Holy shit it's the twentieth chapter already. Woah. And this has over 12k reads?? Like maybe that's not a lot to most people but it's a lot to me??
Anyways, I did another chapter in Luke's perspective 'cause I kind of liked doing it.
So here you go, I think you'll like it because I did. :)
{Unedited}
Luke
Well, I won't lie to you. I'll just lay it to you straight.
I may or may not have gotten into a fight with Emma.
And I mean, it wasn't like, physcial or anything and I tried to keep the feminity to a bear minimum, but this wasn't a joke, okay!
She was wearing my flannel. Mine! The red one I always leave at Ashton's! Yeah! You don't just wear somebody else's flannel, okay? Like, honestly, who does that?
And Ashton didn't even care! Like, if you want some girl to prance around in your clothes, fine, be my guest. But do not, under any circumstances, let her wear your-my clothes! I left that flannel for Ashton! Not Emma!
God! And so I very kindly approached her and asked her very kindly to take off the flannel, because it was mine and I didn't really like strangers wearing my clothes and I hope she understood that.
"Are you wearing my fucking flannel? You know what? I've had enough of this shit. As if you aren't bad enough already, and now you're wearing my god damn flannel? Go home! Get your own clothes! Stop with this disgusting cute-sy bullshit where you wear all Ashton's clothes - now mine, too - and practically fan yourself every time you're near him! You have clothes in your own home, you know!"
Okay, okay. So maybe I wasn't that nice. But come on! Who would be!
And then she got all up in my face and started yelling shit about how, "It's just a stupid flannel! I'm cold, okay? I saw a flannel, put it on, and oh, look, Ashton didn't object! He didn't tell me it wasn't his! And the only reason I haven't gone home is because I'm actually a friend to Ashton! And what about you? Hitting on his roommate and what not? Don't call me disgusting, you bag of dicks!"
And after she was so rude to me, and Ashton had failed at concealing his laughter at our bickering, I very kindly let her know that I wasn't hitting on Nate, and that I wasn't interested in him.
"Are you fucking serious? Me hitting on Nate? Yeah, that's his name, by the way. 'Cause if you and Ashton are such great pals you would probably know his roommates name, yeah? Nate's not even gay! You know what I am, you raging fucking bitch? Gay!"
And so eventually, Ashton had stepped between us and pulled Emma away, and whispered something in my ear about letting it go and to calm down, so I may or may not have spit on him and left.
I had every right to be angry! Emma has done nothing but fuck everything up even more since she got here! And now Ashton was picking her side over mine? That's bullshit!
I mean, really! Do you know that shit that's gone on between Ashton and I over the past few months? How the fuck can anything get even more complicated? That takes some god damn special talent, I'll tell you that much.
I did get my flannel back, though. That's the one positive thing to come out of this.
Something not very positive, was that after about three hours of moping and waiting for my flannel to be done in the dryer after I'd washed it, I realized I forgot my textbook in Ashton's dorm.
Now, if I were a rational human being, I probably would've called up Nate and asked him to get it to me. But I was not, in fact, a rational human being.
And so I figured, Ashton would probably be to absorbed in Emma to notice me sneaking in there to grab my textbook. On the other hand, Emma's bitch-senses might start tingling the second I enter the room. But, well, that's a risk I'm going to have to take.
So I snuck down the hallway until I got to the door, and very carefully inched it open just enough so I could squeeze my body through and grab the book off the nightstand where it was sitting.
The problem was, this room was very small. Because let's not forget it's a dorm room, and dorms aren't exactly master suites or anything. So the likelyhood of being able to get in there and grab my book without Ashton or Emma noticing, was much slimmer than I originally thought.
So as I shifted around and tried to grab my book, someone from the other side of the room grabbed the door and pulled it from my grip, before raking there eyes up and down my body with a scowl.
"Luke, what the hell are you doing?"
