This was not okay. This was most definitely not okay.
I couldn't find Ashton anywhere, and this was all his fault. The house was jam packed with people I did not know and the music was so loud it was deafening. I hadn't even seen any of the other boys and I had been around the house about a million times. I didn't like this. At all.
Why did my selfish mother have to leave me here all alone to deal with this? I was a good person, I didn't deserve any of this. I didn't deserve drunk people falling over me and smelling of puke and alcohol, and I didn't deserve to be in the same room as so much shocking fashion. I mean seriously? Board shorts? What was this, the Hawaiian summer of '79?
"Hey girl, you wanna ride with me in my Volvo?"
I grit my teeth together at the voice behind me, spinning around, ready to knock some sense into this loser. "Listen here, boy, the only thing I'll be riding with you is the police car to the station to fucking report your perving ass-"
I stop when I see Luke standing in front of me, holding a beer and grinning widely. My stomach flops.
"You ass," I hiss.
He chuckles. "That was some fire, Stanford."
I just roll my eyes, pushing past him to move away from the bustling crowd. "Yeah, well, you're a very believable perv."
"Thanks!" He cries.
I just shake my head, heading into the kitchen to grab myself some water. I push past some kids getting high and force them outside. God, this was seriously not okay. The minute I saw Ashton I was going to kill him.
"So, what are you drinking?" Luke asks, chasing after me.
I hold up my glass. "Water."
He scoffs. "Hilarious. Want me to get you a beer?"
"I'll pass." I sip at my water. "Why are you even here? Aren't you and Ashton fighting?"
"Yeah?" He shrugs. "So what?"
"So ... this is his party."
He stares at me for a while. "Yeah, and?"
I give up. I officially give up. "Have you seen Ashton? I need to kill him."
Luke laughs. "No I haven't, but let me know when you do. I'll help."
I crack a smile. "Don't fuck up too much, Luke." I pat his arm awkwardly before moving past him.
"What does that mean?" I hear him yell after me as I move down the hall.
Boys.
I find Calum and Michael in the lounge, playing a game of cards with a few other people around the coffee table. Calum spots me and waves me over, a huge smile on his face. "Ella! Come join us!"
With nothing else to do I mosey my way on over and sit down beside Calum on the couch. I don't know what they're playing at all so I just kind of stare at the table.
"We're playing Bullshit," Calum speaks up, as if sensing my unknowingness. "Do you know how to play?"
I just stare at him as if to say 'do you think I do?'
"Right." He clears his throat. "It's simple. Are you good at lying?"
"I'm not bad," I decide.
He smiles. "Great." He hands me a pile of cards and I struggle to hold them all. "The aim of the game is to follow the person before you in a consecutive order. So, if Jax here puts down a two, you have to put down a three."
I study my cards. "But what if I don't have a three?"
"Then, you lie."
"I lie about having a three?"
"And you put down another card that isn't a three, but say it's a three."
"That seems strange."
"Or you can put down more than one," 'Jax' speaks up. "Like, two threes."
"But I don't even have one three, now I'm putting down two threes?"
"You're trying to get rid of your cards," Calum explains. "You want to be the first one with none left."
"So I can say I have four threes, if I have none, and just put down four random cards?"
"I wouldn't," Michael adds. "Because if you say you have four threes, and you have none, then we'll know you're lying. Because we'll all have a three."
I just stare at him. "What."
"If someone calls your bullshit, you have to pick up all the cards from the pile," Calum says. "So play smart."
"So don't say I have four threes if I don't?"
"Would be clever."
"Okay, I'm fucking ready for this shit." I scull back my water and slam my glass down on the table top. "Woohoo!"
"Is that straight vodka?" Jax asks Calum.
Calum peers at the glass. "N-No I think it's just water."
"Bullshit," I say. "Let's go."
"Alright." Jax clears his throat and places two cards, face down, onto the table. "Two threes."
My chest sinks. I have no threes so I have no idea if he's lying or not. No one says anything and so it's my turn. I look at the cards that I have. I have no fours. Fuck.
I put down my eight and try and act cool. "One four .."
People hesitate, but they don't say anything. I breathe a sigh of relief.
"One five," Calum says.
"Two sixes," Michael follows.
"One seven," the girl beside Jax says.
"Four eights," Jax says, putting his four cards down. I look at him, confused. I know for sure he doesn't have four eights, because I put one down claiming it to be a four. I look around at everyone, they're not saying anything.
"Bullshit," I croak.
