Just like that, it was already Sunday morning and to Lyla's surprise she was actually looking forward to be out on a Sunday for a change. She had set an alarm just in case it had escaped her mind, which could have very well been possible. After having a tiniest bit of cereal for breakfast at 11am, she goes back to her room and checks her phone to find 10 texts and 3 miscalls from Lexie.
Lyla frantically unlocks the phone to call her back, "What's the matter Lex? Are you ok?"
"Jesus Christ, thank the heavens. I thought you hadn't woken up. You and Ashton are heading to the park together right?" Lexie says relieved on the other side of the phone.
"Um yeah, we're not leaving in until 11:30 though. Also are we buying food to eat from the supermarkets there or are we eating at a restaurant?"
"Just bring about £30, I'm pretty sure we're just gonna get a takeout pizza and have it at the park."
"Ok great! I'll see you then."
Lyla stays on her phone for what seems like 2 minutes until she checks the time and it reads 11:20. She throws her phone onto her bed and picks up the easiest and most comfy outfit, which is a plain navy blue t-shirt and grey sweatpants with her initials embroidered near the bottom.
Lyla questions her choice of clothing, then mutters under her breath, "What can I say? I have an impeccable sense of fashion."
She rushes into the bathroom and ties her up into a half up half down ponytail. She puts on some jewellery and a shit ton of deodorant for some reason as well as covering herself in perfume, that luckily doesn't have a choking smell to it. Lyla runs around her room to find her string bag (which is the only bag she'll ever use), wallet, battery pack and water bottle still half filled with yesterday's water. She scours the floor and her desk to find loose change so she doesn't have to ask her mum for too much money. She grabs her coat hanging on her door and hurries down the stairs.
"Mum! Could I please have £15, I'm going out right now!"
Lyla heads to the shoe closet and finds her black high-top Converse so she could be at least a bit more presentable. She puts them on as her mum places £20 next to her.
"I don't have any 5's on me, you might need a bit more anyways. Have fun love, ta-ra!" Mum says.
Lyla swings the door open and it closes it a bit too loudly behind her, "Oh fuck, didn't mean that at all," she whispers under her breath.
To her luck, Ashton had also just come out of his house, Lyla runs over to him, "Good morning, good morning. We can either take the tube then catch a taxi or walk a bit to the bus stop that will brings us basically right to the park. Bus might be a bit quicker and cheaper."
"Lead the way to the bus stop then," Ashton says.
**
"You know, you're quite different at home than compared to school," Ashton quietly whispers to assuage the awkward silence.
"I could say the same for you."
"Do you hate me or something? You sure act like you don't want to talk, like all the time. Is it like a thing that you do?"
Lyla's demeanour automatically changes and she starts nervously fiddling her phone, "No no no, I don't hate you at all. It's just– you see at school, if you're seen as the 'quiet' one, people who you're friends with find it really easy to pick on you because they think you can't stand up for yourself. And it just pisses me off just cause other's are just different to you, doesn't mean you get to pick on them. So yeah, I'm normally the 'quiet' one, but you need to let people know you can defend yourself you know?"
"Does Lexie go clubbing or drinking or shit like that?" he asks out of nowhere.
"Not clubbing, she goes drinking though sometimes, she's responsible to my knowledge and it's like light alcohol. She'll have like a cider or Smirnoff when she goes to those places and she only goes about once a month. She takes good care of herself cause of sports and everything so she knows what's too much. I've tagged along one time and hated every second of it. Everyone was just downing shots like there was no tomorrow, it just smelled like a candy land on one side and it smelled of cigs on the other. It was fucking horrible just watching people ruin themselves like that."
"I never understood vaping. It's just inhaling sugared water cause no one wants to get hooked on nic but doesn't want to do cigs cause then they'll fuck up their lungs," there was a long awkward pause, "So, no boyfriend, tell me why?"
"Nope, not a conversation to have with a stranger," Lyla scoffs whilst shaking her head.
"We literally live next to each other and we go to the same school and we're going to hang out together right now? How the fuck are we strangers?" Ashton says in a sarcastically offended tone.
"You'll know one day when we're better friends," Lyla says, she gets up from her seat from the bus, "Our stop is next, get ready."
They had arrived at the park earlier than expected and Lyla had texted Lexie to hurry up too many times to count on 2 hands. Ashton had tried to start a conversation multiple times but Lyla got too flustered by all the questions they ended up sitting in silence for about 10 minutes on a park bench until Myles arrived, which Lyla was eternally grateful for.
The two of them have their own conversation while Lyla sits peacefully. She never bothered to get into anyone's business or engage in a conversation where she wasn't needed.
Lexie arrives 15 minutes late, as per usual, they decide to go Pizza Hut for lunch. Ashton protests to get a Hawaiian pizza, which by the way is a crime against humanity, pineapple doesn't belong on bread with tomato sauce thank you very much. They go to a small supermarket in the area to buy small snacks and drinks and head back to the park to eat.
"Where did you move from?" Lexie asks Ashton.
"Uh– London. Had to move cause of um–" he hesitates, "my dad's job. We were there for about 4 years. It's been the only place I really considered home, liked it there to be honest. My dad had to move like crazy, London was the only place we only ever really settled down in."
"Cambridge is only an hour and a half out from London, couldn't he just make the trip every few days and work from home?" Lexie asks.
Ashton looked rather troubled and refused to make eye contact with any of us, "He's a– a doctor, surgeon, trauma, actually. So he kind of has to be near work in case of an emergency you know?"
Lyla, sat there with her mouth shut the entire time, making sure she had food in her mouth so she didn't have to speak too much. "So what was your school like in London?" Lexie continues to shoot questions at Ashton.
