Ablaze

Twenty Three

"Yeah..."

I guess she hasn't told Akita what happened, or else Akita would've murdered me by now.

"Akita, Kaen... something you wanna share?"

"Nope!"

"Then shut it, please."

I know whatever Ash told Akita is a bunch of bullshit. I feel even worse now.

The bell dismisses us, and I couldn't be happier to be out of that class.

"Kaen, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, D."

"I know you're not."

"How can I be? She fucking changed classes because of me. She can't even enjoy school with her friends now, either. I'm just ruining her life left and right."

Del sighs, not saying anything.

A few hours go by and it's finally time to leave, thank god. I wanna put my head through a wall right now.

As I'm walking to my car, I see Ash. She was in sweatpants and a hoodie, and it doesn't look like she's wearing any makeup. She's wiping her eyes as she walks, then suddenly looks up... our eyes locking.

She was crying... and I could see the pain on her face when she looked at me. She stood there for a moment, then darted off to her car.

My heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest. I wanted to scream and explode. I wanted to run to her and hold her back in my arms, telling her everything was okay... but I couldn't.

Ashling's POV

The second I got into my car, I sped off. I can't do this. I saw him for one second and I'm already having a breakdown. How the fuck am I supposed to keep going to school knowing that there's always going to be a possibility of seeing him?

You know what sucks even more? The fact that he's probably perfectly fine, and I'm sitting here crying my eyes out every chance I get. This is fucking horrible. I feel like throwing up.

**The next day**

Kaen's POV

"Okay, that's it for today. See you kids tomorrow. Kaen, a moment?"

"Yeah?"

"Is everything okay with Ash?"

My eyes widen at his question, "What do you mean?"

"She seemed really down yesterday, and to be honest... she didn't look that great, either."

"Oh..."

I don't really know what to say to him. He warned me not to fuck it up with her.

"Kaen, did something happen?"

I can't lie to him... his affinity will detect it.

"And don't even think about lying to me."

I sigh, "Yeah... something happened."

"I know it's not any of my business, but as your teacher and more so your friend, I care about all of my students deeply. Especially you, given our past. But if something serious happened with her, I need to make sure she's alright. She actually emailed me Sunday night asking to be switched out of this class. It wasn't because of a scheduling conflict."

"Shit... it is my fault. It's just... I... I broke up with her."

"You what?"

"Yeah. So that's what happened."