Attention || Lashton

Chapter 7

September 18, 2015:

I felt as if the clock was mocking me. The loud ticking was driving me absolutely insane, distracting me from anything that was going on. I felt like this a lot. Whenever I stared at a clock the noise would get in my head and echo off the walls of my skull, loud and never ending.

But it had been a week since the run in with Michael and Luke in the bathroom. I have been cutting at home, further up my arm. Thankfully it was getting colder so I didn't need any excuse to wear a sweatshirt. I haven't talked to Luke, either. I needed to keep a distance. I wanted to be around him and talk to him but I didn't want him thinking that I was cutting for attention.

That would break the whole facade I kept trying to have. The mask of pain I was trying to create when I was actually happy, endlessly trying to get the boy I love to notice me. He felt bad for people that cut and I thought that if he knew I cut myself then that would just be the beginning. He would trying to help me, he'd be my superman. But then I could stop after a respectable amount of time and he would love me for the personality.

My excuse for his attention would not be self-harm. It would be him, honest to god loving me. I wouldn't need an excuse. But I had a ways to go if I wanted this to happen for me. Scars, ignoring him, showing signs of depression. I have done hours of research this past week on signs of self-harm and depression. I already wore black a lot so people wouldn't guess any different about me. I put my head down a lot, I didn't talk, I didn't sit with anybody at lunch anymore. 

I am purposely avoiding people to make Luke understands. He needs to fucking understand that I love him and I just want him to be with me.

Tick, tick, tick.

The sound echoes around in my head and I raise my hand. "Ashton." The teacher reluctantly calls on me.

"Can I sit with Luke?" I ask him and he stares at me with a smile and tells me to do so. I stare at the perfection. I always dreamed of a guy like him. Same style of clothing, blonde hair, blue oceanic eyes, slim. It was my mental image of perfection come true.

I shake my head, and look to the back of the classroom. Luke looks at me and I look at him, and I could tell there was something. Anything. 

Tick, tick, tick.

I cover my ears and begin tapping my foot, rocking silently back and forth. Some people will try to call me crazy. I hear the ticking like it was on full blast and I couldn't direct my attention elsewhere. I obsess over a guy that I need to go to drastic measures to get the attention of.

Maybe it is unhealthy.

Tick, tick, tick. "Stop!" I scream and the teacher stops talking and everybody goes silent. I sigh in relief, knowing that was another vivid daydream that I have a lot of the time, imagining I was doing something I wasn't. But people kept looking at me and the ticking had stopped.

I actually yelled out for a reason nobody knows. "Are you okay Ashton?" Mr. Neal asks me and I look at him with wide eyes. 

"I-I need to, um, talk a walk. I'll, I'll be back." I stumble over my words, getting up from the uncomfortable desk. People laugh at me as I leave the room, toying with the ends of my sleeves. 

Cut yourself Ashton. It will help you get through the rest of class.

I head to the bathroom and go into a stall, knowing well somebody was in there. When I hear a flush, I take my phone case off and take out the used metal. "Ashton I know what you're doing." Luke says and I hear his footsteps echoing off the confined room.

"Luke, I just need a breather. I am not going to do anything." I reassure him falsely.

I feel him go away. I didn't hear his footsteps but I knew he was gone. I take the blade and lift up my sleeve. I glance at the scratch-like cuts lining my entire arm, horizontally and diagonally. I place my arm over the toilet and place the blade in, quickly slicing it. A deep cut opens and my heart stops. I drop the metal and I could hear the very quiet sound of it hitting the water and I watch as it goes to the bottom. The tension in my chest goes away but I see how the cut was pooling blood. I twist my arm and it makes a line, falling and dripping into the water. I could hear each drip as well as I watched the clear water becoming orange.

I grab some toilet paper and press it to my arm for about a minute. Once I was sure that it was okay, I cleaned up the few drops that missed the toilet. I wouldn't want anybody, namely Luke, seeing the blood and knowing what I did. I put the case back on my phone, my heart beating quickly knowing that I no longer had the metal to soothe me in these kinds of situations. 

But I still didn't need it. Not now, not ever. I will never need something so destructive in my life. I will only ever use it to get a hold of Luke, and that will be the end of it. I only felt the relief because I knew I was always getting another step closer. And closer. Staring at the scarring that had been developing on my arm I knew that this couldn't keep going on. I needed to get Luke and I needed to get him quickly. I don't need this because I am not addicted and I wanted to keep it this way. 

I pull down my black sleeve and leave the stall, phone in hand. I walk out of the bathroom and then go to my math class, everybody's eyes on me. "You okay, Ashton?" Mr. Neal asks concernedly.

I nod stiffly, sitting back at my appointed chair. I stare up at the clock and see there was only two minutes left.

Two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds. One hundred and twenty ticks that will go around in my mind. Tick, tick, tick.