Sweet Summer Sunsets- A Robert Irwin FanFic

Robert

I opened the front door to see Ashley's Jeep parked haphazardly, like she pulled into the driveway in a rush and threw it in park without a care. The bass in her speakers rumbled, and I swallowed hard. If the music was that loud from where I was, I knew she was not in a great mood. 

I got into the passenger seat, looking over at Ashley. She was wearing a pair of jeans shorts, a green crochet top, and a sheer, black cover-up that had a pretty lace trim. Her hair was a curly mess, and she had no makeup on. I noticed her eyes were red, and I realised she had probably been crying. But she still looked beautiful to me. It was a natural beauty, like this version of her matched her soul the most and came easy to her. 

She looked at me and gave me a half-hearted smile, grabbing her water bottle out of the cup holder and taking a sip while I buckled my seatbelt. The stereo was playing some rock song, and I looked at the display in her Jeep to see it was a song called Limits by Bad Omens. 

I watched as she backed out of the driveway, trying to figure out what was going through her head and what she had planned. 

"Are you okay, love?" I asked, having to almost shout. I wanted so badly to reach out and hold her hand. I don't know if she really didn't hear me or if she pretended not to, but she simply continued singing along to the music blaring from the speakers. 

She drove a little erratically, but nothing too unsafe that had me concerned., I tried to figure out where we might be going. I even glanced in the backseat for any sort of hint, only to see a blanket and her backpack. 

I watched her as she drove. She alternated between drumming the steering wheel with her fingers and gripping it tight enough that her knuckles were white. She sang loudly, almost as if she was putting on a little performance for herself, but not caring if she wasn't hitting all of the right notes or saying all of the right words. 

I watched as different emotions flashed across her face, and I assumed it was partially because of what happened with her family, and also partially because of the music. The music she played was all alternative types of bands, most of them I'd never heard of other than her mentioning them. Songs with relatable themes like mental health and stuff like that, the ones that she'd be excited to show me and she'd say "Hey Robert, I know you don't particularly listen to a lot of the music I like, but I like this song. It talks about this and it's so meaningful" and then she'd play it and sit there swaying back and forth as I watched her, listening closely to the words. 

Ashley was the kind of person who would play or listen to music that represented how she felt at that moment, and I learned that about her on my own from a very young age. She loved the phrase "Where words fail, music speaks", and she loved the fact that so many people, not just musicians but writers and artists even, could express what she was feeling in such a precise way. So as she drove, I listened closely to the words of the songs, trying to decode them and see if that gave me any more clues about what happened or where we were going. 

I didn't have to wonder about the latter long, as I eventually realised the direction we were headed in was toward the beach. That explained the blanket and her backpack. Ashley loved the beach, and I know she could sit there on the sand watching the waves crashing against the shore for ages. The beach was one of the few places that calmed and grounded her. I figured she maybe shoved some snacks into her backpack, and there was a good chance that her sketchbook and pencils were in there too. 

I realised tears were welling in her eyes and she had gone quiet, yet she still mouthed the words to the song that was playing. I so badly wished to just wrap my arms around her and absorb all of the negativity and bad thoughts and things that stressed her out. I didn't even care if I would then be cursed to carry the weight of those things, I would do it with zero complaints if it meant she could be happy without interruption.