Caitlyn's POV:
Luke hasn't been in school for the past three days. Normally, I would hate that, seen as Ashton and I haven't spoken much lately. The only times that I speak to Ashton are in our history lessons or when we occasionally text. But the other day, someone new came to our school. She's called Jasmine, and I already know that she's really smart. As she was new, she automatically got teased. The fact that she's smart and looks kind of nerdy didn't help that either.
But I didn't care about what she looked like, and we've become pretty close in those three days. Even though I would have been panicking that Luke wasn't in school and that I would have no one to stay with, when Jasmine came to our school, we immediately started talking and she's really nice. After quite a quick week, it was last lesson on Friday; history.
I got to history fairly early like I usually do, but Ashton wasn't here yet. I waited for quite a while before he finally walked through the door, taking his seat next to me.
"Hey Caitlyn!" Ashton said with a smile.
"Hi." I replied, smiling back.
"I have a party tomorrow, can you come?" he asked me straight away.
"I don't really know Ashton, parties aren't really my sort of thing." I told him, chewing on my lip.
"Please Caitlyn, it's for my birthday!" Ashton said.
"Ashton, your birthday's ages away." I told him, laughing.
"So? It's a very early birthday party. Can you go?" he asked again.
"Ashton, you know I hate parties." I told him.
"Hardly anyone from this school is going, a few but not all of them. Please Caitlyn, you can bring that Jasmine girl if you want to." Ashton told me.
"She's going away for the weekend." I replied.
"So that means you can't go? Please Caitlyn, I won't stop begging until you say yes." Ashton told me. When I just looked at him while chewing the inside of my mouth, Ashton started begging again. "If you don't like it, you can go home early, but I really want you to be there."
"Fine Ashton, I'll go to your party. But if I don't like it, even if I'm only there for ten minutes, I'm going home." I told him.
"Yay!" Ashton exclaimed, grinning like a little kid.
He spent the next hour of our history lesson telling me all about his party. It was tomorrow. It was at his house. It started at 8pm and ended whenever everyone left. I could wear whatever I want to, but I shouldn't look too dressy. I just nodded my head at everything he was saying and tried to remember it all. By the end of the lesson, the only thing I had learnt was what was going on tomorrow.
"See you tomorrow Caitlyn!" Ashton said, giving me a hug.
"Yeah." I mumbled back, unenthusiastically.
"You'll love it Caitlyn, I promise!" Ashton said, squeezing my cheek to be annoying before walking off. I couldn't help but smile, and I shook my head and started walking.
Luke was getting better, and I was going round his house. We hadn't really spoke much about the other day when we said that we liked each other, we just carried on how we normally were. I sat on the bus, sending a quick text to Luke telling him I would be there soon.
There was quite a lot of traffic, making the bus journey even longer than it normally is. Luke text me multiple times, telling me to hurry up, asking me where I was, saying that I was taking too long. I finally decided to get off of the bus one stop before his when the traffic wasn't moving at all. After telling Luke, he started to send even more texts telling me to hurry up.
By the time I finally got to Luke's house, it had been an hour and a half since I had gotten out of school. Luke came to the door, and even though he was ill, I smiled. His hair was flat, completely different from his usual quiff. He was wearing dark grey jogging bottoms, and he wasn't wearing a shirt, but he had a blanket draped over his shoulders. His nose was the lightest shade of red, and I found it really cute.
"Aw Luke, are you ill?" I asked him, even though I knew he was ill. I took advantage of his red nose and booped it, making him frown at me as he closed the door.
"No Caitlyn, I'm not ill. I just skipped school and painted the end of my nose red." he replied sarcastically. He was already walking up the stairs, going to his room. I followed, my school bag still in my hands. "And don't do that." he added.
"I did consider that." I told him, and then laughing at the last part. Luke got into his room and collapsed on his bed, spreading out and leaving no room for me to sit. "Move." I told him, nudging his arm. Luke shifted to the side, putting his arm out. When I looked at him for a while, he gestured for me to lie down.
