Painting Flowers // Ashton Irwin [au]

Nineteen

Ashton's POV

A hoard of finely dressed and pajama-clothed travelers speed-walk across the airport, weaving through the crowd to reach their terminal on time. Indecipherable conversations flow around us, an oddly soothing ringing in my ears. My anxiety has reached its max capacity and exhausted my body, resulting in a restless state of mind but immobile physicality. I'm so tired, but I can't sleep. Not even inhaling Emmie's lovely fruity scent of her lip balm as I rest my head on her shoulder can relax me.

After checking in, receiving our boarding passes, and spending far too long in security screening, we wait in the seating area by our gate for departure. It's far too stressful to travel, and I hate that we have to transfer to another flight in Dallas since Denver doesn't provide non-stops to Australia. What's worse is that during this twenty hour flight, I will be sitting next to none other than my father. Emilia will be to my right, Dad to my left, and I'll be stuck in the middle with only an armrest acting as a barrier between me and half the biological reason for my existence.

"Your dad keeps looking over here," Emilia whispers, stroking my forearm with her thumb.

I peek out of one eye, spying on my dad who sits a few rows of seats across from us with his chin resting in his palm, scrolling through his phone. His gaze flickers to mine before catching my lurking one and returning to his phone. I close my eye.

"Just ignore him," I say. He hasn't said anything to us since we got here. He only handed us our tickets and went to sit far from us, as if we're really that much of a nuisance to him. Literally everyone except for me and Emmie are asleep, so he should have no reason to act as snobby as he is. I guess I can't expect much of a change from him even if he did buy my painting. "How much longer until we board?"

"A few minutes," Emmie says. "How are you holding up?"

"I don't want to be here."

"Well, at least that's better than what you said this morning."

"Because begging you to murder me for going through with this is sooo much worse than hating my current state of existence."

"In my book it is."

"I should read that book someday."

"It's not a great read; it lacks pictures," she jokes. "I'm nervous too."

My eyes open and I pull away from her shoulder. "What for?"

"I don't know what's going to happen to you when you see Natalie. Things could happen."

My brows furrow. "I really hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking because trust me, that's not going to happen," I strongly assure. "There's no way in hell I'm dropping you for someone who dropped me. I don't ever want you to think that. You trust me, right?"

"Yes."

"Then trust when I say it's going to take a lot more than Natalie to pull me away from you."

"I trust you."

"I'm serious. A lion would have to maul me to death for me to go. Or a demonic clown who manipulates my mind and forces me to become a carnie and then kills me with unamusing jokes."

"You're delusional," she says, laughingly.

"Probably. That's what happened when you can't sleep."

Blaring from the speakers above us, a female on the intercom calls our flight number and advises us to head to the designated gate to begin boarding. Dad slings his laptop case over his shoulder and walks to the gate without us, leaving me and Emmie to wake up our sleeping friends who are sprawled out across the uncomfortable chairs, using their luggage as a pillow.