ASSIGNED

Chapter 20

How do you go on when you lose someone you love? How does the world continue to rotate when everything in your life has frozen in time? How do the seasons change, the sun rise and set, the clock keep ticking? How does everything keep on living when you feel like you're dying?

I hadn't gone to school for the past week. It was Sunday night, over a week since my party, and I had barely left my room. I had managed to convince my mum and friends that I had contracted a nasty cold from swimming in the winter, but in reality what I was dealing with was so much worse. Heartbreak.

I didn't realise I was in love until it was too late. Until she left me again. I watched out my window as she came out of the front door and walked down the street, not even bothering to look back. Was I that meaningless to her that she didn't even bother to stay around after we'd kissed?

The thought of facing her whilst I was in this vulnerable state was unbearable, hence the lie about being sick. I needed to give myself time to come to terms with my feelings, and time to figure out how I was going to respond to them. She had messaged me the Monday after the party telling me she couldn't take me to school, but I never responded. I suppose she understood why, because she didn't show up after that.

By Monday morning I felt strong enough to face reality and I dragged myself out of my house and onto the school bus. Once we reached the gates of Chadstone High I couldn't stop the anxiety from starting, and I ran off the bus and straight to the toilets. Of course my first lesson of the day was Modern History, but at least I could get the confrontation over and done with. I decided to head to the classroom early, knowing that if I was in there first I would be less inclined to leave.

I sat in the empty room until the bell rang, and slowly students began trickling in. I kept my head down and refused to look at the door, scared that making eye contact with her would cause me to break down. I felt her slide into her chair next to me and heard her shuffling around, getting things out of her bag.

"Where were you last week?" her quiet voice asked me.

"Sick," I responded, not moving my eyes from my desk.

"Are you okay now?" she asked. She sounded genuinely concerned.

"Yep," I said. I could feel the tears brimming at my eyes and it took everything within me to not let them fall.

I heard her sigh deeply, and she gave up trying to converse with me. I don't even know if she knew why I was so cold towards her, but you didn't need to be a genius to figure it out. I felt like used goods, thrown away where no one else will touch me.

"Okay, class. The assignment is due on Wednesday so I am giving you this lesson to finish off anything that you need." the teacher said from the front of the classroom. Great.

"Did you bring anything for the assignment?" Bailey asked, and I shook my head. So for the rest of the lesson we sat in silence, Bailey occasionally breaking it to ask me pointless questions and make small talk.

When the bell rang I couldn't be out of there fast enough. I heard Bailey call my name, which I pretended I didn't hear. I continued to ignore her calls into it became so painful obvious that I could hear her, so I turned around.

"What?" I snapped, and she took a step back, clearly taken aback at my aggressive tone.

"I was just going to tell you to wait by my bike this afternoon so I can take you home," she said softly.

"That's not necessary, I can get the bus," I told her.

"But Luke - " she began, but I cut her off.

"Don't pretend you care," I snapped, and before she could respond I continued again. "And don't worry about the assignment. I'll finish it."

With that I turned and walked away without looking back, but I could feel her gaze on me as I disappeared around the corner, finally letting my tears fall.

I couldn't fool the girls into thinking I was sick any longer. They saw the look on my face and instantly knew it was more than that.

"Asha, she doesn't deserve you if she's going to keep doing this!" Amanda said, putting her arm around my shoulder comfortingly as we walked out of our English lesson.

"I was so sure she liked me..." I said, holding back tears.

"She does like you," Amanda said, "Even Dylan says so."

"Then why does she keep pushing me away?" I snapped at her and she flinched. "Fuck Amanda, I'm sorry. I'm just so confused right now."

"It's okay. I'm sorry you're going through this. It's not fair," she said.

"Last time someone hurt me like this, my dad was so angry he almost went to his house and bashed in his door..." I reminisced with a sad smile.

"Is he still in Adelaide?" she asked me.

"No," I shook my head, "He died in February."

"Oh, Asha....I'm so sorry! I didn't know," she exclaimed.

"Don't be sorry, it's okay. It's just times like these when I miss him more than anything," I said.

I felt bad for getting angry and dropping such a big bombshell on her, she was only trying to help. But by this stage help was pointless, there was nothing that could be said or done to fix the situation. Bailey doesn't like me, and that's that.

That night I finished off the assignment, signing our names on the front of the folder.

'Asha Lawrence & Bailey Lancaster'

Even our names looked good together. Ugh.

I was expecting my night to consist of Netflix movies, hot chocolate and a lot of food, but what I wasn't expecting was a text from Bailey.

Bailey: hey, can we talk?

Me: okay.

Bailey: can I call you?

Me: okay.

My phone instantly rang and I answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Asha. It's me," she said.

"Yeah, I figured," I said monotonously. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Um, I just wanted to clear some things up about last weekend," she said, and my heart dropped.

"Are you going to tell me that you were drunk and it meant nothing and you were just fooling around?" I snapped.

"Uh, yeah..." she said awkwardly.

"Yeah, thought so. I've heard it all before. See you at school," I said before hanging up my phone. God, I was so angry I could cry. Okay, so I was already crying.

I spent the rest of the night unable to sleep, tossing and turning and thinking about Bailey. In this very bed we had shared a moment that I thought would be the start of something incredible, but who was I kidding. Bailey doesn't do feelings, she made that abundantly clear.

I didn't hate Katie Cooper as much as I used to. I began to feel sorry for her, to relate to her. Bailey had done this to her, but worse. She'd actually slept with her. But did Bailey and Katie have the connection that Bailey and I had? Definitely not.

The thought of Bailey kissing someone else, touching someone else, even just flirting with someone else was enough to drive me mad, so when I saw her one morning walking with an unfamiliar girl through the parking lot at school I couldn't help but cry.

My mum admitted to me that she knew I wasn't sick, but she also told me that she knew I needed time to grieve. "Your first heartbreak is always the hardest," she had said to me, as her hands ran through my hair while I cried into her lap.

I'd started running a lot more, finding myself at the bottom of those stairs every time. I never went up there though. As beautiful as it was I don't think I'd ever be able to do that again. I missed her so much, but how can you miss someone that you never had?

Why did she do this to me? Why did she make me fall in love with her and then leave? I was so determined to not let my walls down for anybody, but without me even noticing she had smashed mine down the moment we met. I didn't even realise that until now. I came to the Gold Coast a strong, independent and capable sixteen year old, and now I was nothing but a body and a broken heart.