Life of the Party (MATL #1)

Savior

Ashton's POV

I sent one more dirty look to Michael before grabbing my bag and following Jack to his empty office where he locked the door behind us. "Care to explain this?" he asked handing me his phone, open to the group chat. The last message being a video sent from my phone. When I didn't immediately answer he continued. "Don't get me wrong, it's a hot video, you and Mikey look hot together. But as a teacher, I should not be receiving this type of message while I am at work. I could be fired if this got out."

"It wasn't me. I mean it was, I wasn't the one who sent it. And it wasn't Mikey in the video." I rushed the words out, keeping my head down.

"Who sent it then? And why did you call the person Mikey?" he asked, leaning against his desk.

"The answer to both of those questions is Michael Clifford." I answered, knowing it would only bring more questions.

"Why does Mr. Clifford have your phone?" Jack asked.

"Look, it's kind of a long story. We're dating I guess, and he wanted my phone. We're arguing right now, that's why he sent it. I didn't realize he was going to send it to everyone." I rambled.

"What do you mean you guess that you're dating? You either are or you aren't. And last I knew you were dating Ryan, what happened to that?" he asked, sounding confused. I felt my hands start shaking and I started going through my bag.

"I, I'm sorry, I need to take a pain pill." I said, trying to keep the anxiety from my voice.

"It's alright doll, take your time." He said calmly. I pulled the box out and after messing up a couple times I finally got the combination correct. "Here's some water." He said handing me a bottle from his desk. I thought it over for only a second before deciding to take two of them and closing the box. "You're supposed to be going to Science with Mikey and Dal right now, correct?" I nodded, starting to tear up already. "Okay, let me just call your teacher, I'll be right back." I nodded again before he stepped out of his office to make the call. A few minutes later he came back in to see tears running down my face. "Oh doll, come here." He said holding his arms out for me, I immediately got up and went to him, letting him wrap his arms around me and start rubbing my back. "Shh, shh, it's okay."

A few minutes later we heard a knock on his door. I tried pulling away so whoever it was didn't walk in to see a student crying into a teacher's shoulder, but he kept me where I was. "It's okay doll." He said quietly before raising his voice so the person on the other side of the door could hear him. "It's open." I heard the door open and close before Jack spoke up again. "Lock the door."

"Oh my god." I heard Mikey say before he rushed over to take me from Jack. He sat down on the couch that was off to the side and pulled me into his lap, holding me as I cried.

"I've called your teacher, you're both excused from this class. If need be, I can excuse you from the next one as well." Jack said, taking the seat next to us.

"Thank you." Mikey said. I nodded, not trusting my voice. "You wanna talk to us now angel?" Mikey asked a while later, once I had calmed down quite a bit.

"I just, I don't know what I did. I didn't do anything wrong, and now he hates me. Why does he hate me?" I knew I was rambling, but I couldn't keep my thoughts organized.

"You didn't do anything wrong angel, it's all him. I want to tell you a little bit of a story, well it's not really a story, but just listen." Mikey started. Jack excused himself to call our next teacher as Mikey continued. "A few years ago, back when Gee was in high school. He and Frank weren't dating, this was before Frank moved here actually. Gee was dating this guy, I think his name was Ronnie, he seemed really sweet. He was always buying things for Gee, bringing him out on dates." Jack snuck back in, sitting back down next to us. He nodded, apparently familiar with this story already. "But Gerard started closing himself off from other people; friends, family, everyone. He started really only talking to his boyfriend, once in a while we'd see him chatting with his boyfriend's friends, but hardly with us anymore. Fast forward a little while and Frank had moved to town, started selling drugs. Well Gee and his boyfriend start going to Frank's to get high, and Gee starts getting really friendly with Frank. Like, just friendly, not friendly. Not long after that Gee comes home with bruises across half of his face, but no boyfriend, the boyfriend winds up moving. Do you know why I'm telling you all of this?" Mikey asked when he had finished.