want you to tell me everything that Sasha says about me and Michael." It sounded bad that I was basically blackmailing Grayson but it seemed like the only way to know what Sasha has said about me. 

"Well you already know that she talks about Michael all of the time." Grayson bit down on her bottom lip in thought. "She calls him all of the time. I think that she pretends to be having a conversation with him. Sometimes I've picked up the house phone and she would be 'talking' to Michael but there wasn't anybody on the other line." I sat back in my seat and folded my arms over my chest. 

"What about the song she claims Michael wrote for her?" 

"He has written a song for her before when they first started dating and their relationship was still in the honeymoon stage. I doubt he's written any other songs about her. Their break up was pretty bad, for her at least. I think Michael is way over it and her." After what Grayson told me I couldn't help but feel bad for being mad at Michael.

"What does she say about me?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh she hates you." Grayson said bluntly. "Sasha says that you're standing in her way of being with Michael. She's still in love with him and she doesn't like that he's in love with you." Michael couldn't be in love with me. Could he? We just became official how could he be in love with me.

"So I probably should apologize to Michael." I pressed my lips together. I had been freezing him out for a while. She nodded in agreement. I let out a long sigh before getting up and walking over to Michael's table.

 

"Michael can I talk to you." I looked around and saw Luke and Calum staring at me. Ashton had his head down and was looking at his plate. "Alone."

"You actually want to talk? I thought we didn't do that anymore." I definitely wasn't expecting that reaction out of him. I guess he'd picked up on my mood and realized I didn't want to talk to him.

"Please Michael? It's important." I practically begged. Michael looked at Luke and Calum for a quick second before getting up. I took him by the hand and led him to the music room, which I knew would be empty at this time.

"I hope this is about why you've felt the need to ignore me all week." Michael said as he took a seat in a desk.

"It is because I've realized that it wasn't really fair for me to do that." He put his hands behind his head and propped his feet up on an adjacent chair. I figured he was getting comfortable to hear ths rest of what I had to say. "You're probably wondering why I've been shutting you out lately and I have a really good reason for it."

Michael cocked his head to the side. "I'm listening."

"So the other day I saw Sasha with Ashton, but I went to see him. I tried to leave once I saw her but before I knew it she was basically yelling at me. She said a bunch of stuff about how you two were still in love, and how you wrote the song for her and not me." I could feel my hands getting shaky as Michael started to talk.

"You believed a pathological liar over your boyfriend?" He made it sound like I had just killed a man. He made me feel like I had. I shrugged my shoulders a little. "Gabriella that's completely ridiculous." I could hear him starting to get angry with me. "Why do you always believe people like this? You believed James and now Sasha, I've told you not to trust these people but yet you do. I don't get it."

"I'm sorry." I said quietly. I didn't like that I knew he was getting angry with me. I didn't want him mad at me. I just wanted him.

"You should be." Michael got out of his seat and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I walked after him.

"Away from you, at least until you figure out who you want to trust more. Because if it's not me then there's no reason for me to be around." With that he left me alone in the music room.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

iM SORRY IT'S NOT LIKE I WANT MICHRIELLA TO NOT BE A THING. IT JUST HAPPENS THIS WAY. IM ALSO SORRY ITS SO SHORT IT WAS A FILLER KINDA DEAL