I slide into the car that's waiting for me.
"Ashton's a little upset that you asked me to pick you up, he wants to know if he did something wrong," Calum asks me. I'm glad he got his license before we left for LA.
"He did absolutely nothing," I smile widely at him. I see him light up, him probably not seeing me this happy during treatment.
"Oh boy, what are you up to?" he says, squinting his eyes at me with a smile on his face as well.
"I want to take Ashton out on a date," I blurt out, "publicly. Hold his hand, go on a walk, maybe even get some dinner at a restaurant. I know me eating out would make him really happy," I say excitedly, even though the prospect of eating outside of treatment or our home-away-from-home terrifies me - all the boys know this.
"You must have had a good day!" Calum says excitedly, "what happened?"
I laugh, then say, "We talked about what we want from life, and what's holding us back. And I realise I want everyone to know how much I love Ash. I want to show him off, I want the world to know how lucky I am to have someone like him. And I want to show him how much he means to me."
Calum's smile gets even wider than before. "There's a glint in your eyes that I haven't seen be there for a while," he says.
"Can you start driving already?! I want to get home!" I nearly yell.
"Alright, alright!" Calum giggles, pulling out and driving away.
~
"We're-"
"WE'RE HOME!" I yell excitedly, interrupting Calum's introduction.
Michael and Ashton look up to us from across the room from the couch they're sitting on together. Ashton is laying in Michael's lap, Michael's hand in his hair. I can tell something's wrong.
I make my way over to him fast. "Babe, what's wrong?" I ask. Michael must take this as me wanting to take over because he steps away from the couch, leaving Ashton and I alone.
He sighs, sitting up. "I don't know, you asked for me to not pick you up. I thought I did something," he says looking downcast.
I take his face into my hands and tell him, "Baby, you did nothing wrong. I only wanted to surprise you!"
His face lights up a little. "Surprise me?"
"I had a good day at partial today and realised some important things," I say, then slowly lean in for a kiss. He realises this and starts to kiss back. I can hear Michael and Calum in the background start to busy themselves. They must have been watching us before.
I pull away from the soft kiss to see a smile start to bloom on his face. "I love you Ash," I tell him.
He grabs my face and smashes our lips together quickly. It's over before I know it. "I love you too, Luke," he says with a giant smile.
I stare at him a little bit longer, wondering how I got so lucky to call him mine. I shake the thoughts away, needing to focus on what I want to do next. "Go get dressed. Something classy but not too fancy."
His face looks happily shocked. "Luke Hemmings, are you taking me out?"
"Go get dressed, you dork!" I yell to him. He gets up and walks his way to his, well, really our bedroom now. I've sort of been sleeping there instead of my room now. My clothes are still in my room though, so I walk towards my own room. I gravitate towards my closet and see a white collared shirt with black bird forms on it, and immediately know that this is the shirt I want to wear. It was the shirt I wore on our first date. I hold the shirt up to myself and wonder if I should change out of my vans and into some boots. I decide on the boots, they bring in the classy look. I stay in my ripped jeans.
I had a beanie on before, so I quickly go to the bathroom and fix up my hair with some gel. It doesn't take long and before I know it, I'm ready for our date. As soon as I walk out of the room, I see Ashton.
My heart stops a little.
There's no bandana in his hair, which seems to be all he's been wearing recently. Unlike my shirt that's buttoned up to the top, his has three buttons open, revealing some of his chest underneath the navy blue fabric. His sleeves are rolled up one third of the way, and is that a Look or what.
He's gone for boots as well and has put on some black jeans.
"You look..." I say, looking him up and down, noticing how curly his hair looks. It's adorable.
"Scrumptious?" He says with a wink. I can hear the groans coming from the kitchen where Calum and Michael are.
"You're such a dweeb, shut up and kiss me," I tell him. He happily obliges and walks over to me. We link hands, both of us slowly going in for a kiss.
"Get a room!" Michael yells.
"Shut up Mike, leave them be," I hear along with a punch, probably delivered to Michael's arm.
Ashton giggles, but I still go in for the kiss. He's giggling into the kiss but gives in and kisses back a few seconds later. When we pull away, he looks lovestruck, as I assume I look as well.
"That was the cutest kiss ever. You legit giggled into my mouth," I confess.
