Notes // Mashton

Chapter Twenty-Three

*Ashton's POV*

Luke stood emotionless, frozen, like he was staring into space, trying to find words for the situation, but I knew he wouldn't be able to. I wonder if he thought I had already done, or if he knew he had stopped me. I didn't try to move quickly, I slowly put my blade into my phone case and held the phone in my hand.

"Ashton..." Luke whispered, as though he was disappointed in me.

"I thought you could keep a promise." It was almost has he knew I was going to break the promise I made years ago, that I had only remembered about now. It was right around when I actually became good friends with Luke after I became the drummer.

// FLASHBACK //

As I entered Luke's house for a rehearsal, I looked down at my ruined wrists, realising that I had forgotten to put bracelets on or wear a long sleeved shirt. This made me frown, and I could only hope that they wouldn't notice.

"Hey Ash." Luke smiled as he let me into his house. His mother wasn't home at that moment, nor were his siblings so it was just the band. With my hands over the Cajon that I brought to the rehearsals, I made my way to the other boys and just sat on the box.

"Sup Ashton." Michael smiled, he had natural hair back then, this was my favourite look on him, sometimes I wished he had never dyed it in the first place, of course one can't un-dye their hair. I smiled back to the boy, not answering his question, letting my dimples show off.

For around ten minutes, we mainly just chatted about random things that we had done on the weekend, nothing in particular, changing the subject every ten seconds. "What should we cover?" Michael asked, everytime he spoke he made my smile.

"Year 3000?" Calum suggested, and we all agreed. We videoed our band singing it and playing our instruments excluding Luke, and uploaded it to our Youtube channel, hemmo1996.

"Ash?" I heard Luke call from his hallway, I followed him down until we reached a room I identified as his. He sat down on his bed and gestured me to do the same.

"Uhm, I uh, I saw your wrists." I hadn't done a very good job hiding them obviously. I nodded, not knowing what to say.

"Can you do me one thing?" I know what he was going to say, but I nodded anyway.

"Can you promise that you will stop? For me, for Michael, for Calum, for 5SOS?" He held out his pinkie, although he hadn't said it was a pinkie promise, and I stupidly pinkie promised him, never to cut again. //

I stared at the boy in the eyes, now on the verge of tears. No Ashton, you are a boy, boys don't cry. "I'm sorry Luke." It sounded fake, but it was a pure apology, I regret doing it again.

"But you still broke the promise." Luke mumbled, before slamming the door on me. That was the second time it had happened today. I really needed to think before I said or did things.

---

It was now December nine, it was day five since I had been dumped by Michael infront of Calum and Luke. Since then, the two had been annoying me continuously about it and teasing Michael. I hated them for it. I had also been ignored from Michael except for around three minutes.

I didn't want to show my weakness, but I also wanted to take Mikey's hand and forget the rest of the world, all the judgemental pricks and just have me and him, no one else. Nothing else would matter. But no one can get anything they want, miracles aren't real and they never will be.

The problem was, I think that Michael has gotten over me. Sure, for the first few days he seemed like a wreck, but now he seemed like he barely gave a fuck about me, like he didn't even know who I was anymore. It was slowly murdering me inside.

As I felt my phone in my pocket vibrate, I immediately checked it without hesitation.

- Heri Stiles -

"Hey man how long until you're coming to the UK?"

I laughed for the first time in a few days at what I had made his contact name.

- You -

"Like 11 days :-)"

I hadn't really remembered about going to the UK until now, because none of the boys hadn't talked about anything but Mashton for a while. He replied with a emoji, and then we stopped talking and I went back to thinking about Michael.

That hair, unpredictable colours, changing every week nearly, never continued to amaze me how it hadn't fell out yet. Although his natural colour was my favourite, I also liked some of the other colours he had dyed it, like when it was lilac. His eyes, green and brown at the same time, I could stare at them all day and not become bored with them at all. Everything about him was amazing, and but I wasn't good enough for him.

"Get the fuck out here Ashton!" I heard Calum scream from outside my room, obviously not wanting to barge in for some reason, unlike him. I groaned, before opening the door and following him to the others. They didn't even have a reason to drag me out, they were just bored.

"We should play Monopoly!" Michael screamed, and before anyone could argue, he already had the game out.

"No I want the dog!" Calum and Luke fought over the object, Calum winning in the end. We owned an Australian version with credit cards instead of the paper bills, so I used the thong, Calum had the dog, Luke had a jar that looked like Vegemite and Michael decided he was too 'cool' for them and used a Mentos packet.

As I looked at up the boy playing the game, he seemed more over us than I thought. He glanced over at me a couple of times, but looked away like nothing had happened. If only I could look into his brown-green eyes longer.

"Ashton?" Calum waved his hand in front of my face, I must have been staring into space.

"It's your fucking go." Michael mumbled, passing me the dice. I rolled them, landing on a two, and I moved onto Hobart. I had to pay Luke, which was making me almost broke now. I sucked at Monopoly, I either bought all the properties I could or never bought any.

---

In the end, Luke won Monopoly, and he gloated about it for hours. But as payback, we made him prepare dinner, but then we were given uncooked spaghetti, which he pretended that he was offended when we refused to eat it.

I couldn't be bothered to make my own dinner, so I just walked to my bedroom without saying 'good night' to anyone. I brushed my teeth and sat in my bed, staring at my ceiling. Eventually, I couldn't fall asleep, so I listened to music. On shuffle, the first song that came on was 'Just The Way You Are', changing all the her's to him's, I hummed along to the song, thinking about Michael the whole time.

And that's how I didn't drift into sleep that night, I spent the whole night thinking about Michael, not even exaggerating.