The Chase ▹ Ashton Irwin

CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX

"Ashton had that phase thing, right?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Oh my God, yes," Michael laughed. His voice trailed off, and he looked down at his plate of food that he hasn't touched in a while. His eyebrows furrowed together, as if he was thinking real hard about something way out of our current situation. I know that look; Ashton has it all the time. He sighed, and I had to know what was up.

"Everything okay?" I asked sympathetically. Michael's head tilted back up to face me, and he raised his eyebrows and nodded. We both went silent again, and he sighed once more. "You have no idea how perfect your timing was."

"Huh?" I asked, utterly confused.

"Like, when you moved in here," Michael replied. "You couldn't have came into Ashton's life at a more perfect time."

I felt my eyes widen and my stomach drop. Was he hinting at something...? Or just stating something obvious?

"Elaborate?" I persisted. Michael went quiet again, and more worry seemed to flood into my system. What the hell is he talking about?

"He was out of control, Brooke," Michael finally spoke up. "Drinking, and drugs, and hooking up with girls and beating people up...I know, he does a lot of that stuff right now- well, apart from the hooking up part because he has you and stuff- But it was...it was bad."

I know Ashton does that stuff now...I do it with him for crying out loud. How bad could it actually be? Before I could say anything, Michael kept talking. "I...Calum and I were worried sick about him. I mean like, Ashton's one of the closest things I have to a brother, you know? I couldn't lose him-"

"What do you mean, 'lose him'?" I asked, my voice starting to shake. Oh god, please don't say what I'm thinking. I had to get to the bottom of this; and clear out the very thought in my head. "Was he...he..." I couldn't find the words to say it.

"Depressed?" Michael said, finishing my sentence for me. "No no, not 'lose him' like...lose him, but I was just scared he was going to do something stupid. Or just get so trapped in all that stupid guilt he has that he would just go crazy. I mean yeah, we've done a lot of crazy shit together, but by the time school started last fall, it was different with Ashton. He was distant, and always down...and always wanting to fight someone or steal something or get high in the canyon by my house. Unlike Jessie, who just did that stuff for the thrill, it was like those things were the only things he could control. He could control who he fought, or what he stole, or how high he got-"

"But he couldn't control the voices in his head." I interrupted.

"Exactly," Michael replied. "There isn't a single person I've ever met that has worse anxiety than Ashton, to be completely honest with you."

Anxiety?

"What do you mean?" I asked. As much as I don't want to hear about this, I felt like I needed to.

"He over thinks things," Michael replied. "Things that he really shouldn't over think. And, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about."

It's true, I did. All the nightmares, the shakiness, the constant protection he has over me. Not to mention, the fact that I just realized he had a full on anxiety attack last night. It made the crack in my heart a little bit bigger, to hear all these things about Ashton that I was too stupid to conclude on my own.

"Yeah..." my voice trailed off. I looked down at my plate of food, but I wasn't hungry anymore. "...I get it."

"But," Michael said. "You didn't let me finish. Like I said, you came at the perfect time."

I nodded, not really sure what he meant. But, I just needed him to continue.

"Just when I thought something terrible was gonna happen...he just stopped. Like, one day in late September, he was different. He was..smiling, and laughing that ridiculous laugh of his, and it wasn't fake. Months prior to that day, it all seemed fake. I had always tried to talk to him about it, but he never said anything. Before, when we first met and became best friends through middle school and highschool, we would always vent to each other and there wasn't a single thing I didn't know about Ashton. But, by the summer of 10th grade, it was different. I felt like I didn't even know my best friend anymore. I didn't know what to do about it, so I just kept quiet and didn't ask him about it. I was worried sick though, let me tell you. So was Calum, and Natalie, and so was his Grandmother..yet we didn't know what to do. Then, that day happened, and it was like a miracle. He was back to the way he was."

"I moved in at the end of September." I breathed, utterly shocked at what Michael was telling me.

"Exactly my point," Michael replied. "And I'm not here to tell you that you absolutely need to watch him and keep an eye on him or anything like that... and I'm also not trying to put a burden on your shoulders...because there isn't any burden at all. I think you did it. I honestly, completely, one hundred percent think that you pulled him out of it. And I don't think he'll ever go back to that distant, dangerous, lost version of himself again. It was weird, when he all of a sudden was back to the way he used to be. At first, I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I soon found out. If you could only see the way he looks at you-"

"What do you mean?" I asked for the 100th time. Relief flooded over me, and I was just happy Michael stopped talking about how Ashton was before I moved here.

"I know you can't tell," Michael said. "But me, being his best friend of 5 years, can. It's like, I can't even explain it. He looks at you like he's finally found it."

"Found what?" I asked.

Michael's next words, seemed to make every feeling of anxst I have disappear. Every problem in the world to vanish, and all of the feelings I have for Ashton to increase in literally 2 seconds.

"A reason to have hope."