HELLO, ALL OF YOU!!!
TIME FOR ANOTHER UPDATE ON HAZEL AND ASHTON :) THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME FLASHBACKS IN THE CHAPTERS FROM NOW ONWARDS SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT THEIR FRIENDSHIP WAS LIKE DURING SCHOOL.
ENJOY!🖤🖤
I ran frantically towards Grandpa's room, where the stupid phone wouldn't stop ringing, and no one else was picking it up. I dashed into his room and picked the phone.
"Hello?" I was greeted back with a voice that I could recognize anywhere. Ashton. My best friend who now apparently didn't even remember me. I kept quiet.
"Hello? Grandpa?" he asked again.
I shoved the phone towards Grandpa, who was sitting peacefully on his bed, doing meditation. Couldn't he have picked up the phone?
"It's Ashton. He wants to talk to you." I informed him.
"Tell him that I don't want to talk to him." Grandpa said loudly, to make sure Ashton would be able to hear it at his end. I lifted the phone to my ears and spoke again, a little hesitantly.
"You must have heard that right?" I asked, dying to hear his voice again.
"Tell Grandpa that I'll come by the house around 2 PM to meet him." And with that, he cut the phone. I couldn't help but noticing the boredom and disinterest in his voice. It was clear that he had no interest whatsoever in talking to me. It made me feel disappointed as hell.
"What was he saying?" asked Grandpa. If he was so interested in what Ashton had to say, why couldn't he have spoken to Ashton himself?
"He's dropping by at 2 PM to see you." I put the phone back down on the desk and stomped out the room. It was 1 PM now, and Ashton would be here in an hour. I didn't want to face him, so I would just have to go back to Arlette's pretending to have a meeting or something. I picked up my bag from the couch in the living room and was about to leave when I was stopped by Aunt Jen.
"Hazel! Helena and I are going to the passport office for some work. I need you to prepare lunch for Ashton and stay here until he comes." Aunt Helena was the wife of my mom's second brother. A lot of family and relations, I know.
"What? But I have an important meeting to attend." I lied. The truth was that I was just nervous to actually talk to him face to face.
"Cancel the meeting then. Please, Hazel? If I could manage I wouldn't have asked you." She persisted.
"Okay, fine. I'll make lunch." And I stormed into the kitchen angrily. He didn't even want to see me. Then why was I being forced to be all nice and make lunch for him? The only reason I was doing this was because Aunt Jen asked me to. I heard her speaking on the phone and went back into the living room to hear who it was.
"Please come on time Ashton. Hazel is preparing lunch especially for you, you wouldn't want to miss it." she chirped enthusiastically. Why did she have to tell him that? I went back into the kitchen and finished making the food, while both my Aunt's left for the passport office.
Ashton
It felt refreshing and nostalgic at the same time, to be back in LA after 10 long and hard years. This place harbored some very good and very bad memories, most of which I didn't want to remember, but then again memories can't just be deleted.
One of the memories I desperately wanted to forget about was the memory of my former best friend, Hazel Martin.
While I was in London, I thought about her a lot, but now that I was back in LA, a place where everywhere I went was filled with memories of her, the need to see her in person was too strong. But there was something thing that was overpowering my need to see her again. Anger. Revenge.
I couldn't be expected to forget the way she had treated me in the time when I needed her support the most, and just move one, could I? There are some things that you just can't forget no matter how hard you try to, and this was one of those things.
When Aunt Jen called me to tell me that Hazel was making lunch for me, I was tempted to rush over to their place instantly. Hazel had always been an amazing cook, and I hadn't had her food in the past 10 years. But like I said before, my anger and need for revenge overpowered everything.
"Ashton! You're so lost today. I thought you had to be somewhere at 2 PM, that's why you won't have lunch with me." said my friend Reece, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Yeah, actually the plan got postponed to 3 PM," I lied, "So I'll have lunch with you. Order whatever the specialty of this place is." I smiled at him. I had met Reece in London, and we immediately hit it off. He had been there for me during the past ten years, whereas Hazel hadn't, so I would give him the priority. If my best friend wanted to have lunch with me, so be it. Hazel and Grandpa could wait.
