Beside You - Ashton Irwin

8

After a lengthy presentation about 17th-century composers and the epitome of classical music, I could probably write 5 essays on why Bach, Pachelbel, Correlli and Vivaldi's iconic music from the Baroque time era should make a comeback. While walking to World History, I overhear Tori Banks opening her annoyingly large and Kylie Lip Kit covered mouth. "Her dad's a politician, aren't they supposed to like, be able to speak in front of crowds?" I do my best not to turn around and give her a piece of my mind when I hear another voice. "Maybe she's adopted?" 

I roll my eyes and try to continue listening to Eddie and Calum's heated debate about marine animals and how we should be doing a class fundraiser for them instead of fundraising for the school soccer team that Calum and Luke are on. "Who would adopt her though? Rory, are you even listening to what Becky and I are saying? Why are we even friends with you?" This statement interested me. This girl, I think her name was Rory, was going through the exact same thing that Diane and Karlie had done to me. The disposable one. I knew this because I had heard the same thing come from them. At this point, I felt slightly bad for Rory, since I had been in her position. A toxic friendship where she would be manipulated if she even thought of leaving the girls, and even if she did leave the friendship, she wouldn't have any other friends and would become a 'loser'. I'm not sure if that was specifically what was going through her head, But I knew what was going through mine when I would hang out with Diane.

I remember one year, it was Diane's birthday. Apparently she had the flu, so I baked and decorated a cake, made a birthday hamper box for her, and got my mom to drop me at her house to give it to her. When I rang on the doorbell no one came, but then I heard splashes, music and people laughing and screaming in joy. I went to the side gate and saw our entire grade, (obviously none of the weird people, so only Diane's popular friends, plus Karlie and Emora) Swimming and having fun. I dropped the cake and the hamper off at her front door and ran back to the car crying. 

So much for the Flu, Diane! I was only 14, but I decided I would still be friends with Dee, Karls and Em. A lot of these 'mistakes' happened through the years, but I ignored the red flags and stayed friends with them. I think one of the main reasons my innocent and oblivious self stayed with them was because they reminded me of my family. The conservative and disrespectful comments they made seemed normal to me since I had grown up in a family where it was ok to say those prejudiced things about other people. Now I look back on the gross, racist and homophobic comments my ex-friends made I know that it was horrible for them to say those things, and I was glad I was smart enough not to join in on their conversations of those topics, I had morals and beliefs that I knew where right because they weren't the same as my father's or Grandpas. 

I had known since that Christmas where Emilia had stood up to them that the sexist boundaries that they had at the table were wrong and misogynistic, so at 10 years old, after listening to my older cousin combat their ideas, I had decided two things. 1; that I would do everything in my power not to turn out like my dad or grandpa, and 2; cousin Emilia was a powerful, badass girl and she was now my idol and that I looked up to her and wanted to be like her when I was older. After my brother died and Eddie's side of the family moved away, we lost touch with our family in DC, I couldn't remember the last time I had a family Christmas with Grandpa and Gramma, or Emilia and her mother and father. I knew Emilia had become a human rights activist after graduating from Georgetown University and moved to England with her boyfriend, now fiancé. That was the last I had heard from my childhood Idol. It was unfortunate to lose touch with one of my favourite cousins, but alas, we can't have everything in life, and I now understood that moving to England, away from her family was Emilia's way of becoming independent and distancing herself from her parents.

Thankfully being stuck in my thoughts caused me to not realise when Tori and her friends had walked past. I looked down the corridor to where the boys and Eddie were hanging out at Eddie's locker. I walked up to them and tapped Eddie on the shoulder. She jumped as she turned around. "Oh my gosh, Andy you scared me. I almost had a heart attack!" the boys snickered at Eddie's words and she wacked Calum on the shoulder. I was beginning to think Eddie had a teeny weeny crush on Cal, but who could blame her, he seemed like a nice and funny guy, besides from the fact he accidentally started a rumour about me when I was crying to stay on a low profile. It obviously wasn't his fault he overheard Eddie and was a loudspeaker. I just realised how much of a pushover I was, I forgive people too easily, I need to work on not doing that.

We all walked as a group towards our world history class. "Ok, Andy, Mr Cooper is wack. He's a bit of a creep. He asks the weirdest questions, he has favourites, try not to annoy him because you'll end up in months detention like Ashton here." Mikey says to me, "Why did Ashton get a month's worth of detention? I never would have pegged you as the student teachers hate. Ash?" Ashton just looks at the floor, clearly embarrassed of his actions. "His mum is dating Mr Cooper, and he said some no so 'appropriate' things to him during class." I just nod my head and look in the other direction, unsure of how to console my new friend. What do you even say in a situation like this? 'I'm sorry your mom is dating your teacher?' No, 'It must suck to be in a situation like this?' No. 

This led me to question where Ashton's real dad was. Maybe his parents were like mine but actually divorced. I wasn't sure how to explain my parent's relationship nowadays. When I was younger they had a happy-go-lucky 'we're in love' relationship, with two perfect kids, one who would serve the country and do the family proud, and the other, a child prodigy. Even though my grades went considerably down during my sophomore year, that was a time that no one in my family talked about. I don't even know why I stopped putting effort into school. My child prodigies run out of brain juice sometimes? I'm not sure if that is a realistic way to say it, but I know that I just gave up because my brain didn't care about a future in academics or tertiary education. 

When my dad had found out my plans in sophomore year to not go onto a high education, he flipped. He hired 7 tutors, 1 for each subject I was failing, a game plan to get me into one of the top universities in America, and he made sure to remind me how disappointed everyone would be if their darling little Andrea 'stopped being smart.' And as that was said and done, the parent pleaser I had always been, came alive again and I worked my ass off to please my parents with grades, academic achievements and sports. I had never been really sporty. I had quit ballet when I was 12, because dancing definitely wasn't my calling, as much as I wanted it to be, I just wasn't cut out for the dance life. I decided to take up Basketball and Track since Diane was the basketball captain, and I wanted to be like Diane, I trained as hard as I could to be chosen to play for the school. Unfortunately, since Diane got to help pick the teams, I wasn't chosen. But when my dad heard about this, he paid the coach a fair amount of money so I could play. I knew it was wrong. But at that point, I couldn't care less.