"What?" Jax says.
"Bullshit."
"Yeah?"
"You don't have four eights."
"Let's see." Calum leans forward and turns over Jax' cards. He flips over one eight, two eights, three eights ...
"I told-"
The last card he flips over is a nine. I raise my eyebrow.
"Fuck," Jax mumbles.
"Pile's all yours, mate." Calum hands it to him. "Good job, Ella. You're getting the game."
I grin. I was starting to like this game. I put down the two fives I have. "Two fives."
"One six."
"Two sevens."
"One eight."
"Bullshit. Jax has all the eights."
"Fuck."
"Alright, one two."
"Two threes."
"One four."
"One five."
"Bullshit."
I look at Michael. "Excuse me?"
"You hesitated," he says. "I'm calling bullshit."
I smile and flip over my card, which shows a five, and give him the finger. "What was that? Sorry? I can't hear you over my truth."
He just rolls his eyes and picks up the pile.
"Two kings."
"One ace."
"Two twos."
I look at what I have. Still no threes. I put down my two sevens and claim them as threes. No one stops me.
"One four."
"One five."
"Two sixes."
"Three sevens."
"Bullshit."
Calum looks at me. "Fuck." He picks up the pile.
I only have two cards left. Calum, Michael and Jax are still struggling with their piles of cards. The girl beside Jax has three cards left. It's on.
"One eight."
"Two nines."
"Three nines."
"What?" Michael cries. "Bullshit. Someone's bullshitting."
"But who?" Jax raises his eyebrow, smirking at his latest turn.
I eye the girl and Jax carefully, trying to figure out the bullshitter. "It's her, it's not Jax."
"Are you sure? Jax is an A class bullshitter."
I shake my head. I'm positive. That little lying slut. The game was so on.
I whack down my last two cards, a jack and a queen. "Two fives."
Nobody stops me.
"I WIN!" I declare, shooting up into the air. "I win! I win! I win!"
Calum puts down a six and then Michael hesitates. "Wait, did she say two fives? Bullshit."
"It's too late," Calum informs him. "She's already won."
I grin madly. "That was a great game."
The others keep playing and I get bored, so I stand up and start walking around again. Seriously, where the hell is Ashton? After walking the entire length of the house for the hundredth thousandth time I decide to go outside and get some fresh air away from the thickness of the crowd inside.
Blue Valley sure is different from L.A, and not just in terms of the people and the landscapes; everything feels different. The kind of atmosphere is one I'm not used to. Everything down here is always so still, unmoving. In L.A things were moving at a constant speed all the time. Nothing ever slowed down, not even for a second. You would wake up in the early hours of the morning and things would still be alive. There'd be sirens, people's chatter, engines, music. Not once did anything just stop. But out here, it's all so quiet. It's a kind of quiet I haven't been used to for ten years. It's eleven at night and the entire world is so still.
I stand outside and take in the silence. The music from inside the house is muffled, like it's trapped inside like it's in some kind of bubble. It feels nice to be free from the suffocating bubble. It feels safe here too, completely out of sight from harm's way. Back in L.A you would be crazy to walk around in the middle of the night, but here it feels like it's totally safe. Quiet and still.
The forest at the back of Ashton's land seems inviting, and for some reason I feel an immense amount of courage within me. I look back at the house and take a deep breath before wandering into the trees.
I hugely regret my decision the minute I step foot onto the forest soil, but I don't really want to go back into the house. Plus, if I remember correctly, the lookout spot shouldn't be too far away. I keep trudging, tripping, trailing.
When I reach the lookout I'm strangely not surprised to see him there, sitting on the rock with his knees up and his arms resting on them. A part within me thought that he might be here, doing some soul searching or whatever. And I'm actually really glad he is.
He brings a beer bottle up to his lips and sculls some back. The moon reflects down on him and makes the amber bottle glow against his skin. I admire him for a second too long because then he senses that I'm there, and he turns around.
"Uh, hi," I say awkwardly.
He just turns back and looks ahead.
I shuffle over to him and haul myself up and onto the rock. It's a rather ungraceful process, but I manage it in the end. I sit beside him, my legs crossed, my hands awkward and fiddly.
"You're missing the party," I say after a while. It's kind of random that Ashton threw this party, yet he's not even at it.
He just shrugs, one hand resting on his knees and the other holding his bottle. His arms are just so ... wow. I wonder how they feel? How would they feel wrapped tightly around me? I gulp.
"There's not much to miss," he answers.