"Oh, um, yes, hello, Ashton. I just needed my textbook which is, uh, right here. Yes okay. I've got it. Good day."
God, do I loathe myself.
At least Emma wasn't here.
It's not my fault, per se. It comes from long term, deep rooted anxiety I never actually got rid of as a teenager. Growing up in a house like mine, in a family like mine, you'll find that anxiety is definitely not uncommon. It's a bit crazy, a bit overwhelming. You get used to it.
Anyways, as you've clearly seen, sometimes I ramble, sometimes I stutter, I get awkward and very uncomfortable, and, well, I tend to go on quite the tangeant.
"You could have just come in and gotten it. That would've been much less creepy." Ashton said, his eyebrows raised as high as, well, Ashton, generally.
"I was going to, actually. Well, no, first, I was going to call Nate and ask him to get it for me, but I didn't want to be weird. And so I decided that the only option was to sneak down here like a ninja, heh, a teenage mutant ninja turtle, more like. Sorry. Anyways, I was going to sneak down here and just very carefully grab it and then probably make a run for it, but once I was actually here I started to panic a little - you know, I have issues with deep rooted, unresolved anxiety from when I was a kid, that kind of breaks out every once in a while. It's not my fault, really, my house was a little crazy. My uncle used to drink a lot and talk about his days in the navy when he got stranded on an island but all he really did was summarize episodes of the show Lost. He ended up in a looney bin, actually, now that I think about it. Maybe he wasn't drunk. And my grandmother had a bit of a drug problem I think, but not like, real drugs, I don't think. She always had this great big bottle of pills that she'd pop every hour or so, and it wasn't really a certain type of pills either, it looked like a pharmacist spilled a bunch of prescriptions and went to sweep them up to throw them away and instead just made my Nan her own prescription cocktail. She'd get really loopy and cry a lot when she took too many, and she'd hug me a lot and it used to freak me out but eventually I just got bored of it so I stopped going to her house. And then my cousin Phillip, oh god, don't get me started on Philly. When we were kids he used to kill squirrels and raccoons and things and then he'd use his dad's old army knife to cut it open, and he used to make my help him remove the guts with my bare hands - yeah, bare hands, can't you get parasites from that? And then after we'd remove the guts he'd scrape all the excess stuff out with the knife and then he'd stuff it full of dirt and use a hot glue gun to seal it back up and then we'd go find a car that someone forgot to lock and we'd put it in the backseat and wait for them to notice. That was pretty weird. Oh! And then there was my cousin Jake who--"
"Luke. For the love of God." Ashton interjected, but I couldn't tell if he was more annoyed or ammused because his eyebrows were all furrowed in an annoyed fashion but he had a pretty big smile stretched across his face and then I kind of gathered that oh, yes, I went on a tangeant again.
Man, I hate myself.
"I, oh god, I did the thing." I mumbled, more to myself, but I figured Ashton heard anyways because not only was I loud but we were at least a three-finger-length distance apart. Regular fingers, I mean, not Ashton fingers because Ashton's fingers are not regular, I would know--
"What is up with you, lately?" He asked, not in a rude or censorious way, more in a genuinely concerned and slightly ammused kind of way.
And oh my, I could feel my insides churning because I could usually control this stuff but I was hopped up on energy today and I needed to take a chill pill. Literally. I didn't take my anxiety medication yet today and I felt like I might pee myself right here.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm great. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the fresh scent of flowers is in the air. What a lovely, lovely day. I'm fantastic."
"Luke, it's the middle of winter. It's snowing right now, the flowers are dead, and I haven't heard a bird chirp in ages. Something is up. Or you're just a freak and I didn't know it." He said, his smile faltering into a genuinely-concerned-for-my-mental-health look.
How do I tell someone as normal (well, mentally stable, at least) as Ashton, that, "Oh, it's no big deal, I take dexedrine and xanax three or four times a day and when I don't I go a little insane. It'll be fine, probably. But probably not."
