Uppercut (A James Maslow FanFic)

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

It had been two days since I had seen Ashton at the store. Two days of practically locking myself in my room, as a reminder that venturing into the outside world was a chance that I couldn’t take. Seeing him, meant that he had come home for the weekend. He was bound to be wandering around our small town and I didn’t want to risk bumping into him again. 

I had a lot of time to think as I spent the weekend quietly sitting in my bedroom. It seemed that I was incapable of doing anything else. Normally, I would have taken this time to get caught up on my favorite TV shows, or turn on the radio and have a dance party with Devon, or any other fun activity. But the thought of doing any of those things hadn’t crossed my mind. All I could do was sit on my bed and stare off in the distance as my brain continued to think.

All of this pondering had lead me to some conclusions that I hadn’t seen before.

First, I had noticed a few things about myself. I guess I had always assumed that because I had grown to hate Ashton for what he had done, that that anger would cause me to be confronting and upfront towards anything associated with him. And, most of the time it did. I had assumed that because of how strong those feeling were, that they would act as a barrier and protect me from getting hurt again. I thought they’d make me invincible to the pain he once caused me.

My actions in the store had proved my thoughts wrong. The moment I saw him, all those strong and powerful feelings had been forgotten. I had felt nothing but ice cold fear run through my body. I had done the complete opposite of what, I thought, all those built up frustrations would’ve caused me to do. Over the past few years, I knew that if I ever did see Ashton again that I wouldn’t just be able to march straight up to him and just start screaming at him. No matter how much I had wanted to in the past, I knew that there was no way I would be capable of that. I had never really known what my reaction to seeing him would be. But now that I had seen him again, I had found out.

The unexpectedness of the situation had shown me the other feelings that I felt towards him, the ones that I hadn’t realized I had. Before, they had been overpowered by the anger and hatred but once those were stripped away, the less powerful emotions were all I had left. And that brief encounter showed me what they were, fear and grief.

I hadn’t realized that the wounds Ashton had given me were still open and bleeding. I thought they healed. I hadn’t noticed that I still felt the pain from them until everything that was blocking it had been removed.  The situation that occurred two days ago, made me see the unwanted truth. That I was afraid of Ashton.

I was afraid of him because I knew he could still hurt me. Seeing him had made me feel both scared for my life and upset, in a depressed kind of way. Seeing him just going about his everyday life without a care in the world, made me want to cry in frustration. If he only knew how much of a mess my life had been because of him. If he only knew of how he’d broken me and how I’d struggled to recover. Maybe then, he wouldn’t look so content. Seeing him had caused me to feel such misery and sadness as I was reminded what he had done in the past and how he did nothing but ignore me to make me disappear from his life. It was the worst feeling in the world.

The second conclusion I had reached as I thought, had to do with how Ashton reacted. I had also been unsure of what Ashton would do if we ever saw each other again. He had abandoned me in my greatest time of need because he had been afraid. I guess that I always expected him to show that same fear if we ever saw each other. But I had been very wrong. If anything, Ashton had shown the exact opposite of fear.