Luke knows whats up
-
I watch Mr Raye intently looking into his front camera on his phone, dabbing at his bright red nose which was still recovering from the wasp sting last week. I felt pretty bad for him actually, since the swollen wound on the end of his pointy nose was visable from a mile away.
Whilst Mr Raye continues to pount into his camera and feel sorry for himself, I turn to look at the doorway where a group of boys causing a loud noise soon enter. Ashton, closely followed behind by his usual crew, stroll their way into class - discussing a new football game which had apparently come out today. I hear Calum say he's just going to 'get his shit' and go home because he didn't wake up at six in the morning to get this game for no reason - but Ashton just rolls his eyes as they walk to the back of the room.
Luke walks straight passed me, without a smile or any form a greeting. His face turned somewhat cold as he just ignored me clearly looking up to him. I was probably going to find myself reading too much into it, since Luke was probably just having a bad day - although the fear of knowing that I've done something to offend him made me feel uneasy and on edge as Mr Raye steps up to begin the class.
Mr Raye begins, "So today we're going to-"
"Sir," Michael Clifford shouts from the back of the room, causing everyone to turn their heads, "I'm not trying to be funny right now, but the new FIFA came out today..."
Mr Raye looks to Michael slowly as he props himself on the edge of his desk at the front. "And?"
"Well, you know sir," Michael stammers, his eyes widening as if the answer was obvious.
"No, Michael, I don't know. Does it mean that you're going to have less of a life than you do now?" Mr Raye sighs as he rests his chin in his hands and continues to stare unenthusiastically at Michael.
Michael lets out a loud breath. "Basically, if I have to spend another hour here instead of staring at a computer screen - I will probably jump out of the window."
Mr Raye looks to Michael, his face creasing as he can't seem to comprehend Michael's works. Slowly, Mr Raye shuffles off of the desk and walks over to the back of the class, with all of our eyes watching his movement slowly. Mr Raye walks to the row of windows at the back of the class, looks down to the ground and then turns to face the rest of us once again.
"Well, it's a pretty long way down Michael," Mr Raye shrugs as he begins to walk back to the front, "but if you're sure about your choice of words, please, be my guest."
Everyone watches Mr Raye, not saying a word because there really were no words to say. Honestly, Mr Raye was just one of those teachers who you could not stand having, yet his lessons always seemed to be the most exciting and interesting.
"So if anyone would like to throw themselves out of the window since Lord knows you're going nowhere within the next hour, go for it." Mr Raye looks around to the class as we all sit in complete silence. "No one? Okay, good. Now, let's talk about sex."
The next twenty minutes travel really slowly, of all of us listening to Mr Raye rant about his red nose and how his wife doesn't care about him. Also apparently we were doing about the topic of 'the best time to start a family', which just seemed dead boring so I turned my mind off after the first few sentences and just began to nod along. I could feel Luke's eyes burning into the back of me, since he made it uncomfortable for me to move - but I decided to play it off until I could ask what I had done wrong after class.
"...and then the horse got hit by a bus." Mr Raye concludes his story of whatever he was talking about. I seem to always choose to listen at the wrong times. "Now that I've told you the story of how I proposed I-"
Before Mr Raye continues, the door swings open where Mrs Lawford - my english teacher - stands carrying stacks of papers and looking in distress.
"I need all my A level English students in the hall, right now." Mrs Lawford pants before slamming the door shut and rushing off.
We all look around the room to each other, before slowly we begin to make our way out of the classroom in confusion. There weren't many of us who had chosen English as and A level, only around thirty of us in our whole year - I was convinced that is was due to the teacher, since Mrs Lawford creeped everyone out. She was that typical overdramatic, crazy rainbow dressed teacher with that posh british accent.
We all make our way to the main hall, where the rest of my class is already sat. Walking in behind me came Ashton, Luke and Calum. I was unsure as to why the whole class had been called into the hall so randomly - we hadn't had an exam which we could have all failed or any trips coming up which we needed to discuss.
I take my seat on the chair towards the back corner, as Mrs Lawford steps in front of us all as she waits to explain.
"There's been a slight error with the school play this year and apparently no one wanted to sign up." Mrs Lawford begins. Wow, I wonder why. "As you all know, this year's play is one which I had written myself. Anyway, there is no way that I could allow such hard work of mine to be wasted, so I'm calling on all of you to help me."
We all look around, not really knowing what she meant by the verb 'help'. I began to worry, since acting was never really my kind of thing - especially having to perform in front of big crowds. I knew that some people would find this sort of thing easy, but not me.
"Now, I want you all to get into groups and create a short scene about chemistry - whether that is between friendship or romantically. You can perform them to me in fifteen minutes so I have a clear idea of who can play which role."
