perfect? - montgomery de la cruz

ACAB since the very beginning.

Ashley's college acceptance letter was laying in front of her, she didn't even care if she got in, she only cared if Justin got in to his college. God knows he needed a win.

Justin was in a weird place, he had started to ignore her calls and her texts which worried her, it made her afraid that he would do something stupid. Maybe he just needed to be alone? Maybe he needed to be alone from her? Maybe he didn't love her anymore? Alright, now she was just spiraling.

She took a deep breath before running her hand through her hair. She knew that Justin loved her and she knew that she loved Justin, she truly didn't have anything to worry about except for the fact that her boyfriend was an addict who literally could be doing drugs right this second.

She slowly grabbed the letter and peeked into the yellow envelope. A big 'Congratulations!' was written in black ink, making it very clear that she got in. She threw the envelope onto the floor with a groan. She didn't even want to go to college in California, she wanted to go to college in New York and now it was too late.

Her life really wasn't ending up how she imagined it when she was six years old. To be fair, she thought she was going to be a princess living in castle but it still hurt.

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Walking through the halls of Liberty High without Justin or Clay felt weird. She had never walked alone before, she had always had someone. First it was Jess, Sherri and Hannah, then it became Montgomery, Bryce and their goons and then it became Justin and Clay. She didn't really care, it felt kind of freeing, walking by herself.

She saw Clay standing by his locker, looking anxious as always.

"Hey, Clay, how you doing?", she asked with a smile. "Peachy.", he sarcastically answered, she scoffed at his answer. "Have you talked to Justin lately?", she asked as she started walking with him to class.

"Haven't you talked to him? I mean, you saw him last night.", he said with a scoff as he continued to walk, not noticing Ashley's confused look. "What? I didn't hang out with Justin last night, he's literally ignoring all my calls and texts.", she said with furrowed eyebrows. Alright, something was definitely off if Justin felt the need to lie to Clay.

"He never ignores your calls, I mean, fuck, you always text and call each other.", Clay had now also stopped, something felt really wrong and she needed to know why. "I'm going to see if I can find him at Monéts after class.", was the last thing she said to Clay before walking away from him, both of them worried to death.

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After class, she walked into Monéts, talked to a few of Justin's co-workers, just to hear that he didn't have a job anymore.

"Yeah, he got fired this morning. He wasn't showing up for any of his shifts and this was the last straw.", they had told her. Ashley couldn't believe her fucking ears, what the hell was going on with him? It was like he was going through a manic episode or something.

She decided to walk around the building to see if he had stayed in the car or something. That's when she found him, sitting in an alleyway with a needle in his foot that he desperately tried to hide when he saw who it was walking up beside him.

"Hey, hi.", he mumbled as he put his hand over his face. "You're supposed to be at work, but they said that you don't work there anymore.", she said as she crossed her arms. "Quit.", he said without looking at her.

"They also told me that you got fired."

"Justin... please. What the hell is going on?", she mumbled as she stepped closer to him.