Torn

Chapter 3//Call It What You Want

4 December 2014

“He was just so stupid you know? Why can't I find anyone smart?” Miya sighed. Not looking up from my sketch pad, I nodded in agreement. The thing about my best friend is, she hates dating people with a lower IQ than her. She's this super smart person and anyone that isn't on her level isn't good enough. Finding a guy, for her, was as hard as walking on water. Although she went out with a tonne of guys, labeling her the genius slut for our last year of school, she never found anyone good enough. Which would lead her to dump whatever group of friends she had and make new ones. I was the only one to stay and so I would be dragged around from group to group, not staying long enough to make any friends of my own. I so hoped this time would be different.

“I don't know Mi, maybe stop looking at parties? Smart kids like you usually go to the comic store or the library,” I started sketching her eye, glancing up every so often to look at her.

“But they're never attractive,” She sighed again, leaning forward. I near threw the sketch pad at her. Why I was drawing her was beyond me. She had a way of talking me into it and would then constantly move when I finally agreed.

“You know, maybe you just don't look in the right places. I've seen tonnes of attractive guys in book stores,” A bad move on my part, saying that.

“Oh really? We'll check some out tomorrow,”

“Sure,” I nodded, totally in an uninterested sort of way. I had planned on staying in and finishing off my Art assignment for Uni. That probably wasn't about to happen any time soon. Miya managed to stay silent while I finished off the drawing, which was a complete first for her. Throughout the entire day I spent with her, not once did she apologise for leaving me. Again.

++

When my best friend told me we were going to every book store in the suburbs of Sydney, I didn't expect her to want to start at 10 a.m. I'm one of those people that enjoys a good lie in and on Saturdays, I generally don't get up until 12-ish. So my day started with having only gotten 5 hours of sleep, due to having to at least start my art assignment. Miya then wanted to leave straight away and I had no time to make myself semi-attractive so I had to leave the house with bed head, a sweater with holes in it and paint splattered jeans. I was a vision to say the least. We had no luck in the first seven we went to but Miya wasn't giving up, as much as I wanted her to. She was on a mission to find her perfect guy and not even I could stop her. The tenth one we visited was one were my art class friend (I know shocker, Avery has more than one friend) Mikah Free worked part-time to pay for University and so, why Miya stalked every guy in the store, I stood at the counter with her. Mikah was from Cuba and so had the exotic good looks I wish I had. She looked like she could be a model, although she was far too shy and loved food far too much. No matter what she wore, she still looked perfect. Even without make-up, she still looked flawless. I was unbelievably jealous of her.

“So what's she doing now?” Mikah looked up from her book long enough to notice Miyah eyeing up a blond boy a few metres down from us.

“Trying to find a smart and attractive boyfriend,” I shook my head. This was such a stupid idea.

“She's got the right idea, eyeing up him then,” She sounded bored, I didn't blame her. The store was near empty, only three or so other people browsing the shelves.

“Whys that?” I looked back at him. He had his back to us, so I had no idea what he looked like.

“He's both smart and attractive. His names Luke, comes in now and again to buy science and math books,”

“Hm,” He sounded perfect for Miya, who was an uber science geek. The door of the store chimed, signalling somebody had just come in. I looked up and sighed, closing my eyes. I was certain he was following me.

“Avery? Fancy seeing you here!” Calum walked up to us and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into an awkward side hug.

“Are you stalking me?” I asked him, once he'd released me.

“It's just faith, how we keep meeting randomly,”

“Nice to see you again Calum,” Mikah looked up again and gave him a smile, before looking back down at her book.

“Mikah,” He nodded at her before looking back at me. “So what brings you to this amazing book store?”

“What do you think?” I looked back at Miya, who was now talking to this Luke person. She seemed to be interested in what he was saying, which was a first.

“She's chatting up Luke,” Calum actually looked surprised. The door chimed again and in walked Ashton, who looked as perfect as usual. I almost swooned when he smiled at me. Almost. “Ashton, Miya Jones is chatting up Luke,”

“What?” Ashton looked confused but, upon seeing the scene in front of him, his expression matched Calum's. “How long has he had a crush on her?”

“Like, 3 years maybe? Since Aleisha anyway,”

“Wait, you guys know that Luke kid?”

“Have you even Googled our band?” Calum looked offended. “Luke is the lead singer,”

“No way, Miya is going to love that,”

“Avery,” I looked behind me to see Miya grinning at me like a mad woman. “I'm going for coffee with Luke, I'll see you tomorrow,” with a wave from both her and Luke, they left.

++

It took me a while to process what had just happened because, honestly, I was shocked he'd asked her out that quickly. Then, I realised she'd left me. Again. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What?” Ashton looked concerned, bless him.

“I'm actually going to murder her. She was my ride home,”

“Dude, you need to learn how to drive,” Calum shook his head.

“Learning how to drive is not my main concern at this current moment in my life,” I was trying not to get mad, I really was, but Miya always did this and I was getting sick of it.

“C'mon, I'll give you a ride home,” Ashton jerked his head towards the door and I honestly wanted to hug him right then and there. He was the sweetest person, he really was.

“You don't even live that far away,” Then there was Calum, who was a little shit. I hadn't even known them that long but I could already tell I liked Ashton more than Calum.

“Thank you Ashton,” I completely ignored Calum's comment and followed Ashton outside. Calum had no choice but to follow us. We had to drop Calum off first, according to Ashton, so it'd take a little longer to drop me hope. I got to sit in the front, much to my displeasure. Sitting so close to Ashton made me a little (maybe a lot) nervous and I had no idea why. I knew nothing about this guy, other than the fact that his smile was probably my favourite thing on the planet. It was contagious and I liked contagious smiles. I liked Calum's smile too, don't get me wrong, and he smiled a lot too. Just, there was something about Ashton that I really liked.

“You're sitting shotgun, so you get to pick the music,” Ashton said, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at me.

“Are you kidding me?” Calum moaned from the back seat. He looked uncomfortable and I tried to hold back a laugh.

“Whatcha got?” I asked. Ashton opened the glove compartmant in front of me, revealing a massive selection of CDs. I pulled a few of bands that I liked out and scanned through them, before deciding on oldschool Green Day.

“Wow, you actually have good taste in music,” Calum sound shocked. I reached my arm around behind the chair and gave him the finger. “Classy,”

“Not liking Green Day is like not liking Vegemite, its weird and unnatural,”

“You, I like you,” Ashton gave me a nod of approval and I knew, right then, I had been accepted into the weird world of 5 Seconds of Summer.

 ___________________________________

Hey guys! This was kinda... not really much of a great chapter but I tried my best with what I had and here we are.. 

Song of the chapter is Call It What You Want by Foster The People and the photo is of the ever so beautiful Mikah Free!