final round - lrh

thirty-two.

Walking into the cafeteria, I keep my head down as I walk straight towards the food and don't make eye contact with anyone in the room. All I want to do is grab my food, sit down, and talk to Michael who can hopefully manage to make me feel better. After all, he seems to always know how to lighten the mood and I'm certainly counting on him in this moment to do so. 

I know I can't look anywhere towards Ashton, if he's even in here, as I can't imagine the sadness written across his features due to our conversation. I feel terrible. I clearly managed to unknowingly lead him on and now he's hurt. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt someone who's so important to me.

I look down at the food, not wanting any of it in the slightest as I'm so sick to my stomach. I don't know how I'll manage to stomach this when I'm going to just think about everything with Ashton and how much it's bothering me immensely. 

Can I just go back to my cabin?

I'm about to walk away from the table when I feel a hand grab my wrist quickly. I turn around to see Luke beside me as he lets go of my wrist and has a concerned look in his eyes. I take the opportunity to look away because I don't want him to be able to read me in this moment. 

"Ashton didn't look too happy with you."

I shrug my shoulders, preparing to walk away as I don't exactly want to discuss it. Due to this, I turn away, leading to Luke capturing my wrist once more in order to stop me. 

I realize there's no avoiding this conversation and he's going to insist on me giving him some form of an answer. 

I eye the cafeteria, praying Ashton's not in here, or anywhere near, in order to hear this conversation. 

"He's just upset that certain things between the two of us aren't being reciprocated," I say, hoping he'll allow me to leave it at that. 

Does he really want to talk about this right now?

"What things exactly?" Luke asks curiously.

"Nothing," is all I say, hoping he'll drop it. I want to walk away once more but I know there's no use in it considering he'll stop me again. "It's just- it's a long story."

"Does it involve what I witnessed between the two of you when I caught you in the ocean?" Luke asks making me shy back as I don't doubt he's referring to the way that we were moments away from kissing. Obviously, there's no denying that that's where we were headed and it only makes me regret sneaking out even further. 

"I thought we were over that," is all I say wanting for him to just drop it. 

The way he recalls the memory makes me think that he's still angry about it. I obviously apologized and attempted to make up for it but that clearly wasn't enough. 

"I thought we were too," Luke says, eyeing a bowl of apples on the counter before grabbing one. I don't look away as he takes a bite into it, his eyes remaining on my own. "But seems to me like he isn't."

"He expected something more between the two of us, I can't exactly blame him," I say.

I should've pulled away in that moment because I really didn't even want to kiss him. All I wanted was to do something normal and in that moment, that was kissing a boy. However, it completely backfired as it's led to so many negative things. 

"So he's going to throw a bitch fit because you don't like him back?" Luke asks, an amused look on his face as if finding the situation funny.

Must be nice.

I wish I could find humor in the situation but instead, it's giving me an immense amount of anxiety that I don't need. It seems as if each day I'm presented with a different thing to be stressed over and it seems absolutely never-ending.