"You lied to me!" she exclaimed, not caring if she was getting the attentions of the other strangers around her.
Her focus was set on the boy who had dragged her into this and he would be getting a lecture from her, like it or not, as she stomped up to him.
Suddenly the worry turned into anger as she looked him over, who grimaced while she continued yelling at him.
"You told me you were used to this… this is what you call hanging out? Last time I checked, hanging and chilling out does not mean getting beat up. I was right this whole time! You should have listened to me and gone home but no! Instead you got into a fight and... and… ugh! I'm not gonna talk to you, now get in the car."
None of the others said anything as they watched Ashton surprisingly obediently got into the car, the boy they knew as being the one who others listen to, not the other way around. They only managed to give him a look that was a mix between sympathetic and shock.
Still, they were all silent as Delancey glared at Rodger this time.
"You too, Mr. Benson. And don't you dare drive, I'm driving this time."
And, of course, into the car Rodger went.
With that said, Delancey turned to Darren who had an amused look and also terrified at the same time but he quickly covered it up with a smile.
"Man, I never thought you'd be such a tiger. You scared all of us, random girl."
"It's Delancey," she paused, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "And thank you for… helping."
"Well, Ashton's like my little brother, of course I'll help him anytime. And nice to meet you, Delancey. We'll maybe see each other again soon but right now those guys really need to get checked on." he replied, nodding at the two boys in the powder blue car.
Delancey nodded. "Thank you again."
She walked away after both Darren and Jamie waved at her with a smile on their face and then she climbed into the driver's seat before fishing out Ashton's phone from her pocket and handing it to him who took it silently. Then she started up the car and drove away just as the motorbikes scrambled away.
She drove in silent, a scowl on her all the way while the two boys with her not knowing where they were heading to.
"Look, I—"
"Shut up," she snapped and instantly, Ashton went quiet again.
She turned the corner and soon they were driving among rows and rows of double-storey houses. She suddenly stopped and parked right in front of a house with white freshly painted gates and turned off the engine before opening the car door.
"Get out." she ordered as she climbed out, to which both boys obeyed again, of course.
She walked toward the gates and opened one side of it as it was not locked, before going inside and knocked on the door. They waited a few seconds before the door swung opened, revealing Nurse Mikayla, but with normal attire and not in her usual nurse uniform as she smiled at Delancey.
"Hello, Del— oh my God! What happened?"
"Stupid things happened. I need your help, Mikayla," Delancey answered bluntly and noticing how angry she was, Nurse Mikayla nodded.
"Of course! Come in."
As the three filed into the nurse's house, Ashton noticed how nice the relaxing blue tone of the living room is and how cozy it looked like, complete with a sofa, a television, some photo frames on the wall and the scent of lavender air freshener thought there was a hint of a smell of hand sanitizer.
"Before we talk, let me have a look at you two. Come." her voice snapped him out of his look-around and he turned to her to find that she was walking toward a room near the kitchen, and soon he followed after her along with the other two.
Just as he entered the room, the similar smell he would find in any hospital hit his nose and he found that the room they had entered was a medical room. It was like Nurse Mikayla had a Nurse office of her own. There was a single bed pushed to the farthest corner of the room, a closed window beside it, with curtains drawn back, and a stretcher as well as a chair. Then there was a table filled with bandages, rubber gloves, syringes, and other supplies Ashton was lazy to check out, all arranged neatly into different square-shaped containers.
She demanded Ashton and Rodger to stand in front of her so she could inspect their injuries while Delancey waited at the doorway, crossing her arms over her chest and her face now free from the scowl but she still had a stormy expression.
Nurse Mikayla asked both Ashton and Rodger to take off their shirts before she gasped at Rodger's back, which had a pretty big cut on his shoulder blade and it was bleeding.
"Oh, dear… come on, big guy, you're coming with me to the other room upstairs. This wound needs to be cleaned up and probably a few stitches. Let's go," she paused, turning to Delancey. "And Delancey, if you don't mind you can help Ashton here, he only has a few bruises here and there, there's a few scratches and some small cuts too, but nothing that wouldn't heal with some antiseptic applied. Make sure to clean the wounds first though. You know what to do, my girl."
Then without waiting for a reply, she walked past her with Rodger behind her, holding his bloody shirt. Then both Ashton and Delancey was left alone.