Everyone lets out a loud sigh in sync, since none of us could think of anything worse than being forced to participate in the school play - which no one ever came to. Every year the play was a massive flop, meaning that there would literally be around ten people and their parents who would show up. It was social suicide.
"What if we don't want to take part, miss?" Hannah calls from the back, asking the question we were all wondering.
"You don't have to take part, Hannah," Mrs Lawford says and everyone begins to grab their bag and prepare to leave before she can finish her next sentence, "but I will have to knock marks off of your grade for this term, which could effect your entire end result."
As if we were animals getting pulled by a chain, everyone slumps back down on their seat again - knowing that none of us could afford risking our grades. This was completely unfair and apart of me just wanted to become a teacher in future to get to treat students like puppets on a string because really, they had complete control over us.
-
Our class was hopeless at drama and I mean - shamefully and horrifically hopeless.
Each of us had performed our scene to the teacher and she looked as if she would be following Michael Clifford out of that third floor window right there and then. I couldn't blame her though, I mean, we really were terrible. I'd never been so embarrassed in my life, having to stand up in front of only thirty students and perform something like that.
"Never in my twenty years of acting, have I been so appauled," Mrs Lawford erups, throwing her hands in the air as she stands back up from her seat and faces us. "I mean, flying space monkeys - seriously?"
Mrs Lawford looks to Calum Hood, who clearly had a great imagination - just probably not the best idea for a romantic drama piece to be running around as a flying monkey in space whilst shooting Michael, who was apparently a flying kitten. Appropriate, though.
"Surely, there must be some sort of way we can really pull together and put on a great show," Mrs Lawford urges as she paces up and down the space, "Ashton, Lacey, why don't you two come forward?"
I feel my heart instantly stop beating as my entire body freezes and turns to ice. I had no idea why she had mentioned my name and why she thought Ashton and I would work well together - but this woman was clearly delusional. I feel my cheeks burn red as I stand and make my way to the front and face everyone, stood shyly and small beside Ashton.
Mrs Lawford stands in front of us for the moment and begins to droan on about working in pairs to create a good piece of drama - involving chemistry and love and whatever else she was convinced a group of seventeen year olds were capable of putting together when clearly - we aren't. Ashton keeps looking to me, pulling away whenever I would look back to him. I honestly could not be bothered with any of it anymore, I just wanted my life to go back to how it used to be.
I used to think that having Ashton Irwin know your name and to hang out with that kind of crowd, would be the greatest thing to ever happen to anyone - but it isn't, in fact it's more work that school in itself.
"So, Ashton and Lacey - please demonstrate to the class a basic piece of improvised drama." Mrs Lawford speaks as she steps out of the way and leaves Ashton and I in the spotlight.
Ashton and I face each other, neither of us for the first time knowing what to say. The whole class watch us carefully as they pressure us into saying something. I hadn't even been listening to know what we were meant to be doing this about.
Perhaps I'll be the one to join Michael out of that window.
"Say something," Ashton hisses to be, his eyes going wide. I look back to him, feeling my cheeks go red as I have no idea how to respond.
"You go first," I whisper back, not wanting it to seem evident that neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do right now.
"Fuck, Lacey, just say something," Ashton demands, his voice getting a little louder. "Anyone would think you're some sort of shy ass."
I look away from Ashton and to Mrs Lawford, who still sits watching us with hope in her eyes. As for the rest of the class, they were watching us as if they were on the edge of their seat for us to just say something since we were just slowing down the class - getting more and more judged by the second.
"Ashton, just start the scene," I snap, rolling my eyes. "This is so embarrassing."
"Didn't really think you were the type to get embarrassed after Monday, babe," Ashton groans, beginning to not really care that everyone had their eyes on us at the moment. I glare at him as he speaks, knowkng that now was really not the best time to be humiliating me even more during my worst nightmare.
"Is this really the time to bring that up?" I mumble back.
"I don't know, Lacey, is it?" Ashton speaks again, this time his voice going back to it's normal tone as he seems to not care about everyone watching - meanwhile I wanted to die with emabarrassment as everyone sits up and begins to listen. Well, I was glad they were all enjoying their Friday afternoon's entertainment.
"No, now shut up." I quickly snap.
"What is your problem?" Ashton grumbles, running a hand though his messy hair - which was not scraped back by a bandana today. "Oh wait, you're problem is that you're a two faced slut."
Focusing on Ashton's words only and not seeming to care about having an audience after such a vile insult, I decide to respond straight away.
"My problem, Ashton, is that your a manipulative, self centered, rude asshole." I snarl, stepping closer towards him.
Ashton looks to me carefully, almost observing my every feature before he decides to respond. I look to him cautiously also, feeling suspicious as to what it was about him that made me act like this since I had never been a nasty person before. I didn't want people to think that I was rude or mean, but it was something irritating about him which made me want to push him out of a window. With Michael.
