Beginnings • c.h

Chapter Twelve

Megan POV

*5 minutes earlier*

"I'm just going to go get changed, you guys go ahead and start the movie." I say leaning on the doorway to the lounge room. Everyone nods and turns back to the movie.

"Can you show me where the bathroom is, Megan?" Ashton asks rising from the smaller of the two leather lounges, where he was seated next to Aimee.

Nodding, and gesturing for him to follow, I survey the lounge room one last time. Luke and Grace were both seated on the ground, in the beanbags that hadn't been used since I was probably ten years of age.

Mikey was in the corner of the lounge, looking at me. I merely pretended I didn't see him staring at me, and looked over to where I saw Calum and Anni sitting quite closer together. I frowned, I wasn't sure what was going on between them two; but there was definitely a shitload of sexual tension there.

I trudged up the stairs with Ashton following along, we kept the conversation to polite small talk. I didn't really know Ashton that much but from what I had heard, it wasn't a good start.

We make it to my bedroom, and I open the door. We walk in and I direct him to my bathroom.

"Just knock when you’re coming out and I'll tell you whether you can come out or not. Because I am pretty sure you don't really want to see me naked, now do you?"

Ashton lets out a laugh, "That's a good point, I guess. I'll knock."

As the bathroom door shuts I strip out of my pyjama pants and top. Searching through my chest of drawers I pull out one of my favourite band shirts. Nodding with my choice I pull it over my head.

As I turn to pull a pair of jeans from another drawer I hear a gasp, looking up I see Ashton gawping at me. Wait, he wasn't gawping at me, just my exposed legs and hips. Shit, my hips!! My hips that were covered in unmistakable scars. I immediately switch into panic mode,

"Ashton! Please don't tell anyone, you don't understand!"

Ashton continues to stare at the broken skin on my hips, which I was desperately trying to cover with my hands. He closes the few feet that separate us.

He mumbles my name, and grasp at my hands that are failing to cover the wide expanse of skin that is covered in cuts, faded and fresh.

Looking up his hazel eyes shining he says my name again.

"Ashton, please, don't tell the others. I know you don't understand-"

"-I do understand. I know exactly how you feel." Ashton interrupts, squeezing my hands lightly, attempting to reassure me.

"How? How do you know, Ashton?" I growl, annoyed. How dare he think he knows how I feel, no one does.

"Because, I am the same as you." He says, holding my gaze. His hazel eyes pierced mine, clearly showing pain.

But I was confused as to why he was showing pain, and even more so at what he had said. What did he mean he was the same as me?

"What do you mean?"

Ashton looks around the room, his eyes land on my bed, and he drags me over to it. He sits down, and pulls me down next to him.

"It's probably easier to explain if I just show you."

"Show me what exactly, Ashton?"

He lifts his arm, and I watch as he slowly, but surely, removes the bracelets and bands that surround his left wrist. I am stunned into silence by what is being presented to me. Scars, the same as mine. A different pattern but I can tell the pink, white and red that laces his skin from anywhere, I could tell what causes them.