"You consider that cute?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, you were breathing into my mouth while you giggled so that felt weird but besides that, yeah, it was cute. Sue me!"
"You're cute," he says, giggling again.
"Okay, let's go," I say, pulling his hand with mine. I'm still not the best with compliments, and usually try to ignore them.
I can't drive yet, so he's going to drive, but I'll be navigating. We both climb into the car. As he turns on the car, Ghost by Ella Henderson starts to play. It's the end of the song though, and the radio introduces Hozier's Take Me To Church.
"Okay, take a left at the first stop sign."
~
After a little driving, we end up at Grand Park, a huge park filled with performances and people-watchers.
"You wanted to come here?" he asks me, "but it's so public."
I grab his hand briefly and say, "I know."
I let go of his hand to open up the door, and I hear him say, "There's a look in your eyes that I haven't seen in a while. It's making me happy."
As we both close our doors, I tell him that's not the first time I've heard that today. He smiles as I walk over to him, grabbing his hand lightly. He jerks away quickly and looks around him to see if anyone saw us. I try to grab his hand again, but he holds it up to him like he's been burned. I frown.
"What are you, I mean... are you sure?" he asks me confused.
"Ash, I've never been more sure of something in my life," I tell him with a small smile, grabbing his hand again. This time, he grabs back, a huge smile on his face.
"I love you so much, Luke."
I smile back to him, feeling my cheeks become red. "I love you just as much, Ash."
We start walking around the park, a few eyes on us. Maybe they recognise us or maybe they're just looking at two guys holding hands. Probably the latter. Either way, I barely pay attention to them, my eyes are trained on either Ashton or where I'm walking.
We talk about anything and everything. He updates me on his family. I don't do the same because I call my mom every night and he's always there for those calls.
Apparently Harry wants a pet lizard. Anne wants nothing to do with a lizard. Lauren just misses Ashton a lot.
We talk about why today is such a good day. I divulge that I realised how important he is to me, and that I'm tired of hiding in the shadows of this relationship.
"I want to show you off. I want everyone to know how important you are to me."
He looks like he's buzzing with glee after I tell him that. He looks down for a second, then looks right back up. I can tell he's asking permission to kiss me, it's the pout he's making that gives it away. I give him an answer in the form of a slow, passionate kiss.
When the moment is over, though, we both see two teenage girls standing in front of us.
"That was fucking adorable," the one in the Pink jacket says.
The one in the flower print jeans slaps her and says quietly, "Shut up, don't be embarrassing."
Pink jacket says, "Hi, I'm Tamara, and this is my sister Julie. Can we have a picture?"
Ashton and I laugh at their antics, but agree nonetheless.
I try to remain happy and carefree, but I hate photos. They're proof of how fat I look right now.
No, not fat. Treatment has taught me to stop saying fat like it's an insult to myself.
Before the picture is taken, I still suck my stomach in, just in case you can see my flab through my shirt. I do this for the additional two other photos that are taken.
"Are you doing better Luke? We've been hoping you have but we haven't heard anything from you, so some of us are worried," Julie questions.
"Seems to be doing great to me," Tamara says with a smirk, and her sister slaps her again. Ashton and I laugh again. They're pretty funny.
"I am doing okay. Things are hard but they're getting easier day by day. I'll explain to you guys soon enough," I tell them. "Now please excuse us, places to go and such," I say with a wave of my hand. They happily say goodbye to us, wishing us both well.
"That was sweet," Ashton says, linking hands with me again. He smiles as soon as our hands touch, and I can tell how much this means to him.
"They were funny, they almost had me laugh out loud at some points," I confess with a small giggle.
We stop to look at some of the performers, but soon enough we get tired of walking around and I walk us towards a bench.
After an hour of just sitting and talking, I decide it's time to go to dinner. The drive is half an hour to a classy Italian restaurant. As we near the restaurant, the anxiety hits me like a train, plowing through me. I've already gotten a reservation so there's no turning back now.
I become quiet and Ashton notices immediately.
"What happened?" he asks, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand, eyes on the road.
I sigh before answering. "This is the first time I've gone out to eat since the last treatment center," I mumble, but shake my head and look up to him, "but I'll be fine, don't worry about me," I say, trying to smile. He smiles sadly back at me.
"You know I'm a worrier, I'll always worry about you," he says, glancing to me quickly. Then, his eyes are trained on the road again. We sit in a comfortable silence, but my mind is going crazy.