But before I could actually even say anything, Ashton did.
"Is it Emma?"
By now, Ashton had pulled me in very lightly when I wasn't paying too much attention and had closed the door, and I was panicking a little because wow, how was he so, so Ashton and how could I not get anxious around him?
And Jesus Christ, this was the first time in the history of ever that I'd been around Ashton while I wasn't on my medication and I couldn't help but wonder how people functioned around him so properly, because I was suddenly so insecure and looking at Ashton who is so perfectly terrifying and I was so his polar opposite.
"Emma's perfect." I finally sputtered, and I knew by his expression that I'd have to elaborate, but forming the words in my head was a struggle enough.
"She's like, like the female version of you. She's gorgeous and she's funny and she's, she's, she's real and she's really fucking smart, and she listens to all of your music and she's so laid back and cool, and you guys g-get on real well. Like, really well, Ashton." I stuttered, and my brain felt like it was literally on fire and I could barely breathe, and I just wanted to leave and go take my medication and maybe sleep for a few days, but I just found myself unable to do anything but continue.
"And I'm just me. I'm not gorgeous like her and I'm not very funny, and I don't know how to take a joke and I get so uptight sometimes that I just ruin everything, and I'm not smart, either, for fuck's sake, I'm failing humanities. Humanities! How do you fail humanities? I really, really try and I still fail! And I listen to the kind of music people like you make fun of and I don't listen to your music and I've picked on you for it a lot, because let's face it, I have absolutely no filter. And I mean, me and you never got on too well so like, I get it. I get why you're spending all your time with her instead. I guess I can't argue, 'cause I had my time with you and I shouldn't have expected it to last longer than it did. I'm sorry, Ashton. I'm really, really sorry."
And for a minute, I wasn't sure how he was going to react. Because he looked like he might blow a gasket on the one hand, but on the other, he looked like he might physically keel over. Because his nose was kind of scrunched in that way it does when he's angry, and then his eyebrows are raised kind of one over the other in that way they do when he doesn't really know what to do.
"That's all Greek to me, Luke." He said.
"I- W-What?"
"That's all Greek to me. I don't have a damn clue what you're talking about. Don't say that to me like it means anything. Don't say that to me like voicing that changes the way I think about you." The worlds trailed lightly off his tongue and his voice cracked like a lightning strike, and I didn't know what to say or do because I've never heard anything like this come from his mouth.
So I stayed silent.
"I don't think you're uptight. I think you know the difference between serious and joking and that's something the rest of us don't know, so we play it off like you're uptight. And it's not that you're not funny or that you don't know how to take a joke, it's that you do. You know that real humor doesn't offend anybody and that's just another thing the rest of us don't understand so we play it off like it's your fault. And you can't honestly expect me of all people to be angry that you don't have a filter. Let's be real. And you're not dumb, either. That's bullshit. Grades don't matter. Grades don't define your intelligence because honestly, we can't all be good at everything but this education system expects that if you're good at one thing, you should be just as good at everything else. But you are fuckin' smart, Luke, you always know what to say and do in the worst situations, and I envy that. And who cares what music you listen to? Maybe I don't like your music. So what? I like that you like your music. I like that you sing it at the top of your lungs and I like that you don't care if other people like it and I hope you never stop that. And for the love of God, Luke, you are the most gorgeous person I have ever seen, in my life. So don't sit there and list your 'imperfections' like it makes me see you any different."
And I just cupped his face as hard as I could and slammed my lips against his, because despite the tears that stained my cheeks a little from my borderline anxiety attack, I felt alright.
He makes me feel alright.
:)))))))
I made a snapchat finally. It's oliviavicious (like Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols woot aka bae) and I have like seven friends on there and only like two of them actually snapchat me. SO ADD ME AND TALK TO ME AND LET ME SEE YO PRETTY FACE. PLEASE. ILY.
BYE.