terrible things - ashton irwin

thirty nine

Together, along with a crush of tourists, we walked down St. Marks Place, trying on cheap sunglasses at the outdoor booths and browsing a two-story store called Trash and Vaudeville, where Ashton posed for a picture in a silver pleather biker jacker and I tried on a bright blue wig. We stopped into St. Mark's Bookshop, and I got a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass and a book of Dylan Thomas poems.

"Poetry?" Ashton said, looking aghast.

"Just read one,"I said.

Ashton opened the Whitman to a random page and cleared his throat. 

" ' A child said, What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.' " 

He looked at me, intrigued. "Okay, I like that well enough. 'Hopeful green stuff woven.' "

I laughed. "I've got something you'll like better, though." I took his hand and led him down the street to the car.

"Is it my surprise?" he asked excitedly.

"Look under the tent," I said.

When Ashton pulled out the guitar, his whole face lit up.  He hefted the weight of it in his hands and plucked a string experimentally.

"Lavender, how-"

"Let's go play it," I said. I didn't want to have to tell him that I'd given up my mothers bracelet, the last thing I had of hers, to buy it. And that I wasn't the least bit sorry.

Hand in hand, we walked over to Tompkins Square Park and found a bench beneath a ring of gingko trees. Ashton strummed for moment, finding the chords. They seemed familiar to me, but I didn't recognise the tune until he began to sing.

"Moving forward using all my breath," Ashton sang. The song was "I'll Melt with You." 

I haven't talked about Ashton's voice, and this is partly because I can't explain it. It's clear and rough at the same time; it's intimate but also demands an audience. It's usually soft, but somehow you hear it not with just your ears but with your whole body. And with your heart most of all.

People who were walking by began to stop and listen as he sang. Ashton didn't seem to notice them gradually gathering around him, though. His eyes were on his boot, tapping on the cobblestones. Every once in a while, he looked at me, right into my eyes, singing: "I'll stop the world and melt with you..."

Soon there was a big circle of people, young, old, and in between. Most of them were parents, with kids carrying stuffed bunnies or pockmarked Nerf footballs or, the older ones, iPhones. And those parents all knew the song, because it was the one they'd danced to thirty years earlier, when they were in high school and in love for the first time.

At first a few of them just mouthed the words, but then, quietly, they began to sing. Then others joined in, too, and they lost their hard, blank city faces and smiled, and in another minute it was a damn sing-along. I swear to God, there were people with tears in their eyes, because that's how beautiful Ashton is when he plays.

When the song ended, there was silence. For a moment I felt like the entire city went quiet and took one long, sweet breath. Like everyone, everywhere, was thinking about life, and how it is the happiest and saddest thing, the most terrible and the most precious.

Then the silence broke. A woman in a bright yellow dress began to clap, and then, just the way the singing had grown, so did the clapping, until the applause was really loud. There was another woman blowing her nose, and a man staring up at the sky and blinking really hard and fast, but most people were just smiling.

An old man stepped forward and placed his cap on the ground. "You forgot to pass the hat," he said.

Ashton looked up, startled. "Pardon?" he said. He was still in the world of song. He didn't realised there was anyone but him and me.

The old man looked a little like Ernie. he turned back to the crowed and called, "Cough it up for the young performer, all right?"

Ashton and I watched as almost every person stepped forward with quarters and dollars. I saw a woman give her daughter some money, and the girl tiptoes up and put a five into the hat. She was about Carol Ann's age when she died, the age she'd be forever. Her hair was even red, like my sister's.

"Thank you," I whispered.

Then it was all over, and the people left. Ashton and I were alone again. The hat was full of money.

Ashton was smiling at me. "We're rich," he said, and he pulled me onto his lap.

And truly, then, it felt like we were.

-

word count - 817

its beeeeen a while sorry about that, but I saw harry styles and i'm legit obsesssed, expect a harry ff after this one :))