Even after months of treatment, I'm still a mess when it comes to eating.
"I don't want to ruin the date but..."
Ashton waits for me to continue. When I don't, he says, "You wanna talk about what's going on up here?" He gestures to his own head. I nod letting him know that's exactly what I want to do, but I don't do anything further in fear of truly ruining the date.
"It's okay, you can talk about anything. You're not going to ruin the date. If anything, I want you to talk about what you're feeling. Better to get it out than keep it in," he tells me.
I nod again before spilling my thoughts. "It's just, I-" I take a deep breath in and let the air leave my lips slowly before continuing. "I'm afraid I'll never get better. It's been months of going through recovery and where am I? Over 17 kilos heavier from my lowest weight and still can't eat properly."
He pulls into the car park for the restaurant and turns off the car, then turns towards me sighing.
"Luke, you really have a problem with looking at how far you need to go, when you should really be looking at how far you've already come."
"I know, but it's hard to do that when you feel like you're in such a deep hole you can't crawl out of," I confess, almost running a hand through my hair but remembering at last second I made it look nice for the date.
Right, the date.
"Let's go inside, if I'm hungry then you must be starving," I say, cracking the joke at the end. He chuckles, but I can't tell if it's genuine or sad.
After walking into the restaurant, I say to the waiter, "Reservation for Hemmings."
"Right this way," the waiter tells us. We follow behind from a short distance to our table. As we look through the menu, my anxiety actually lowers, as my mind is set to focus on finding out which dish is the most healthy and has the least amount of calories. I'm hoping this is the type of restaurant that has small servings and not large proportions.
I voice my though aloud. Ashton looks around the room, noticing other people's dishes around us - why didn't I think of doing that? - and informs me of the large proportions everyone else has on their plate. I physically sink into my seat.
"Would you like to share a dish, or do you want some for left overs?" I cringe at the thought of having to eat this rich food again sometime soon, so I go for sharing a dish. We both get seperate salads though.
When the food arrives, Ashton does everything he can in his power to keep me calm while I attempt to eat a pile of butter and carbs. I mainly focus on my salad as that's easier for me to eat.
At one point after eating a decent portion that I'm actually proud of myself for, I push the dish towards him.
"How was that, how do you feel?" he questions me.
"I want to purge," I say, the words spilling out of me before I can even process them. "Sorry," I apologise for being so strong with my words.
"It's fine. I mean, what you said isn't fine but... I'm glad you told me," he reassures me, as he takes a bite himself. My nose crunches up at his action.
"At least I don't want to cut, right?" I ask. He gives me a sad nod, but it's a nod nonetheless.
"We'll take any win we can," he says grabbing my hand. I relish in the feeling of his hand on mine. It calms me down. It grounds me.
"I don't know why I pushed you away before, back when I was deep in my disorder... you've helped me so much."
"You weren't ready for help back then. Everything is your decision, I couldn't make you do anything. You had to come to the conclusion that you needed help on your own," he tells me gently. His words fill me with regret.
"I wish I didn't do any of this to myself..." I confess.
"Luke," he says, grabbing my other hand over the table, "when I said everything is your decision, I didn't mean that you made a decision to have this disorder. You didn't choose this for yourself."
"I know, I'm starting to slowly believe that now," I tell him, finally meeting his eyes for the first time during this conversation. They're filled with sorrow but they're also filled with so much love.
"I love you," I let him know.
He takes his hand away from mine and flicks my nose with his finger. "Back at ya."
I giggle, and we get ready to leave. He asks for the bill and a box. He doesn't want to sit there and eat in front of me if I have the urge to purge. He's so considerate and kind it actually hurts my heart to think about it sometimes.
Once back in the car, Ashton takes over the conversation, but tries to engage me. I know he's doing this to distract me, and I truly appreciate it so I attempt to engage back. It seems to somewhat work, and soon we're back at the house.
"How are the love birds?" Calum calls from the living room, as he sits and watch an American television show with Michael.
Ashton look to me expectantly. I think about how I'm feeling.
Yes I do want to purge - although the urge has lessened - but I am happy. Happy to have these three boys in my life. Happy to have their helping hands.
"Happy," I say with a small smile. Ashton, smiling himself, places his hand on the small of my back and leads me to the couch with Calum and Michael.