Rose Petals

Chapter 22

It's been a few days since then. I haven't seen Ash as often and when I saw him during passing period he would just glance at me and then avoid me. My heart ached a little every time.

He ignored me in the classes that we had together, like everyone else did him. He seemed off. More than that, completely changed. I want to help but he won't let me.

When I went home that day and as I stepped through my front door, the house was empty. Like it always is. It felt emptier though, like it's lost all its furniture and turned into a dull prison cell. But, that wasn't the only thing that felt empty. My heart weighed down my body and I sat in front of my door, sobbing into my hands as my mind felt like it was clenching onto my soul. I felt like I was losing control. I had complete control over a lot of things in my life. All except for one thing.

Tragedy.

~^~*~^~

The days seemed dull. I haven't seen Ashton for three weeks. I noticed he stopped coming to school.

When I walked through the school doors the next day, I felt everyones eyes on me. I looked around and sure enough many people were staring at me. Did I look that bad? I mean, I didn't feel the greatest so maybe it decided to finally start showing physically. I walked over to a girl that I knew, Sherry. We didn't talk often but she was a good person.

"What's going on?" I asked her. She looked at me in surprise and then confusion.

"You don't know?" I shook my head.

"Well that guy you've been hanging out with, Dash or whatever his name is, there's been a really horrible rumor going around about him." My blood suddenly felt ice cold as if I spent 3 hours in the tundra bare naked. My whole body felt stiff. The next words that came out of my mouth were automatic, although my brain protested against them.

"What is it?"

She looked around and then back to me. She leaned closer to me and whispered in a low voice.

"Apparently his dad is an alcoholic and well, does things to Ash at night when he gets home from school. I've noticed that he is really skittish at school. I'm surprised you haven't heard anything about it."

The coldness that was running through my veins just a few moments ago suddenly felt like a volcanic eruption through my whole body.

"Where the fuck did you hear that from?!" I questioned her, a bit loudly. She jumped in surprise.

"D-Dave spread the whole rumor. It's been buzzing through the school for a week. Ash hasn't come to school since last week!" She yelled. Heads turned our way. I was too angry to think of doing anything reasonable.

"Alright that's it." I mumbled lowly. I turned to the crowd that had just gathered around.

"Listen here you little shits!" I yelled at all my classmates that were staring my way. They looked taken aback, and surprised even. "For your fucking information, Ashton Cambrillo's father is a no good scumbag low life who just so had happened to leave Ashton when he was at a young age. I'm sure most of you already know this, but news flash, rumors are rumors, the shit ain't true half the time. Don't always fucking believe what you hear." The whole room was silent when I was done with my small angry speech.

"Now," I continued. "Where can I find a Dave Johnson in this hell hole?" Everyone looked frightened.

One person shouted, "I last saw him in the boys locker room just a few minutes ago!" That was all I needed to hear.

I turned on my heel and made my way towards the gym, getting ready to beat some information out of this fucker.