Affection // irwin

Chapter 35

(There will be a lot of jumping between pov's in this chapter, just so you know...okay, you're now allowed to keep on reading.) 

I got a message from Michael late Sunday evening asking if I could join him, Emma, Calum and Ashton for lunch the day after. Of course I accepted. I had spent all weekend writing papers and texting Ashton. I needed to meet someone, to be social, like Ashton told me. He tried giving me some confident, told me everything was going to be okay and if I thought it was too big of a crowd, we could just go. Or run away, like I always do.

No. That time is over. I have to stop running, and face my problems, no matter how tough they may be.

Class today wasn’t that bad. Sarah wondered where I was all last week and when I told her I’d been sick, I think I heard someone say they were glad I felt better. Maybe I just overreacted last week? Maybe they don’t actually hated me? But it was still the best feeling in the world when class was over and I could get out of there. Because even if it was okay, I wasn’t okay. I still felt trapped and just waited for anyone to comment on something I did, for someone to tell me to disappear.

“Michael?” I furrow my eyebrows when I see Michael reach our table at The Diner. 

“Yeah?” He takes a chair from another table and join us.

“Your hair…it…” I try to find the right words.

“Looks normal, yeah I know.”

I wasn’t going to say normal, but I guess ‘normal’ is the word Michael uses to describe other people’s hair colors. His hair is no longer red. It’s dark, not sure if it’s black or brown.

“It looks good,” I say and he smiles. “Why did you dye it?”

He shrugs. “Just felt like it.”

“When did you dye it?”

“Tuesday. I was…”

“Enough about hair dye. This is a tradition from now on. Everyone here HAS to be at The Diner every Monday at 11.45. Deal?” Emma interrupts and eyes every single one of us.

“Deal,” we all say in unison.

“Kyle can come too if he wants,” Emma adds and everyone agrees.

We’re sitting in a booth. Ashton on my right, Emma on my left. Next to Emma is Gavin and then Calum and Liza. Michael’s on the end. I haven’t seen Gavin since November, but he looks exactly the same. Same short snagged hair, same worn-out t-shirt. It took a while for him to remember me but when Ashton told me who I was, he started rambling about everything that has happened ever since. Emma tried getting him to shut up a couple of times but it didn’t help, and we got ourselves another laugh.

“You two are so cute,” Liza smiles at me and Ashton, making me blush and I look down on my plate. Emma said those words before, too, and my reaction was the same. Somehow it made me forget about everything bad that has happened. 

“You really are. We should double date,” Calum winks at Ashton who shoots him a glare. His cheeks are slightly pink.

“Leave the two poor kids alone,” Emma says and throws a fry at Calum who picks it up and throws it back. “Hey!"

“You started it,” Calum pouts.

“You’re the kids here, not them,” Michael rolls his eyes.

He looks so different. If I didn’t know it was dyed, I’d guessed it was his natural hair color, that’s how good his hair looked. Still I wondered why he’d dyed it black/brown. I thought he was more into the colors of the rainbow – red, blue, green and so on.