chasing love ;; cth

Chapter 33

Suddenly I notice a head of shaggy blonde hair in it's usual curly mess. Ashton stands on the opposite end of the room with a pair hands held around his waist. My first thoughts are 'Get it in Ashton' because he hasn't really gotten out much and he's a nice guy. A girlfriend would be good for him. But when his new friend pulls away and my eyes come to meet Valerie's my heart stops beating.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the crazy, mixed up thoughts running through my head have disappeared. It's like my mind had completely shut down. Then a shooting pain runs through my stomach. I had been hurt a lot these past few weeks and just when I finally think that I have recovered, I turn a corner and more pain runs in my direction. I really wish I stayed in the car.

She attempts to push Ashton away from her, "Valerie, you need to kiss me." His voice heavy and low.

She looks to me with sorrowful eyes, me wiping away the few stray tears as I begin to stomp towards them. Her voice is soft, "Calum."

"This was your fucking plan man?" I yell, as I approach them. I grab onto Ashton's shoulder pulling him away from her and yanking him around to face me.

"What plan?" She whispers, her face pale.

"Valerie, please go wait in the car," I lower my voice, trying to sound as calm as possible, but it's hard while my cheeks are red hot with anger.

Her eyes fall to the floor, "I-" 

"Go wait in the car Val!" I yell, not meaning to take my anger out on her, but I can no longer hold in my frustration.

She doesn't look surprised by my harsh tone, but as if she had expected it. Technically I have no right to be mad at her. I'm not her boyfriend, she didn't cheat on me. In fact I'm extremely happy that she cheat on Adam, but that doesn't mean that the scene that just played out in front of me didn't hurt. I watch as she makes a brisk walk out of the room and disappears into the crowd.

"Ashton..." My eyes are sad, my voice soft, my heart heavy, "How could you do this?"

"You weren't supposed to be here," His voice and conduct completely normal, as if he wasn't just acting insanely wasted five minutes ago, "You weren't supposed to see that,"

"Clearly," My voice raises, the frustration becoming very prominent, "I thought you had a plan to help her and Adam break up so she would run into my arms. Not yours."

"I do," He places his red cup on a small table next to him. The cup is half filled with water, probably a ploy he put together to make her think he was drunk, "And it would have worked. But I knew you wouldn't have been okay with it, that's why I didn't want you to come. I was supposed to kiss her and Adam was supposed to see. Things would have ended instantly right then and there, but the plan did fold out exactly the way I wanted it to."

I don't say anything, just send him a testing expression to see if he is being honest or not. He looks back at me with truthful eyes. He didn't mean any harm, he was trying to help, and now I feel I look like the jerk for flipping out on him.

"But Calum," He takes a deep inhale, "She kissed me back."

"I didn't really need to know that," I move past him, to a window at the front of the room to make sure that Valerie had gone to the car and didn't run off to Adam begging for forgiveness even though he didn't see what happened. I hate that I have to check up on her, but it seems like something Valerie would do.

"I know but, does that really seem like something Valerie would do?" He looks to me, but I don't look back to him, "Wouldn't you have expected her to push her me off her and run to Adam for protection?"