Ashton finally loosens up and looks relieved and comfortable answering a question, "It was like any other public school: messed up kids hiding in shitty bathrooms, hallways smelled like cigs, everyone got absolutely hammered over the weekend. Basically all of year 9 and up were hungover on Mondays. Teachers never gave a fuck about anything, a kid in my math class threw a whole ass chair at the teacher cause he accidentally marked his paper wrong. He got put into a psych ward for a week or something cause he just got mental. Pretty sure it was from the coke."
"One hell of a hell hole," Lyla mutters under her breath.
"Pardon?" Ashton tries to force an answer out of her.
"Just me being– uh– me, I guess, don't mind me," Lyla chokes on the huge piece of pizza she shoves into her mouth, to avoid saying more stupid shit and unwanted commentary.
"Lyla tells me you know a few places to go drinking and stuff?" Ashton asks.
"You drink?"
Pause. A very long and deadly pause. Ashton glares at the grass until he finally replies calmly, "I just moved from London, of course I drink, I would've gotten bullied for life if I didn't. Not very often though, I've never gotten absolutely pissed before where I've gone into school hungover. I also have a pretty high tolerance to alcohol I guess, some of my friends can't even stand up straight after two shots."
Lyla continues to sit there silently and stuffing her face with food as Lexie tells Ashton about all the different places they can go together if he's interested.
"It's not as nice now because it's so fucking cold at night. I haven't gone in about 2 months 'cause of the weather. Through April through to October, it's fucking wild and there's so many people, it's really fun. Come along some time," Lexie goes on.
"I'll keep that in mind," Ashton replies.
Once they had finished lunch, they walked around the park and took Ashton to some of the more popular spaces you'd find teenagers hanging out. Lyla engaged in the conversation at some times but mainly stayed looking at her phone pointlessly and listening to her 10 hour long Spotify playlist.
After an hour of showing Ashton, they'd all gotten quite exhausted. Myles and Lexie decided to extend their date to go watch a movie and Lyla had been longing to go back home.
"Thanks for this guys, it means a lot that you care enough to do this," Ashton says thankfully.
"C'mon Ashton, we're going back home. Let's go," Lyla says as she's already walking away and towards the bus station.
"Bye Ly, see you tomorrow, love you!" Lexie shouts.
"Ashton hurry the fuck up!" Lyla shouts again, "See yas, love you too Lex!"
The bus ride back couldn't be any more awkward until Ashton finally gave up trying to make conversation and resulted to going on his phone and let's Lyla live her is silent peace, which she had been waiting for. They walk back from the bus stop in silence as well, all the way until they're in front of Ashton's house. An overwhelming rush of guilt takes over Lyla, "I'm sorry," she says quickly.
"Um— what for?"
"I've been an asshole haven't I?" Lyla asks, but she was really just asking herself, "All you're trying to do is to get to know me better and I just keep shutting you out, I'm sorry."
"Lyla— no. I just hate silence, like I really hate it. It's already so quiet at home, cause there's no one I can talk to, so when I'm around people my age I just get over excited and talk too much."
"I'm not great with people, as you can tell," Ashton provides a comforting smile to Lyla, "It's just happened recently, I was exactly like Lexie actually, if not more social than her. Then I just started getting quieter, naturally my circle got smaller," Lyla refuses to make eye contact with him but Ashton continues to look right at her, "It's not that I hate people or anything, it just fits me better. So it's just going to take me some to warm up to you."
Ashton has a flirtatious smile on his face by now and it pisses Lyla off, "Yeah, I get it, I was like that as a kid," Ashton says with his eyes still locked on Lyla, "What time should I be ready tomorrow?"
"Whenever you're getting the bus or driven to school maybe? How would I know?" Lyla has a puzzled expression on her face, and she's expecting the worst, she already knows what he's going to say.
"Oh your parents haven't told you? They are too kind for doing this by the way. They offered to drive me as well when you're getting driven to school and on the way back as well, only if I want to," Ashton chooses to ignore that Lyla's eyes are wide open, "So... what time should I be over?"
For fuck's sake.
Lyla brings her attention back to reality. "If you're organised or whatever you can come over at 7:20 maybe? Someone will definitely be awake to let you in."
"Yup ok sure! Please thank your parents for me again, it really is a big help. See you tomorrow!" He starts jogging back into his house, Lyla expects him to turn back to wave goodbye to her but he doesn't. He doesn't even turn to close the door behind him, which leaves Lyla shocked cause he just seemed like one of those people with so many small and simple manners forced into his basic routine.
A gust of wind blows against Lyla just as she turns to head in the direction of the house, which is just 20 metres away. Luke is waiting in the kitchen and jumps as soon as the wind slams the door shut behind Lyla. "So it wasn't that bad after all right?" Luke questions confidently.
"Yeah you're right, universe just wanted me to be more social," Lyla runs up to her room and turns on the heat and puts on her black hoodie and changes into her shorts (she can't stand wearing trousers inside, it just really bothers her.) then lays down on her bed.
Her eyes start filling up with water and she has no idea why. She faces her wall and her eyes don't stop filling up. Stop it! Why am I doing this to myself? He said it was fine, stop worrying. Tears continue to flow onto the spot of the pillow underneath her eyes. She hears Luke coming up from the stairs and immediately bounces off her bed and into the bathroom to clean herself up.
Lyla prays that Luke doesn't come into her room while her eyes are still red and puffed up, thankfully he doesn't. Lyla plays her playlist of "happy" songs, if you will, on her speakers, which distracted her for a good 30 minutes until she got too tired and resulted to watching her show once again.