5SOS Book of Imagines

AFI // Rumors (2)

Tuesday wasn't much different. Apparently, a lot of people saw Hillary and Ashton talking after classes by her car and according to their trusted sources, both of them made out excessively with Hillary pushing herself against Ashton's body before driving off, leaving the poor guy.

Now that started a whole round of gossip that adds up to the never-ending possibilities of what happened on their so-called hookup that weekend. It just kept getting wilder and wilder; this morning Hillary heard she apparently let Ashton—no, wait, people say she forced Ashton Irwin to fuck her in the ass.

She couldn't help whooping in the insanity of the idea, she'd be in hell before anything close to that happens; yet everyone believed it.

Before she rounded to the door of her class after lunch, a tall figure blocked her path. She was already running late since she got too carried away with a book she was reading in a secluded area of the library, she wasn't about to tolerate any delay. She liked her class after lunch, literature. Apart from the other classes she's purposely flunking—usually out of annoyance towards the professors, literature was the only class she likes and focuses on.

Nobody else was in the hallway, so she was instantly irritated when the figure stayed.

She decided to look up...then she sighed.

It was those pretty hazel eyes again. Instead of staring at them dreamily, she remembered what she was being late for.

"What the fuck do you need? I'm in a hurry." Hillary spat.

"Can we talk?"

Instead of the stuttering, shy boy Hillary met the day before, standing in front of her was an Ashton holding an air of confidence, of seriousness around him that Hillary forgot about literature. She stared at how different yet how the same he was from yesterday, then she realized he was waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, sure. Fire away," she breathed.

"Not here. Come," he waited for her to walk and lead the way out of the building into the field.

She walked slowly, noticing a few students out of their rooms and others more just hanging around the school watch them as they walked to wherever Ashton was taking her. His destination was obvious though, the small bench just beside the flagpole.

"I already asked this but you didn't give me an answer. Why aren't you denying—"

"Why does it matter so much to you? Most guys I've been rumored to have hooked up with couldn't care less why I don't deny nor confirm it. You know what? It's an advantage to them, now they can make up their own stories how they trashed me that one imaginary night! At how good they were at sex! That's what you should do! Where the hell is your manly ego? Are you fucking gay?" Hillary cut him off, already knowing why he wanted to talk. This was absurd, Hillary felt like the guy was repulsed to have been claimed to have sex with her. That's deliberate rejection there and it hurt Hillary's ego. Was she that undesirable?

"I'm not 'most guys,'" he said.

"Yeah, you seem like a special case. You abstain from sex or something? It goes against your religion? Your mama's boy ass is scared your mum will find out?"

Hillary racked her brain with reasons why this guy wanted his name clean when his name wasn't even dented; it was hers that was destroyed long ago. What's his deal?

"No. I don't understand why you let them do this to you." He muttered, not looking at her as they settled in the bench beside each other.

She stared at him in disbelief, and then her laugh echoed around them.

"You're worried about me?! This is about me?! You bothered me for this?!" Then Hillary laughed again, clutching her stomach to exaggerate the action, abruptly stopping to glare at him. "Fuck off. You know nothing about me."

Hillary stood and marched away but Ashton pulled him back by her arm.

"That's the thing, I want to know you. Tell me why you're being treated like this. Why you?" His hazel eyes burned with intensity, willing her to believe what he said.

"You do know it's none of your fucking business, right? Let go of me."

Instead of his grip loosening around her arm, it tightened.

"Not until you agree to tell me."

"No."

"Then I'm not letting go."

Hillary smiled bitterly. "Everybody lets go eventually."

Ashton smiled at him, a small smile full of promise, of sincerity. His eyes lit up, his expression a weird mixture of defiance and happiness.

"Try me."