Keeping Real - Ashton Irwin

Chapter 10

Grinning at his absurdity, I pulled into Calum's driveway, he was jamming on an invisible guitar and he was screaming the lyrics to a song. When he got into my car I sang along: "Check yes Juliet, are you with me?" I pulled out of his driveway and my car squeaked over the pavement.

The rest of my week had gone by smoothly: I never worried about being alone, Luke, Calum, Ashton, Leilani, and surprisingly Michael had all been there for me in the course of the past two days. Although I hadn't see my mom, Luke and I had called her after the day of the trial and shared the news. She was ecstatic, then said she was busy, sorry. We tried not to let that get in the way of our happiness, but it's kind of difficult when someone who is supposed to love you the most is the least present in your life.

I had been looking forward to my gym day with Calum since the second we burst out of that room on Thursday. I wanted to sweat out what had permeated every step I had taken since Connor's lies. Also Calum seemed to be therapy to me: he let me rant and rave to him, and he also had his own problems. It was refreshing to handle issues that were not my own for once.

Today was particularly exciting because I was going to meet his mom. He wanted her to meet his sister, but thought maybe I should meet her first, and see how it goes. I questioned his process, and suggested that maybe he tell his dad about the whole thing, but he refused, mumbling something incoherent about laws and clauses.

"So are you glad that Connor got expelled?" Calum asked hesitantly, once we were almost to the gym. I grinned. "Of course I'm happy that he got expelled! That dick hasn't even finished getting what he deserves! I won't really be happy until he is in jail, but for now I'm satisfied with not having to see him and his stupid face," I stated vehemently. He nodded, understanding.

When we pulled up to the gym he smirked and I knew that he had something up his sleeve. "Race you to the locker rooms! Last one there has to..." he thought for a moment before adding, "do an extra 20 pushups!" I rolled my eyes but grabbed my bag and ran. "You're on!" I screamed as I flew by him, past the front desk-the woman there only stared-and into the entrance to the locker rooms.

"I win!" I turned to see him behind me, shaking his head. "I wanted to do the extra 20 pushups," he claimed. "Yeah right!" I told him, my voice echoing over the tiles in the locker room as I walked into the ladies' locker room.

I quickly laid my bag down into one of the lockers and pulled out an elastic headband. I walked over to a mirror on the side of the bland, brown walls and pushed back the flyaway strands of hair from my face. I had tried to avoid looking at my body in mirrors as much as possible but it seemed I couldn't help seeing it: on the reflection of our sliding glass door, peering out at me from countless car windows that I had passed, even in my own phone screen. My bruises were not as tender and painful as they had been earlier in the week, but as they healed they got darker and darker. My entire side was spackled green and blue, as if a three-year old had taken his paint-splattered hands and pressed them to my side. My arm was healing slowly, the gashes looking better by the hour, almost. My face was another issue completely, the deep purple spread from my eyebrow and traced the contour of my nose.

I took a shaky breath: I hated that I could turn from confident to self-concious in less than a second. I hated that there was only one person responsible for that. I hated everything. I turned on my heel and walked out of the locker room. I was done with feeling sorry for myself.

Calum sat stretching on the mats, just like every other Saturday of my entire life, it seemed. I sat beside him and pulled my head down to my knees. "Paige, what do you think makes a good person?" Calum asked, seemingly out of the blue. I moved to stretch my hamstring, thinking. It was a tough question, and one that I thought I would know deep down but when asked, found it hard to put into words. He at me expectantly and I held up my finger, instructing him to wait.