teeth → l.h

chapter fourteen;

"You know you still have to tell him you were almost pregnant, right?" Calum states. "He deserves to know that you're for sure not, since he's still worried about it because we were all completely convinced you were."

Helena sighs. "I don't want to freak him out. What if he freaks out?" She looks over to Ashton. "Is it not better to just leave it alone so I don't accidentally fuck things up between him and Sierra?"

"No." Ashton gives Helena a sad smile. "You need to tell him. And you need to actually talk to him, too. Y'all were best friends and you barely talk anymore and it's not fair to anyone."

"It's not my fault he decided to get another girlfriend." Helena huffs as she lays back on the bed. "And how the fuck am I supposed tell him something like that? Hey, up until like two hours ago I was one-hundred percent convinced I was pregnant with your kid and it's all good now but I was really freaking out for a bit there. Hey Sierra! Sorry this is how you had to find out I fucked your boyfriend."

Calum sighs. "Look, you know each other better than anything; this shouldn't be something you have to hide from him. If you'd almost gotten knocked up from anyone else, he'd be the first person you told."

"I know," Helena swallows. "But this is different from us just fucking up and needing a plan b. This was being terrified of all the prenatal vitamins at the store and watching all the moms with their babies. For a bit there I thought it was actually happening, you know? Weird ass kid with my nose and his eyes running around."

Ashton frantically sits up, turning to look down at Helena as a horrified look washes over his face. "You've had more than one pregnancy scare?" He half-shrieks, and Helena remembers that Ashton had, thus far, been blissfully unaware of the fact that Luke and Helena were not a one time thing.

"Right, you didn't know about us." Helena sits up. "We were kind of together. Not really, we just-"

Ashton scoffs. "I already knew about y'all, I'm just concerned with the fact that neither of you have any idea how to use contraceptives."

Helena wants to die. Of course he knew, of course he fucking knew-

"How the hell did you know?" Calum looks over to Ashton as Helena glares at him. He knows he one-hundred percent said nothing to Ashton- Luke and Helena would've killed him.

Ashton shrugs. "I figured it out in 2015, y'all aren't very good at hiding it. I also figured your being pissed the entire summer of 2016 when Luke was with Arzaylea had a deeper meaning than you let on."

"I was also just pissed because she was a piece of shit." Helena huffs. "You seriously knew and never said anything?" Of course he never said anything. We've been running around in circles for years hiding this from him and of course he knew the whole time of course-

Ashton laughs. "The fuck was I supposed to say? It was none of my business."

Ashton lets out a soft groan as he rolls over, burying his head under his pillow as he questions why he bought an apartment with such thin walls. Luke, for some god-forsaken reason, had a girl in his room and Ashton wanted to die so badly; partially because he was jealous of whoever it was with Luke, but also because it was the middle of the night and neither of them would shut the fuck up.

By one o'clock, Ashton has read Taylor swift at full volume in his headphones because it's his comfort album and by god, does he need comfort. It wasn't even sex, which was the worst part to Ashton, it was laughter- howling laughter- and Ashton would prefer it to be sex noises because he knew Luke would at least attempt to be quiet if it were that.

By two-thirty though, Ashton needed to be up for school in four hours and he was prepared to murder his roommate and whoever the fuck he was with. Ashton throws his blankets aside- quite dramatically- and storms out his room. His hand is on the doorknob when his breath catches in his throat and he feels his heart fall out of his chest.

"Ash can't hear us, right?"

"No. If he could, he'd be in here now yelling at me for sleeping with his sister."

Ashton practically dies right then and there (he actually just stumbles back into his room and gasps for air as he collapses back onto his bed). He pulls the covers entirely over himself, immediately shutting his eyes and pretending he didn't hear what he just did.

He really can't decide which is worse- Luke moving on, or Ashton's little sister being the one Luke did it with. After a few days of recovering from the horrifying visual images, Ashton decides Luke moving on is worse. No closure, nothing, done. Moved on.

"So Calum didn't tell you?" Helena raises an eyebrow at Ashton. Calum was right, Helena was ready to kill him before Ashton explained that he's known for five years. It's on brand though, Ashton hiding things. It's an Irwin tradition by now.

Ashton furrows his brows. "You knew and you hid it from me?" He looks over to Calum. He's honestly pretty offended that Calum didn't tell him. It didn't matter since he already knew, but Calum is horrible at keeping secrets.

"They made me swear not to." Calum says awkwardly.

Helena sighs. "It doesn't matter who knows now, I don't give a fuck." She's getting sick of talking about her dead non-relationship with Luke. And not that it mattered anymore , but she'd finally accepted the fact that she's been in love with him since she was 18, so she kind of just wanted things to stop for once.