"I'm the manipulative asshole?" Ashton scoffs, turning away from me before returning his eyes to mine. "You're the one who seems to enjoy fucking with my feelings - who even gave you the right to act like such a bitch towards me?"
"Who gave you the right to act like a dick towards me?" I quickly resort. "Did you seriously think after all these years of you treating me like nothing, that I would just run into your arms after one stupid kiss?"
The class all begin to mutter responses as the words come out of my mouth and I instantly regret announcing that to everyone. However, like I said, Ashton just made me so angry that I couldn't care less what the situation was - I just felt like I always needed to stand up for myself against him since that was all I was used to now. It was scary how far we had come.
"Stupid kiss?" Ashton wailed, followed with a sarcastic, dry smirk spreading across his lips and I automatically felt bad for saying that - since that was not how I felt about the whole thing at all. He just made it hard for me to know how I felt.
"I didn't mean it like that," I sigh, "you don't make any of this easy for me, did you know that? For years I've spent sat alone in class thinking about how great it must be to know you and how amazing it must be to be in your group - but it isn't. It's actually pretty awful because you're a good guy."
Ashton's face creases as he looks to me, confused by my words. I could feel myself getting emotional from talking about it, since it wasn't something I had ever discussed or owned up to. Although, I had began - I might as well finished.
"I had this image of you in my head, of how perfect you are and how great it must be to know someone like you," I continue, my eyes seeming to fill with water uncontrollably, "I put you on this high pedestall and then I finally got to know you and you fell right off. I realised that you're actually pretty mean and that's not something I should find attractive about you."
"Lacey, you-"
"No, Ashton, listen to me," I whisper, looking only to him. "You're a bad guy and you're bad to me and you're bad for me. I don't deserve to be treated like this, I don't deserve to have you constantly making me feel bad because you're not sure of how you feel. I have a life too and it doesn't involve me waiting around for you."
Ashton looks to be with soft eyes as he speaks slowly and calmly, "You shouldn't have to because you're right. I'm a bad dude and you don't need someone like me slowing you down."
"You don't slow me down," I softly chuckle, looking to him as I absorb his hazel eyes. "In fact, I'm pretty sure all you do is speed my heart up."
Ashton sends me a warm smile back, before we're both interrupted by the sound of clapping behind us and Mrs Lawford taking longstrides over to us. Ashton and I awkwardly pull away from each other, avoiding any cost of eye contact as we attempt to shake off whatever had just happened in front of all those people - since it felt like just me and him.
"Now that is how you put on a damn good piece of acting, boys and girls!" Mrs Lawford errupts as she puts her arms round the both of us. Acting, of course. "Now, next lesson we will decide on parts but until then - you are dismissed!"
I wriggle out of the teacher's grip as Ashton and I automatically charge off in opposite directions, only sending a quick smile to each other before that. As I make my way out of the hall, still attemping to figure out what had just happened and how I felt about the whole thing - I spot Luke in the corner of my eye jogging up to me and beginning to walk beside me down the corridor out of the school.
"Lacey, can we talk?" Luke trails off as he walks beside me. I knew that Luke and I weren't anything exclusive, although I knew them words and I didn't want him to just end things with me because of whatever that was in there. I could honestly say that I do like Luke and I'd want us to part over something a little more than that.
"Uh huh." I gulp, clutching onto my bag strap tighter with nerves.
"Don't look so concerned," Luke nervously chuckles, making me feel more nervous also. "It's just, I feel weird about what happened on Monday and didn't really know how to talk to you about it. It's just you and Ashton seem so-"
"Ashton and I have nothing going on, Luke." I give him a smile as we both stop against the lockers to talk properly.
"God, I'm so dumb." Luke rolls his eyes and grins to me. "Can we just forget any of this ever happened? Like from the moment Peter Penguin ended up on my bedroom floor to right now."
I chuckle at him, finding everything he said insanely adorable. "I'd like that."
"Cool," Luke smiles, grabbing my hand and lacing our fingers together before his eyes widen and he instantly lets go and begins to back away from me. "Babe, I'd really love to stand and chat but I have FIFA at home waiting to be played."
-
oh look i updated and once again, none of this makes any sense right now.
basically what ashton and lacey said to each other is really important, because it's basically saying that right now isnt the best time for them to get together because ashtons still confused and lacey isnt willing to be treated like an idiot.
why is it so easy to write a 3200 word chapter for an ashton irwin fanfic but impossible to write a 2000 word essay for drama????
chapter based off all boys at my school hating life today bc they wasnt at home playing FIFA lol and some boys didnt even bother coming into school so they could stay home and play it as one does although i attempt to miss school when 5sos shit is happening so whatevs
anyway idk when i will next update so au revoir until next time