"Okay so you have everything?" Cate said while hugging me.
"I didn't have anything to start off with." I laughed.
"Right, right." She said while watching me get into Ashton's truck. We walked back to get it earlier in the morning and brought it back to Cate and Michael's place. We stayed a little bit longer but knew it was time to go. We couldn't stay in one place. We didn't want to.
"Call me when you can. I gave you that phone for a reason, don't waste it." She said while pointing towards the phone she gave me earlier that morning. "No one can track you I promise." She said while hugging me through the window one last time. "Promise me we will see each other soon." She said while waving and backing up towards Michael. "Yes, I promise." I said while Ashton put the truck in reverse. I rolled my window up and scooted towards Ashton.
We drove for a couple hours when Ashton started to get droopy eyed. I kissed his shoulder while whispering to him to pull the car over. "So I have been thinking that maybe we should stop running." He softly said while pulling into a parking lot.
"Ash, we can't." I said while sitting up and pulling my hair into a pony tail to get the tangles out of my face.
"No, we can't stop running. But we can stop stealing. I can't have you get caught. I don't know what I would do. I don't care about me. I care about you. I'd rather us be with a group of people then be stuck running with barely any money." He said and I saw his eyes start to water. "I barely have enough money for gas now. We are running out and we can't go home yet. We need help." He said and wiped at his cheeks.
"Ash, I can call Luke. He will bring us money. You know he will. We will tell him to leave it somewhere and we will go get it." I said while my heart raced not knowing what Ashton was saying.
"No. I can't take money from my best friend. Do you know how embarrassing that is. Do you know what it is like to not be able to pay someone back. Elissa we need to stop running." He said now with tears streaming down his face.
"Ash, whats wrong. This is more than just us running out of money." I said while placing a leg on each side of his body so that my back was pushed up against the steering wheel. "Ash, look at me." I said while trying to get him to look me in the eyes. He just kept moving his head so that I couldn't look into his eyes. He knew I would figure it out just by looking in his eyes. I knew him too well.
"Elissa, I don't want to run anymore." He said again.
"Ashton, I was just saying the same thing a few days ago. What has changed your mind?" I said while finally making eye contact with him. I wiped away his tears that were laying on his cheeks. I kissed his nose and then nudged it with mine. "Please tell me whats wrong." I said while stroking his hair back running my fingers through the curls.
"I think I saw him." He said while bringing his palms to his eyes and rubbing them.
"Ashton, no. You couldn't have. We have left no tracks." I said while removing his hands from his eyes. They were bloodshot and I could tell that he has been crying for a while now and that he must have been thinking about this while we were driving.
"It wasn't actually him. It was one of his friends. I was at that mini mart and it wasn't that I got caught. I saw him and I ran. I tried to keep stuff in my hands and I tried to keep myself controlled when I got in the car. I tried to convince myself it wasn't him. But I saw his face when he saw who I was." He said and I felt my heart drop to my stomach. My hand when to my mouth and I knew it was true. Ashton doesn't like to worry me so he must be absolutely sure he saw him.
"Which one was it?" I whispered.
"The one that did it." He said and I knew exactly who it was.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"I swear I have no clue what you are talking about." I said while standing in front of one of David's asshole friends. "This is between you an who ever did it. Not me." I said while crossing my arms and trying to look a little tougher than I actually am.
"This is actually between me and your stupid boyfriend." He said while clenching his teeth.
"He hasn't been in school for 3 days after what you did to him with David and those other assholes." I said thinking back to how rough Ashton looked after the fight. I cleaned his face and body up. He refused to make eye contact with me until I kissed his cheek trying to distract him from the pain of me touching his wounds. He then looked up at me and kissed my nose and then continued looking at the wound I was cleaning on his stomach.
"Evelyn." The kid said while snapping in my face.
"For fucks sake." I mumbled while trying to walk away from him.
"So are you not going to confess to smashing my car?" He said while stalking towards me with a smirk on his face.
"No because I didn't do it and either did Ashton because he can barely get out of bed because you guys beat him so badly." I said as I finally made it past the kid who's named I didn't even bother to remember. I mean he doesn't even know mine. I grabbed my keys out of my bag and walked towards my car. I looked up when I got to the car and saw my windows bashed in and hurtful sayings written all over the doors in spray paint. Was this really necessary. I asked myself as my eyes started to water. We didn't even do anything wrong. Ashton only told the kid to stop annoying me in chemistry class. He didn't even hurt the guy. I kicked my car as I sank to the ground and cried.
"Oh did I say my car. I meant yours." The same kid said as he walked by me with David and the others with paint cans in their hands and all sprayed my car once again. I looked up when I felt something spray onto me. The kid was standing above me and sprayed paint all over my shirt while David sprayed it into my hair from the back.
"What the hell did we ever do to you." I said as I covered my face with my hands. "What did I ever do?" I said as I cried some more. "Baby you don't even know the half of it." The kid said while walking over to my car and writing SLUT in big letters over the windshield and then threw the can at my feet. I was left there sitting in paint and dried tears as the kids got into David's car and drove away.
