haze / afi

part 61. anxious conversations

being at ashton's cabin was amazing. violet had been excited to go there, see around the cabin. as soon as they arrived she was in awe at how cosy it looked both outside and inside. the bed was comfortable, being held by ashton all night was all she wanted.

however, waking up feeling the way she did, isn't what she wanted at all.

she'd snuck out of bed about an hour ago at 9:30 am. they'd both been tired, ashton slept through her leaving the room when usually he'd notice right away.

she took herself to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water to take to the living room with her. and that's where she's been sitting for the past hour.

she isn't feeling good. woke up with a heavy sensation in her chest, feeling as though it was effort to breathe, having never felt like this in ashton's company before, it confused her.

she feels comforted with ashton, he protects her, makes her happy, makes her forget about any anxiety she's feeling. but, today is different. maybe it's because she's here in this cabin, somewhere she's not used to. or it's because she's so far from the city where she's been used to living. perhaps there's no reason for it, she's just unlucky that anxiety has struck her today of all days.

subconsciously she knows why she's anxious. she doesn't want to admit it to herself.

it's gotten to the point now where she feels out of place, alone, as if she shouldn't be here. getting close to being on the verge of tears, she decides she should go back to the bedroom to see if ashton is awake yet.

placing her water down on the table, she walks to the room they slept in, opening up the door to see ashton had moved, but he's still fast asleep. she sighs, wishing she didn't have to wake him up.

he's facing the entrance to the room, leaving a small space on the edge of the bed for her to sit down. she places her hand on his forearm, rubbing up and down softly.

"ash," she says quietly. after he doesn't wake up from that, you can hear the clear fear in her voice as her heart rate suddenly increases. "ashton, ash."

turning away for a moment, she leans her hands on her knees, leaning forwards as she keeps taking slow breaths. why does she feel like this? she hasn't even got to tell him about any worries she has about their relationship yet and she feels like this.

"violet?" he quietly says, voice gravely from sleeping. his eyes are only parted slightly, seeing the way she's hunched over. "hey, what's going on?"

"i don't feel good." she mumbles, sounding upset.

ashton places his hand on her back, sitting himself up slowly to see what's happening. noticing she's wearing sweatpants and her hair is up in a messy bun, different to how she was last night, he furrows his eyebrows.

"how long have you been up for?" he asks, now realising he didn't notice her leave the bed.

"an hour?" she replies. "i think? i don't know, i've been sitting in the living room lost in my head since i got up."

"you should've woken me up," ashton sighs. "what have you been thinking about?"

"just—" she pauses, shaking her head. "i've already put you through enough this past week, you don't need to be dealing with me being anxious on a day when we're meant to be talking over things."

"no, no, no, don't do that," ashton sighs, pulling violet back towards him. "you can't choose when you feel anxious, if you feel anxious today then we'll work with that. we're here to talk about worries, but if there's other things going on today then we don't need to talk about anything."