Obsession

Ch 27 - I Lied

"What??"

"We can do this!" Ashton repeated, excitedly.

No way was he talking about what I thought he was. "Do what, exactly?"

"This. Us. We can pull this off. I mean, if we want it badly enough. Right?"

Us? He was actually suggesting we could have something. What fantasy world was I even living in? Before the conversation went any further, I had to get something out of the way.

"Wait. I have to ask you something, Ashton. And I expect you to be completely honest with me."

"Okayyyy," he said hesitantly.

I took a deep breath, hoping my words came out in a rational way. "I'm hoping that maybe there was some miscommunication somewhere, I don't know. That's why I'm asking, because I don't want to assume anything. But Traci told me something and it's kind of been weighing on my mind."

"Go ahead, ask away."

"The other night, in Tampa, you said that Brandi broke up with you, right?"

There was a slight pause before he answered, "Yeah."

"Well, according to what Calum told Traci, you were the one who ended the relationship."

More silence. I gave him plenty of time to answer, but he didn't. "So... which way was it? It doesn't matter, and it's really none of my concern either way, except I need to know who's telling the truth. I don't know why you would lie, and I'm not saying you did, I just -"

"I lied."

Tears instantly started forming. Great, here we go again. Story of my fucking life. Again, I gave him time to speak, but he didn't say anything else.

"You lied? But why?"

He cleared his throat and sighed heavily."Because I thought if I told you the truth, you'd think I was the world's biggest prick."

"Try me. What's the truth, Ashton?" I probably came across a little bitchy at that moment, but I couldn't help it.

"The truth is, Brandi showed up to surprise me. She said she knew she'd been giving me a hard time, and she was sorry, yada yada. But I was so mad at her for ruining my plans."

He paused, so I asked, "And your plans were...?"

"To spend time with you."

"So, she admitted she was wrong for the way she'd been acting, and she was trying to be nice by surprising you? And you broke up with her because the timing was shitty? Don't you think that's a little extreme?" Why the fuck was I defending her?

"You don't understand, Aubree."

"Well, help me out here, because you're right, I still don't understand why you would lie to me. You know how important honesty is to me. How many times have we talked about that?"

"I know! I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. But like I said, you don't understand. I'd known for a long time that Brandi and I weren't going to last. And it just really pissed me off when she showed up without telling me. But the more I thought about the reason why I was pissed, I knew it was the right thing to do. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

I had no idea, and told him so.

"I knew that if I told you I ended things with Brandi because I had feelings for you, it would make me look like a heartless jerk. And I'm really not, Aubree. I mean, it was really shitty to do it then, when she was trying to fix things between us. But to be honest, I didn't want anything fixed. I just wanted out. You were all I could think about those few hours she and I were together. And I knew what I had to do. But, in my defense, she really had been fucking another guy. That part wasn't a lie. I just didn't know until afterwards when she threw it up in my face trying to hurt me. It kind of worked, I guess."