"Great!" he exclaimed. He called a waiter and ordered the food. When the food came, I made him take a picture and I posted it on Instagram because I knew she would see it. Let her see that I was enjoying with my friends, and I wasn't going to be there at her every beck and call like I had been ten years ago.
Hazel
It was 3 PM, and Ashton still wasn't here. I don't even know why I was bothering to wait for him, but Aunt Jen said that he would come here and have lunch, so I figured it would be polite to wait. I started scrolling through my social media and froze when I saw a post from Ashton.
I was actually surprised to see a picture of him with some friend of his, having lunch. The picture was captioned:
Having the best of LA food with my best friend.
Now that got me angry. Here I was, making his favorite food and waiting for him for over an hour, and he had already eaten with some friend. I was stupid to think he would come here and have lunch with me, and it would all become fine between us.
Fine then. Let him enjoy his lunch with his bestie, I should've known better and eaten my own food by now. Stupid me. I began to serve out some food in a plate for myself, when the doorbell rang. It was probably Danny, the 7-year old son of Aunt Jen, returning home from school. We could eat lunch together, now that he was here.
I ran to the front door and opened it, only to come face to face with the one and only, Ashton Kennedy. I was so surprised and lost for words that I just shut the door on his face and leaned back against it. Way to greet your ex-best friend who's mad at you right?
"Grandpa told me to not let you in if you come." I said cautiously. When I didn't get any response, I ran towards the window which opened towards the front of the house. I opened it and peeked through. I stretched forward through the window a little to get a better view of the front door and...... I fell through it with a crash!
Well, so much for trying to remain calm. Now all I wanted to do was go and murder someone. Preferably Ashton, who was nowhere to be seen. I went back to the front door and tried to push it open, only to remember that I had been the one to lock it to prevent Ashton from coming. Fate was really testing my limits today.
And then the door opened to reveal a smirking Ashton, and well me, I was gaping at him like some confused little duckling, wondering how he had managed to get in.
"I'm going to Grandpa's room." he said and walked to towards the staircase without sparing me a second glance. That's when I remembered.
"Ashton!" I called out. He stopped and turned to face me.
"You still remember that secret passage?" I asked, surprised.
"We need to sneak into the house, get our tennis rackets and sneak back out. If anyone catches us we'll be forced to stay here and finish our homework." I groaned. I led the way to the side of the house, where there was a ladder that stretched up to the window of the storage room. Me and Ashton climbed up the ladder, opened the window and stepped quietly into the storeroom. There was a pile of cardboard boxes in front of the door, which we would have to remove if we wanted to get in. We quickly removed all the boxes and tip-toed our way into the main house.
"If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you without any hesitation." I threatened Ashton. He scoffed.
"I'll probably forget the way up here by tomorrow."
I couldn't believe he'd actually remembered that. We'd only used a couple of times. But Ashton didn't reply and continued sprinting up the stairs towards Grandpa's roo. The asshole.
I ran behind him and crashed into his back when he stopped suddenly at the entrance of Grandpa's room. He didn't even turn to face me while saying, "Watch where you're going!"
He walked into the room and towards the many photo frames put on the wall above the headboard of Grandpa's bed. He eyes scanned through all the pictures before stopping on a picture where both of us were sitting on either side of Grandpa, kissing his cheek. I saw him smile, but just like yesterday at the party, it didn't take long for his smile to turn into a frown.
I stomped over to where he standing.
"If you're only here to meet Grandpa, let me wake him up." I said angrily and was about to shake Grandpa to wake him up when Ashton grabbed hold of my wrist and held it back firmly. I tried to wriggle out of his hold but to no avail.
"Grandpa doesn't like to be disturbed when he's sleeping in the afternoon. I'll just wait for him to wake up." he said and walked out of the room, again.
So he even remembered that Grandpa didn't like to be disturbed while sleeping in the afternoon, but he was reluctant to remember me?
I can't even begin to imagine how it's going to be between us these next couple of days.
THAT'S IT FOR THIS CHAPTER GUYS!
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