Beside You - Ashton Irwin

11

I find it interesting how everyone gets more emotional before they go to sleep. I had stopped crying about everything a couple of hours after we got back to Eddie's house. It was currently 12 am and I still couldn't get to sleep. I crawled out of my bed and tip-toed downstairs towards the back door that slid open without a sound. I walked along the little pathway that leads to the beach. It was pitch black outside with the moon and hundreds of stars in the sky, which you never see in New York because of the pollution. I waltzed through the sand, imaginary music playing in my head. 

Nobody could see me. The breeze that flowed past my body was cold and after a while, I fell over into the sound and started laughing, trying to forget everything that was happening at my new school. To say today had been eventful was an understatement. "Nice dancing, Andy." I gasped and sat up, looking over my shoulder, only to spot Ashton walking towards me. "What song were you pretending to dance too? He asked. "California Dreamin' By The Mamas & The Papas. It's from the late 60s" He nodded and sat down next to me. "I like old music, no one else in our friend group does tho. It'll be nice to talk about with you, assuming that you do like old music... right?" I nodded. "Yeah... it was my brother and my thing, we always danced to music from the 70s." He looked at me, confused. "You- didn't you say to Pippa that you didn't have any siblings?" I turned my head away from him and looked at the ocean. 4 years later and talking about Anthony still hurt.

"His name was Anthony Gomez Pentworth, he was 5 years older than me. He was a Marine Corp. He died in Afghanistan." Ashton leaned over and embraced me. "I-I'm so sorry Andy... I know what losing someone is like. My dad left my family when I was really young." I looked at him. I wanted to yell at him and say his dad wasn't dead and that he got to say a proper goodbye to his dad. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. "I'm sorry about your dad, Ash." I buried my head in his neck. "And I'm sorry about your shirt, It has mascara all over it." He laughed lightly. "I don't care about my shirt, Andy. It's ok."

I nodded and smirked into his neck. "C-can you not tell the others about my brother, since everyone just found out about my dad... you don't believe the rumours about me being a bitch right?" He shook his head. "No, I don't. Neither does Luke, Mikey and Cal. Even though we met today, we all know you're not the type of person too, and I quote, 'stuff your money down someone's throat." I smiled slightly at Ash. "I know who tweeted that actually. My ex-friend who treated me like trash. Her and my other 2 friends only kept me around because I was rich and had connections." He nodded slowly. "You know, no one around here is super-rich. Wait, why are you super-rich, and Eddie's family isn't. I don't think politicians make that much?" 

I knew this question would pop up. "You know how Eddie had to move from DC to here for her Dad's job? Well, that is partly a lie. Her mom is my Dad's sister, and that side of the family is super conservative-Christan, they're all old racist and homophobic dead-beats, well my Grandpa who I despised died like 5 years ago, so he is really dead, but anyway, they basically exiled her mom, Laura, for marrying Vano, since he was an immigrant, I don't know why they didn't exile my dad, since my mum is a second-generation Hispanic from Mexico, that will forever be a mystery, well continuing on, my Grandpa stopped giving money to Laura and cut her out of the will, he was a borderline sociopath honestly, he always played favourites with my cousins, Anthony always being the favourite. 

"Then Vano got a job transfer and they all moved to Australia when Eddie was 10, my family came to visit them for a few weeks after Anthony died, we were in need of a break from New York, we needed to push our problems away, so we came here when I was 13."Ashton nodded his head at me. "Wait, so you're half Mexican?" I started laughing. "Me being half Mexican is the only thing that was interesting about my reel on Eddie's side of the family, and how shitty my entire family is!" He nodded with an attempt at a solemn face, but he ended up laughing. "Can you speak Spanish then?" I shake my head at him. "No, I'm extremely whitewashed, to my mother's disappointment." 

We both looked at each other, I could see the moon in his eyes. I had only just realised how close we were together, Ashton seemed to notice this and turned his head away. The moment was nice while it lasted. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it but there may have been butterflies in my stomach. "You should go to sleep Andy," Ashton says after a few moments of silence, both of us finding the ocean at night incredibly interesting. "Yeah, I might." I looked at Ashton as I stood up, about to walk away. "Hey, Ashton?" He looked up at me. "Why were you walking on the beach at midnight?" 

He looked at the sand, "I like walking on the beach at night. I only live a few houses up that way you know." I nodded and turned away. "Hey, Andy?" I turned back at Ashton. "You have pretty eyes." I smiled to myself. "You have pretty eyes too Ashton." I saw a faint smile on his lips before I turned away. "Goodnight Andy." I turned back one last time, "Night Ash." I faced towards the house once again and walked back to the secret path that would take me back to Eddie's house.

I snuck back into the house, closed the sliding door, then tip-toed back upstairs then into Eddie's room. Thank god she was still fast asleep. I brushed off the little bit of land left on my feet with my hand then climbed back under the covers. "Sneaking out to the beach at midnight, Andy, tut-tut," Eddie whispered to me. "Ha Ha Eddie. Go back to sleep. You didn't see anything." "Oh but I did, I saw you and a special someone sitting together. And I know that that 'special someone' was Ashton Irwin. You owe me the details in the morning. Now, let's sleep or you'll have to deal with cranky Edina." I laughed quietly at this and rolled onto my other side. "Night Eddie."