rain ⋙ ashton irwin

vii

slamming her locker shut, arabella sighed heavily and swung her backpack over her shoulder. it was friday and the week was finally over, but she was far from excited. for the past month arabella was happy for once. even with her dad coming and going and her terrible self esteem, she managed to look past all of that to have a fun time. being the person that she was, it would be weird to say that ashton was probably the reason for her happiness, but it was. you're supposed to make yourself happy, isn't that true?

in arabella's case it wasn't.

however, ever since rose's sudden change of character ara has been on edge. she spent all of monday night thinking about her so called 'advice.' in the end arabella thought, why would i listen to rose? she has no authority over me, and i don't have to listen to her. simple as that. i can decide for myself whether or not i want to speak with ashton or not.

despite her decision to keep hanging around ashton, she wasn't able to. ashton had been absent tuesday, wednesday, thursday, and friday. arabella searched the school each day for her new friend, but he was nowhere to be found. at lunch no one spoke of his absence and she felt like it would be uncomfortable if she brought it up, so of course she didn't. ara even went to the measures of going to the tutoring center and the library after school each day, but he was never there.

she wouldn't admit it, but it tore arabella. she finally found a new friend. she had no idea how it even happened, but she was comfortable talking to ashton and it was still hard for her to grasp the idea that they were good friends. but now? he was obviously avoiding her, and arabella spent the last several nights wondering what she had done wrong.

she couldn't think of anything she had said that would anger him, and it killed her not knowing what she did to push him away so quickly. all of the fun she had in the previous weeks was crushed after these four stupid days.

arabella had just stepped off the school grounds when a voice called her.

"ara!" she smiled at the use of her nickname, and turned to see calum running up behind her. not even ashton gave her a nickname.

"hey cal," she replied as he began walking beside her. he looked down at her and smiled, fixing the straps on his backpack.

"are you walking home?"

"yeah, why?"

"i'll walk with you," he smiled kindly, putting his hands in his pockets. arabella grinned gratefully. it was so boring walking home alone. "so, what's new?"

"nothing, really," she sighed, glancing up at him. "anything new with you?"

"well i got paired for an english assignment with ashton yesterday, but he hasn't been here at all this week except for monday," he said. calum suddenly regretted bringing up ashton in front of ara. pushing back his anger towards his stupid curly-haired friend, he looked at arabella cautiously.

"yeah, that's weird he's been absent for four days in a row. have you talked to him at all?" she asked as they walked into downtown. she tried as hard as she could to pretend that it didn't bother her at all.

"i texted him yesterday about our project, but he didn't reply," he muttered. calum picked up his head and glanced carefully into the tutoring center as they walked past it, but no one appeared to be in the window. he looked back at arabella and noticed her gaze had passed over the tutoring center as well. "do you know about it?" he raised an eyebrow.

somehow arabella knew exactly what he was talking about and nodded her head. "i've been helping him out, too. well, i haven't at all this week," she sighed. arabella missed spending time with her only current friend.