Beside You - Ashton Irwin

14

After 2 days of watching movies, swimming and lazing around, it was Thursday. And since Auntie Laura was sick of us being couch potatoes and ditching school, we donned our white polos and scratchy skirts and grumpily climbed into Eddie's car and pulled out of the driveway. "We can do this Andy, trust me. Just ignore anyone who talks trash, ok?" I nodded at Eddie as we stepped out of her car that was in dire need of an oil change. Eddie grabbed my hand as we walked into school. 

A few people gave us an odd look but I brushed it off. That was until we bumped into Tori Banks #2. "Dating your cousin isn't cool, Clarke. It's fucking gross." We both scoffed at Becky's comment. "What the fuck, Richards?" Becky turned around to see Mikey, Luke and Ashton behind her. It was obvious her guard went down for a split second but then she fixed her posture and scrunched her nose looking at all of us. "Rebecca Richards? Michael Clifford? What was that repulsive language?" We stared Mr Cooper in the eye, as Ashton gave him a death glare. "It was nothing, Mr Cooper." He stared at us for a bit longer then turned on his heel and walked away. God, he is bipolar.

By the time we reached the period before lunch, our whole group was exhausted. Thank god we were all in the same chemistry class. "Now students, you're going to need to pair up for your lab experiment." As I had assumed, Calum and Eddie were lab partners. Surprisingly, Luke wanted to partner with me, I said yes since I hadn't talked to him as much as the other boys. I looked over at Ashton, who was sitting with Mikey, as Mikey tried to tip the sodium thiosulfate on the table. I'm not sure if I was imagining it, but Ashton looked upset. I would have to remember to ask him about that later. 

"You are going to measure the exothermic nature of the freezing process. You will all melt the sodium thiosulfate and then measure the temperature changes as it cools and freezes." The teacher sat back at her desk, leaving a bunch of idiots to mess around with a toxic chemical that can cause nausea and hypernatremia. "Hey, Luke?" He looked up from messing around with the chemical. "Do you think Calum likes Eddie, like 'like likes' her?" Luke rolled his eyes as he looked back at Cal and Eddie. "It's kinda obvious that they both like each other. Also, 'like like'? What, are we in 3rd Grade?" I laughed at this and began the experiment.

As it turns out, it wasn't Miss Ostern's smartest idea to leave 26, 17-year-olds to their own devices for a whole lesson. A boy named Alex Chester had been dared to eat some of the sodium thiosulfates, and was now in the nurse's office, waiting to be taken home. Miss Ostern had given us all a stern warning as we walked out of the classroom and headed towards lunch. Luke and I were the only pair who successfully completed the experiment. Much to Mikey's dismay, neither of us would give him our results. We walked over to our lunch table outside and sat down. 

Eddie pulled out some of the cookies we had baked when we weren't at school and handed them around to everyone. At that moment Sahara North from our homeroom walked over to our table. "Hey guys, hey Eddie, the environment club is having a fundraiser for marine life, and we were wondering if you would like to help?" Eddie gasped and smiled. "Of course, I would love to. See Cal! This is a fundraiser worth doing, not that stupid one for you guys' soccer team." Eddie jumped up and followed Sahara inside the building. "Well, who wants to go kick a footy around?" Luke ran off, followed by Mikey and Ash. "Just you and me, Pentworth." 

I nodded as I finished eating my cookie. "Cal... I have a question for you." He nodded, waiting for me to continue. "Do you 'like like' someone right now?" He blushed and looked down. So I took that as a yes. And I had a sneaking suspicion that he liked Eddie. And my sneaking suspicions were always right. "Are you going to do anything about it?" He nodded as he continued to look down at his shoe. "That's cool you know. I think this 'person' likes you too." He looked at me confusingly for a split second but then looked back at the ground.

I walked out of the school gate alone that afternoon as Eddie had a meeting with the environment club. The only thing I hadn't thought about was how the hell I was supposed to get home. I guess I could walk, but that would take possibly half an hour since converse weren't the comfiest shoes to walk long distances in. Just as I walked across the road, I heard a horn beep next to me. I looked up to see Mikey in the driver's seat and Ashton in the passenger seat. "You need a ride, Pentworth?" 

I was starting to honestly get sick of the last name Pentworth, but I nodded and walked over to Mikey's car. "Get in, Andy." I hopped in the car and did the seat belt up. "Hey guys, thanks so much for the ride. I completely forgot to ask Laura to pick me up today, and I think Landon has hockey tonight anyways." Mikey nodded as he focused on the road. "Do you have a license, Ash?" He shook his head as he looked out the window. "His mum said he can't get a license if he can't afford a car, so he's saving up." I instantly felt bad. I wanted to give Ash money so bad because I knew how much freedom of having a car was. Eddie had told me about his home situation and I wanted to help out. 

I knew that giving money to friends was a touchy subject for myself, but I knew that I wouldn't be treated like an ATM by these guys. "Hey Mikey, instead of taking me back home, can you take me to Laura's work, I need to talk to her. She works at Middleton bank on West Street." He nodded and turned down the next street. "What do you need to talk to her so urgently about?" Fuck, I hadn't expected Ashton to ask. I needed to come up with a lie. And quick. "Uh, I need to talk to her about my mom, it's a long story honestly." Ashton nodded and went back to staring out the window. I pulled out my phone to check my bank account details. 

I knew my dad had moved some of his money in there for safety reasons, so I definitely wasn't expecting that number when I looked at the banking app. '$300,000' Holy shit-balls. I tried not to audibly gasp, but both boys noticed the intake of air. "You ok, Ands?" I looked at both of them as I tried to respond. "Uh, yeah, my- my old friends just texted me, they uh, one of them got into Yale!" There was no way any of my old friends would have gotten into Yale. But they didn't need to know that.

I thanked Mikey and said goodbye to the boys as I jumped out of the car and shut the door. I was smart enough to know that Laura didn't work on Thursdays, so I strolled over to the woman at the desk. "Hello, my name is Andrea Pentworth, I would like to get a cheque of $25,000 from my account written to Ashton Irwin. Thanks very much." The woman looked me over and started clicking away on her computer. "It says you are a minor, and this is such a large amount of money, are you sure about this?" I nodded as I passed her my drivers license for identification. 

She wrote out the cheque and passed it over to me. "Thank you." I walked out. That was surprisingly quicker than I had expected it to be. I knew they would all be going to Cal's house after school, so I flagged a cab, which was quite difficult since this was a town where there weren't any cabs, unlike NYC. I gave him Cal's address which I had saved on his contact and I put the cheque in my schoolbag. I was nervous about how Ashton would react to my gesture, I didn't want him to feel like a charity case, or that I wanted to give him money because I was sorry for him. I wanted him to know that I cared about him and that I could see how much this meant to him. I wanted to be a good friend.