Ashton stared at her who wasn't making eye contact with him and had sauntered into the room, grabbing a clean cloth from one of the cabinets pressed to the walls and then disappeared out of the room before coming back a few minutes later with a basin filled halfway with water. Then she jabbed a thumb at the stretcher, telling him to sit on it without any word coming from her, and he obeyed, silently sitting on the stretcher. She walked toward him before setting down the basin beside him on the stretcher and squeezed the water out of the cloth she had taken earlier, then started cleaning his wounds up.
She started from the back, dabbing at the bruises and scratches and cuts gently before making her way to the front where there were a few more scratches at his collarbone and then above his stomach. Then she moved to the tiny cuts on his arms and finally at the cut on his cheek, all the while not making eye contact with him.
After his wounds were cleaned up, she walked away again with the basin, setting it down on another empty table and grabbing a few things like cotton balls and a bottle of antiseptic as well as a few band aids. She started back to him and started applying the antiseptic to his injuries. Just as she reached his collarbone, Ashton couldn't take the silence any longer.
"I'm sorry." he apologized, his voice coming out more of a whisper as he stared at her, wanting her to look at him with those blue eyes of hers.
"I know I should've listened to you," he continued. "But I thought he has changed. I don't want to be enemies with him anymore so I wasn't expecting when a few guys started approaching us and beat us up without warning while that… that horrible person, watched us with a smile on his face," he finished.
She still didn't show him any sign of replying but only walked away again and coming back again with a clean shirt and handed it to him to which he took without hesitation and put it on. The shirt fit him perfectly while his own shirt was beside him, dirty with some dirt and blood.
She then started applying the antiseptic to the cut on his chin to which he winced a little this time when she accidentally pressed it a little too hard.
"Delancey, I'm truly sorry. I will listen to you next time." he said again, looking up at her and this time she looked back at him, staring at him for a long moment.
"There won't be a next time. If you're just gonna get into a fight again, tell me so I could kill you myself properly," she said, but with the edge to her voice, he wasn't sure if she was joking or not but he still gave her a smile.
Then something shocking happened.
Her face crumpled up and she started crying. He watched her with shock, not expecting that reaction to happen as she threw the cotton ball she was holding beside him and it bounced off the wall to land on the stretcher then she turned away for a while, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.
"Del—"
"Why do you have to be so stupid?" she interrupted, her voice cracking from her crying. "It would have been different if you had just listened to me. What if I didn't call Darren? What if you got beaten up worse? We haven't talked for weeks and you haven't made any attempt to try and contact me and then you suddenly appeared at my doorstep and got yourself beaten up, like what is wrong with you? That twenty minutes was probably one of the worst twenty minutes in my life… I was so worried for you and you decided to just apologize and think everything will be cool again? I felt like watching you with those guys had mentally scarred my mind and you apologizing is gonna make things better? Make that make sense to me because I ca—"
Ashton suddenly grabbed her hands, stopping her ranting and then pulled her into a hug. She was silent as she continued to cry into his shoulder while he had his arms wrapped around her.
She had cried and worried herself… for him. Ashton still couldn't believe that but her tears were the proof to that.
This girl, who scared most of the students at Wellsworth Academy, who was the strict head prefect and who Roxy called a "b*tch", was crying for him. Of all people, him.
How was that possible?
It wasn't until he felt her arms slowly circling around his waist did he knew he was right all along.
He didn't just like her, he was falling for her. Fast.
The thought scared him a little, because he used to have crushes before and falling in love sound so foreign to him, yet it fit perfectly to what he was feeling for the girl in his arms now.
"Please don't do this to me again."
Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he realized she had stopped crying.
He gave her shoulders a little squeeze and rested his uninjured cheek on top of her head.
"I won't… I really won't, I promise," he said softly and then when she was finally relaxed, he let her pull away. "How can I make it up to you?"
"By stop being an idiot and not getting into anymore fights," she replied bluntly and he laughed before nodding.
"Okay, I will."
She nodded and then told him he should lie down on the bed while waiting for Rodger to finish up upstairs as she went and cleaned up the things she used and washed her face.
When she came back into the room, he was sitting on the bed and looking down at his phone, texting someone, Julian.
"You should change your phone's password because you had told me what it was earlier." she told him, taking a seat on the chair and pulling out her phone from her pocket as well.
He shook his head. "It's just you, I'm not worried."
She only nodded and then they fell into a comfortable silence.
She was too focused on her phone, checking the messages Piper had sent to her that she didn't even notice when Ashton had shifted closer to her until their knees were almost touching, that's when she looked up and was surprised when he was staring at her intensely.
