Bright Horizon - Ashton Irwin au

~ Chapter 2 ~

I told my mom I'm sleeping at a friend's house and as expected she had opinions on that and she wasn't afraid to shout them out all over the house for the next 3 hours.

It's the last day of junior year and Alex from my pre-calc class is having a party for most of the year and it's absolutely certain that the one group of cheeky freshmen are gonna try and crash it. I won't say I hate freshmen but it's hard not to when they insist on going to parties they have no business being and then getting way too drunk, way too quick so someone has to take care of them.

Freshmen or not, my mom would never allow me to go to a party but it's not like she's the best at keeping an eye on where I am anyway but the keep the peace in the house so a bit of lying usually is necessary.

Alex's house is big like it's really big. My dear old blue Maruti Suzuki 800 almost gave out on the way up to the viewpoint of Cape Maglow next to Alex's 'house' and Luke and Luke's friend Mike cheered it on the whole way while we were blasting Green Day with the windows down and the wind in our hair.

I think about exactly this as I'm leaning my back against the cold bars of the heavy metal gate taking drag after drag of a cheap cigarette. I don't take note of a girl stumbling out the front door and up to the other end of the gate. I don't think about how she leans against it or how she actually doesn't look like she's having much fun at all and I don't worry about her being too drunk until I see her empty her stomach out of the corner of my eye. That's when I look up at her and she sees me.

I don't know what else I can do for her right now so I offer her a cigarette out of the nearly empty packet and she gracelessly accepts. Even though she claims she doesn't smoke and I tell her that neither do I.

She is clearly too drunk to be making sense but she's funny and I'm bored so I guess we'll have a chat. I tell her that my day was rough, not expecting her to care.

"Wanna talk about it? I find talking to strangers much easier than talking to friends." She looks as if what she just said to me was a completely normal thing to say, and not actually a piece of strangely good advice. I try to appear as if her words didn't just take me by surprise.

"Yeah?" is all I manage to reply, still trying to catch her eyes. She just nods and looks off.

I spent that summer working. Working, going to the parties, sitting at home, and avoiding my mom. Occasionally Luke would come over and wed play Mario cart or attempt at some football in the garden but the heat made it nearly impossible to enjoy any physical activity that didn't include staying inside.

My acne went crazy because of the fryers in the greasy industrial kitchen but I still convinced a nice girl usually stationing the drive-thru, to hang out with me a couple of times. Nothing ever happened though. We got bored of each other pretty quick, so I was almost relieved when August came to an end and senior year approached.

Almost.

I had been thinking about the conversation with the girl from the end of the year party before summer started. I know we are in the same year but I've never spoken to her before.

I have no idea what compelled me to tell her about my problems but I have theorized that it was because she was so drunk she nearly couldn't stand, let alone remember what I'd told her. But I remember.

An especially uneventful day in mid-July, I had formulated a plan for how to get to meet her again.

I texted Michael to find out if he knew who she was but he only knew that she hangs out with a guy he usually gets along with at parties and that's how far I got before I pushed it out of my mind for all of August.

In short, I spent the summer working, going to the parties I was invited to (or that Luke and I chose to crash), trying to get laid, and staring into the abyss.

But as it does, September rolled around and I am pulling up to in front of Luke's large, well-kept lawn leading up to the massive villa in my small, blue Maruti Suzuki 800, at 8:38 am on the first day back.

Initially, I wasn't nervous about going back to school but as we got closer I feel a pit in my stomach grow. I make the mistake of looking at the clock and seeing it read 8:53.

"The warning bell rang 5 minutes ago dude, step on it". Luke smacks me gently on the shoulder as he tells me this as if I wasn't aware.

"Oh sorry I forgot, for Luke Hemmings, school starts before the actual bell has even rung" I laugh at his constant need to be on time but he shoots me an exaggerated scowl and mutters, "You're just jealous that I have better grades and frankly, career prospects than you". I laugh him off. It's true after all as fun as he is, Luke really cares about school in a way that is rare for a teenager. His sense of direction is something I have desperately hoped would rub off on me but so far I've had no such luck.

The 'first day of school' assembly is as long and boring as ever. It ends 5 minutes into our first 10-minute break of the day so I almost sprint to Spanish where I'm absolutely excellent at pretending to understand what Mrs. Parsons is trying so desperately to teach us.

History isn't much better. I have just enough time to dread it before I walk in the classroom and sit down at a desk somewhere in the middle of the room.

I don't see her come in, and I don't see her sitting down at the table next to me because if I had I wouldn't have been able to focus on the first 20 minutes of World War 1.

One period of English left and then Band. I leave the classroom as soon as the bell rings, much to the dismay of Mr. Miller.

I find Luke at a table in the cafeteria with the boy, Mike and some of our other classmates. As Luke sees me he stands up and points both his hands at me while belting an impressively loud "EYYY" at me across the entire room. I flip him off before quickly making my way to the table.

"So it turns out Mike and I have, like 3 subjects together so I thought the only decent thing to do was to invite him to have lunch with us." Luke grins as soon as I'm within normal speaking distance.

"Hey Mike, good to see you again man, how was your summer." Mike and I have talked many times before and I immediately go to his side of the table to greet him.

Mike just shrugs at that and sighs, "ah not too bad, not too bad, got a good deal of gaming done and such. And by the way Luke it's 4 subjects we have together."

I laugh teasingly at the embarrassed expression on Luke's face, completely missing the same look on Mike's.

We finish our lunch, laughing at Al and Holly as they joke around and eventually spill a full bottle of water all over the table, and I spend the whole English class trying to distract Luke. Don't get me wrong, I care about school, but sometimes repetition of last year can get extremely hard to focus on.

When I am finally home I go directly to my room to lie on my bed. My goodness, I hope this year is kind to me. I really need it.