"Yeah, well, it all got too much," I say. "I wanted some fresh air."
He hesitates. "Same."
I turn to him. God, he really is something else. "Luke's here."
"I thought he would be."
"Are you two still fighting?"
He doesn't answer. "Do you think about it much?" He says instead.
"Think about what?'
"Us." He turns to me.
"Us?" My voice cracks. I think about that all the time.
"How things used to be," he clears up, and my heart momentarily sinks. "I mean, do you ever miss it?"
I shrug. "Sure. But that was a long time ago."
He nods, looking back ahead at the vast darkness with minimal spots of light. "Yeah, I know."
"I'm sorry I'm not the person you want me to be," I say after some time.
"I'm sorry too."
I sigh. It felt as if I just got absolutely nowhere with Ashton. What even were we? Friends? Enemies? Some days I was sure and other days I wasn't.
"I missed you for a very long time after you left," he speaks up. His voice is a little quiet and I can't tell if he's drunk or not. "I missed you for so long that I didn't think there would ever come a time where I couldn't not miss you."
"And did there?"
"For a while, yeah. But I think I've always missed you, at least, the idea I had of you. Maybe that's why I still do. I guess I never really got to say goodbye to the you I knew. I'm still holding onto it, thinking it will return. In my head I still see you as I did the day you left."
I chew on his words for a while. "So what happens now?" I ask.
He hesitates. "I don't know, I really don't. I guess I have to learn to like the new you."
"And do you?"
He looks at me. "I'm getting there."
"Do you wish you could be seven again?" I ask him. "Be back there?"
"I think it's a lot better than what I've got going on for me right now," he answers honestly.
"We were seven," I say. "Things seemed so much bigger than they really were."
"Not you." His voice is soft. "You were much bigger than the world I had you in."
"I think my parents are getting a divorce," I say. Nothing's been said, but that's how I know. Mum's showing all signs of moving on and even though dad rings me sometimes, telling me he's trying to bring us back, I'm starting to realise that it's not going to be that easy anymore.
"Has your mum said anything?"
I shake my head. "I can just tell. I thought she loved him enough to work through this, but I guess not."
"It's not that easy, El," Ashton says. "Love isn't always enough."
"I used to think it was. I used to think love was everything. I saw it in my parents everyday, until it just stopped. Just like that, like a switch. Everything they had been through, all the memories, it suddenly meant nothing. How ... how can people just do that?"
"Become strangers?"
" ... Yeah."
I hear him laugh a little. "People change."
"But that's fucked up, that's really fucked up. You can't just love someone one day, and then the next day you don't. Love means forever. You can't just change your fucking mind on someone like that."
"Is that really what you think?"
"You don't?"
Ashton throws his bottle down the cliff. We hear the smash of it hitting the trees a second later. "I don't believe in love," he says.
"Oh, come on. You don't have to be such a guy."
"What's there to believe in? People leaving?"
"People don't always leave."
"People always leave, just like they change. You can't change a person from being a person. No matter how good they are, how much of a saint they are, you can never change the fact that they are human. People don't belong to people, El. You can never expect anyone to stay with you, especially not forever. I think that's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard."
I want to tell him he's being rather cynical and negative, but in a way he's right. "What do you believe in?" I ask.
"What?"
"If you don't believe in love, then what do you believe in?"
He pauses for quite some time. The night air is thick and the wind is still. I can hear my own heart beating. "What a treacherous thing it is to believe in anything."
"So you're a nihilist?" I say. "A negative cynic who hates everything in the world?"
"I believe in music," he says. "Music is the one thing that will never let me down."
"I think you believe in other things but you just don't want to admit it."
"Love? You really believe that bullshit?"
"I believe there's someone out there for everyone," I state firmly. "I think love exists, you just have to be willing to find it."
"Find it? Oh god, listen to yourself. You have such a misguided perception of anything, you know that?"
I'm suddenly offended. "And you're so much better?"
"I'm real," he says. "You're nothing but a shadow of an idea."
"You're a dick," I state, getting to my feet. "A fucking asshole prick loser."
"Anything else?"
"Why do you do this?" I cry. "Every time. It's like you have fucking bipolar or something. God, Ashton, what is actually wrong with you?"
He cracks open another bottle and takes a swig, and the moon shines down on him and reflects the sadness in his eyes. I realise then that, just like the beer bottle at the bottom of the cliff, Ashton is well and truly broken.
"Oh, El, wouldn't you love to know?"