What Doesn't Break You (Ashton Irwin Fanfic)

Chapter 12

A.J.’s POV:

I don’t know what the hell that was, but it was weird! I thought to myself walking quickly down the hall to my next lesson. I was just confronted by Ashton coming out of English class and he said he wanted to be partners for our class writing assignment. What the hell is he playing at?

I could still feel my heart pounding as I reached my next lesson. Even though it was an extremely random outburst on his part, I couldn’t help the knots of excitement forming in my stomach. He wants to be partners with me! We could hang out. We could talk. We could…

I stopped the overflow of jittery feelings bubbling up in my head and shook myself out of it. He must have some sort of intension behind wanting to be my partner. There was no way in hell he could actually want to “bond” with me, or whatever it was he said. After ignoring me for so long, it was just plain weird that he would want to work with me. He did mention that he thought I like English. That must mean he wants me to do the work. I laughed at my sudden outburst of butterflies.

I should have known. He doesn’t want to be partners with me to hang out with me; he wants someone to do all the work so he can get out of the assignment. Well, sorry to disappoint you Irwin, no deal.

I came to this conclusion as I found my seat in my History class and I sighed. Even though I did like English and I enjoyed our little hallway spat, I was still disappointed that he wasn’t really sincere with his request to be partners.

The rest of the day dragged on as usual. I hung out with Sydnie and Mellissa at lunch. Kait, Josh, and Zach were all staying late in the art room working on a project together. Kait and Josh were really into art and were really quite good, but Zach was pretty much hopeless in most of his lessons so we all kind of chipped in to help him. I helped him out in English a few times before. Too bad he’s not in my class, we could be partners and it wouldn’t be awkward, I thought.

I didn’t really know what to think about Collin asking me to be partners. He was really cute and I’ve talked to him before, but I wasn’t sure what to say to him. To be honest I didn’t really want to have a partner. I preferred to do assignments on my own.

Not that I didn’t want to be a team player, but I just work better that way. I would probably make an exception for Ashton though. If he was actually being serious that is. I tried not to think about having to find a partner anymore. If I didn’t find one then I guess I will have to accept Collin’s offer and suffer through it.

After school was over, I made my way to the parking lot to my car. I was going to the Pink Flamingo to work on a French translation I had due tomorrow and I was meeting Sydnie there. She rocked at French, so she was going to help me out after her shift was over. Once I got close enough to my car however, I froze in my tracks. Ashton was leaning up against my car with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Oh boy.

After a short pause I made myself walk up to him. “What are you doing?” I asked trying to push past him to put my bag inside my car.

He stepped aside but stopped me when I tried to sneak into my car and shut the door. “I wanted to know if you wanted to come over and start working on our writing assignment?” he said looking at me.