fading memories || Ashton Irwin

The double date

"You're an amazing writer," I heard Ashton call from the bedroom.

"What?"

"You're an amazing poet babe," I heard the slight flipping of a page.

Fuck.

I stuck my head around the corner of the bathroom door, to see if what I assumed was true, it was. He was sitting on our bed, with my flaking black journal laying on his lap; it's contents including random pieces of teared paper sprawled around him.

"What are you doing!" I said with more force than I intended to. No one was to ever read that book, yeah my highschool best friend read glimpses here and there, but there were certain things I wrote down that I wouldn't want anyone to see. Lately the pages have been filled with colours and the way they swirl together. More recently feelings, and how my brain is a complicated mixture of them all. But at one stage the pages would be stained with ink, scribbled by blury eyes, blinded by anger and tears.

I quickly scrambled all the papers together and slammed them into the small book. Ashton's eyes didn't leave the paper in his hands. Shit. Did he read the poems I wrote about him, even though we've been 'together' for almost 9 months, if never really told him how I felt. But if he read the poems he would know how I really felt about him, and how stupidly in love I was with him.

A slight smile crept across his lips as he shoved the paper into my hands and wrapped me in his arms. I pulled away and stared at my messy writing scribbled across the page

'I can't tell if im shaking because of the alchohol coursing through my veins, or the freezing air nipping away at my skin. But oh god, every time i think of your soft lips pressed against my pale, icy body, I can't stop'

"who's that about hmm," Ashton let out a small giggle, cupped my cheeks in his hand and pressed his lips against my lips, then against my cheek, then against my neck, "you aren't shaking yet babe"

I brushed him off, "come on Ash, we have to get ready."

"One more", he kissed me again with more passion then before but pulled away shortly after, his hands remained planted on my cheeks and he looked directly into my eyes, "I love you Kat".

"I love you too Ash,"

We had made plans to have lunch with one of Ashton's old friends from highschool and his partner. We decided to go mainly because ever since we got together we haven't gone anywhere with anyone besides us. I made Ashton dress a little more presentable, instead of his usual ripped jeans and worn jumper, I made him wear a nice short-sleeved button up shirt, however he kept the ripped jeans, even after much arguing.

*****

"So we're walking down the street in the middle of a pride parade, and this one just passes out, like completly blacks out," Ashtons friend, Michael, continued, "and im like standing over him trying to lift him up because there is this 6 foot drag queen wearing like 10 inch stripper heals walking towards us, and at this point im pissed off at him because he is such a lightweight but he managed to clear half of the bottle of vodka"

"I am not a lightweight!" Michaels boyfriend, Luke, butted in.

"Shut up babe," he waved his hand infront of Lukes face, "anyway, long story short, that is how i ended up carrying Luke home with a black eye because Luke threw up on a drag queens shoes."

By the end of the story Ashton and I were crippled over and red faced because of laughter, Luke on the other hand looked like he was trying to sink into the chair he was sitting in. Michael leaned over and whispered what i could only assume was an appology to Luke which caused him to smile and kiss Michael.

I spent the rest of lunch bonding with Luke over poetry, art and nature, while Ashton and Michael laughed about fart jokes, or whatever they found so ammusing. Luke and I were quite similar, both of us always carry around a notebook around with us basically everywhere, however instead of words, Luke filled the pages with pictures, the way in which he could capture the images he saw was almost intoxicating, it was beautiful.

"So how long have you and Michael been together?"

"2 years," Luke squeezed Michaels hand which he held under the table, "and you two?"

"9 months,"

"I could've sworn it were longer, you guys act like you've known eachother for years"