Fading | discontinued

Chapter 26

Ashton walks slightly in front of me, our hands still connected. The pad of his thumb rubs against the back of my hand as we walk through the tunnel, the plane coming into view.

I squeeze his hand as I trail behind him. The beat of my heart increasing.

It's happening. It's really happening.

"What are you thinking?" Ashton asks nudging my shoulder.

"I'm thinking that this may be the most amazing thing to have happened to me," I smile staring at the large plane that is now in front of us.

"Well, I'll try to make it even more amazing," he smiles, as he presses his lips into my hair.

His strong arms wrap around my body as we walk up the steps to the plane.

I feel my tummy flip as we take our seats near the back.

"Have you ever been on a plane before?" Ashton whispers in my ear as we both settled in.

"No," I say weakly. He takes my hand and laces it with his.

"It's okay," he smiles. "And hey, you've got the window seat so that's pretty cool."

He smiles again as I rest my head on his shoulder.

"That's it, get some sleep," he says smoothing down my hair.

We sit in silence for a little bit before I feel the plane move.

My eyes snap open almost instantly and I grip onto Ashton's arm.

"Hey, hey it's okay," he giggles. "We are taking off." He laughs over the man on the speakers, and disapproving looks are thrown at us.

As I stare at him I realise how incredibly bizarre he is.

One moment his eyes are red and sore from crying, and the next they are alight with humour.

"You're so odd," I mutter to myself as I strap up my seatbelt.

I rest my head on the plane window and watch as the ground dissolves beneath us.

Ashton places his hand on my knee and smiles.

"Only about 9 hours to go!" He laughs.

I pick up the small tv guide and look through it.

"There's nothing to watch," I sigh turning to Ashton.

"What are you talking about? Look there's loads of movies!" He says pointing at the list of films.

"Okay, fine, there's nothing good to watch," I roll my eyes.

"Well then we can talk," he smiles.

"For nine hours?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.

"Yes," he smiles, turning to me. Every time he smiles, I fall for him a little more.

The seat belt sign goes off and we are told that it is now save to remove our belts.

I undo mine and stretch out my legs.

"How are you enjoying your first aeroplane flight?" Ashton asks as he takes my legs and pulls them onto his lap.

"It's okay, I guess," I smile nervously. "I'm waiting until we crash."

He laughs. "We're not gonna crash,"

"How do you know?"

"Because I do, okay?"

"Hmm,"

"Okay, let's make a bet, if we don't crash, I get to take you on a date,"

I smile slightly as I look at him. "And if we do, I'll see you in hell,"

"Of course, Cart," he smirks as he tangles his hands with mine.

"Sooo," I sigh. "Did you like it back in Australia?" I ask playing with one of the bracelets on his wrist.

"I did yeah," he smiles. "Well like the first part of my life, I guess," he sighs slightly. "It kinda went down hill then,"

I nod "I understand,"

"What about you?" He asks. "How was England?"

"I loved it when I was little," I reminisced over my childhood. "My brother and I would always be down by the beach, and we'd just walk around the town for hours." I stop briefly. "I remember this one time, I was like 7 and Ben was 11. And he like took me down to the caverns on the beach, and it was so beautiful."

"That sounds amazing," Ashton says softly.

"It really was." The memories of Ben were somehow intact, like they were in a completely different part in my brain. Away from bad memories. "It kinda changed after he- he left us. My mother worked a lot and my dad turned to substance abuse, which is common when you loose a child or someone very close to you. And my childhood stopped at the age of ten. My dad- he- he was an angry drunk. He would take it out on my mother and I- you know this is kinda bringing me down, can we change the subject?" I fake laugh.

"Of course," Ashton says rubbing the back of my hand. "Did you always want to do writing?"

"Yeah, it was always in the back of my mind. What about you, Ash? What did you want to do? Or what do you want to do?" I ask, looking him in the eyes.

"I wanted to do something with music," he smiled "I wanted to be in a band," he covers his face with his hands. "Ugh, don't laugh I know it's stupid."

I pull his hands away "it's not stupid to want to do something you enjoy," I say quietly, so he and only he can hear me. I lean closer to him "Okay?"

He nods, our noses brush slightly.

"God, Carter, you're amazing," he whispers.

"And so are you ash."

-

wow wow what a long wait for such a boring chapter! sorry it's short, and kinda bad. ive just not had the motivation to write idk, sorry! ilya! thank you so much for 5.6k reads it's so incredible! seriously, thank you so much, it means the world to me! -Caiti