"Did the fight damaged your brain? You're… sitting too close." she noted, leaning back in her chair.
He closed his eyes and laughed before awkwardly shuffling a little on the bed so he was farther back, but not too far.
"I'm sorry. I just… I have something to tell you and I'm scared to say it but if I don't say it then I will never ever say it so I have to say it," he paused, looking back at her with his hazel eyes. "Now."
At this, she frowned but let out a little chuckle at his words before sliding her phone back into her pocket and stared back at him.
"Go on then."
He let out a nervous breath before looking down at his hands, fidgeting with his fingers and suddenly feeling like a little kid asking his parents for a candy.
"I like you. A lot. I think at this point I don't even like you anymore, I think I'm starting to… to fall for you."
Then he just couldn't stop talking.
"You can go ahead and tell your dad to send me far away and never see me again because I know how much your duty and reputation means to you and I may be a disturbance to all of that so I'm sorry and maybe I should've just shut up but I know I won't feel better if I don't tell you so you can also just pretend that this never happen and I ho—"
"Ashton."
He stopped. Her voice was quiet but it was enough to silence him.
He wanted to look at her, tried, but couldn't. He was scared if he look, he'll find her scowl, or glare or—
"Look at me."
He looked at her. Why did he looked at her when he didn't want to in the first place? Oh, yes, must be the Delancey's charm working its magic that made people obediently follow its command.
He was surprised though to find her looking all calm, except for the tint of red on her cheeks.
She was blushing.
Delancey Hardy was blushing… he had never seen her blush.
"I'm sorry, did my face got red? It wasn't supposed to but you can't really control this sort of thing." she covered her face with her hands then and rested her elbows on her lap, replaying his words in her mind.
"I… uh… I don't know how to answer to that?" he said, although it came out more of a question.
He just confessed his heart out to her and she was talking about her face?
But little did he know how wild Delancey's heart was beating in her chest and how her stomach was fluttering from his words.
A full minute of silence went by before Ashton started to speak again.
"So… are you not going to say anything?" he asked.
She lifted her head then and looked at him, her blush was gone but she was giving him a small smile.
"I don't know what to say. I… I wasn't expecting for you to tell me the same thing of how I have been feeling as well an—"
"You feel the same way?"
At this, she looked at him incredulously like he had told her he was pregnant again.
"I hugged you, Ashton. I've never hugged other boys before and I've broke a few of my own rules just so I could be there for you. That should have been a pretty obvious giveaway, I think."
Ashton felt like a little kid who finally got his candy, until her face suddenly turned sad and he felt like the candy he got slipped from his hand and fell into a drain.
"I feel the same way as you but… but I don't know if we're possible, you know? My dad probably might or might not mind if I like one of his students but this is my own personal problem. I hate it but I need to sort this out on my own or I won't feel happy with myself. I just… don't know, it's hard to explain. I think my dad won't care but I feel like he would. I think that all the other students would just laugh at me if I were to…" she trailed, looking out of the window and leaving her words hanging.
"You're scared and insecure."
She took a deep breath and nodded. "I know, it's horrible. But I've worked myself so hard trying to be the perfect one so I'm scared one wrong step will make me fall. It's wrong, I know that. But you'll understand, won't you?"
Ashton didn't understand, because he was never one to care if anyone see him as perfect. But he will try to understand what she's going through and so he nodded and smiled.
She returned the smile and suddenly reached out her hand. He put his hand on top of hers and she smiled wider… wider than he had ever seen her smile.
"Thank you," she paused. "But if you ever find another girl, never hesitate to go to her."
At that, he smirked at her. "Okay, but I feel like waiting. Because, you know, challenges are fun once in a while. And like in those books and movies, the bad boy always want the girl who is hard to get."
They laughed, hands still in each other's.
"But you're not a bad boy, Ashton," she told him and he nodded.
"You're right, I'm not. I'm just Ashton, who accidentally got himself beaten up again."
She scowled at that. "Now you've mentioned it, you're still not off the hook because I'm still mad at you for that."
Ashton looked at her with a teasing smile. "I understand. You can give me a detention if that makes you feel better."
She smacked him in the shoulder then, and he laughed. Both of them coming to one realization.
They were not lovers, yet. Of course not. But both of them knew they were now more than friends.
Ahhhhhh what a long chapter. Also, won't you look at our Ashy and Dely being all comfy with each other? Don't forget to vote, comment, and share if you like!