After considering it for a while because he was ill, I ended up lying down anyway. Luke was lying on his back and I was on my side, his arm around me. Our legs were on top of each other's, and the blanket Luke had over him was now over us.
"How was school?" Luke asked. His voice was quiet, as he was only close to me.
"School was good." I told him truthfully, keeping my voice quiet like his. "There's a new girl, called Jasmine. We're friends."
"That's cool, is she nice?" Luke asked me, pushing a bit of fallen hair back from my face.
"She's really nice. She's smart too, so people are being idiots and teasing her. But I think she's nice, no one else is giving her a chance to actually see if she's nice." I replied.
"Yeah." Luke mumbled in response, twisting a strand of my hair around his finger. "Have you got any plans for the weekend?"
"Not that I really want to, but Ashton invited me to his party tomorrow. He kept pestering me, so I told him I would go. So yeah, I have plans. Do you?" I asked him, watching his face. It went from looking mesmerized at the strand of hair he was twisting to confused as he furrowed his eyebrows and frowned.
"You're not going to the party." Luke told me.
"I can do what I want Luke, so I'm going." I told him. I didn't say it in a nasty way; I said it in quite a nice tone because I didn't want him to get annoyed with me.
"You won't like it Caitlyn, and I don't really want you to go." Luke told me, dropping my hair and looking up at me.
"Ashton really wanted me to go, and to be honest, so do I. You can't control if I'm going or not." I told him, not keeping my tone as nice anymore.
"I don't want you going there, with loads of drunk people all over you. You don't even drink Caitlyn, so if you did you would be drunk straight away. Then you would be all over the place, and I don't want anything to happen to you." Luke told me.
"That's not going to happen, Luke. I'm going whether you want me to or not." I replied.
"Well I don't want you to but I know by now that you do whatever you want." Luke said, seeming pissed off now.
We spent the next hour or so in silence. We didn't sleep, didn't talk, didn't do anything. We just lay there, in silence. From the corner of my eyes I could occasionally see Luke looking at me. The only time we moved was now, when we heard the front door open. It was only 6pm; Luke's dad normally gets home a lot later. Luke sat up and so did I.
"Why is your dad home so early?" I asked, stretching my legs out.
"I'm not sure." Luke replied, walking downstairs without another word. After sitting on his bed for a while longer, I decided to follow him downstairs. But when I was stood on the bottom step, hearing a bit of their conversation I decided it probably wasn't my place to intrude on their quite serious conversation.
"What do you mean three months?" Luke asked, his voice quite loud.
"I'm sorry Luke, but it's all for work, I thought you would understand." his dad replied.
"It's always about work though isn't it? Do you even remember that you have a son? Sometimes, it really feels like a live alone here. I hardly ever see you, because all that you care about is your shitty work!" Luke said, shouting now.
"Luke, if it wasn't for work, we wouldn't be living here now. If it wasn't for the fact that I go to work, we wouldn't be able to afford anything." his dad replied, his voice calm.
"Bullshit. That's bullshit and you know it. There are plenty of jobs with much shorter hours that you could have and you choose the job where you work near enough all day!" Luke replied.
"Don't shout at me Luke." his dad replied.
"You know what? Go. I couldn't give a fuck, it's not like there'll be a difference around here anyway." Luke spat. I heard footsteps and as quickly and quietly as possible, I sprinted up the stairs and sat back onto Luke's bed. He came in about a minute later with a glass of water in his hands.
"You okay?" I asked him, acting as though I hadn't just totally listened in on a private conversation.
"No." Luke said, sitting next to me.
I turned to face him. He looked really pissed off. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.
"No." Luke said. So that was it.
I stayed at Luke's house until around 9pm when I said that I was going to go home. Luke and I hadn't really spoken much, only occasionally.
"I'll drive you home. I don't want you getting the bus this late." Luke told me. I didn't even try to object, I knew that Luke would have none of it. So instead, I got my stuff together and followed Luke downstairs.
He didn't say anything to his dad as to why he was leaving the house, he just left without a word. We got into Luke's car and I braced myself for the terrible driving that was about to face me. Before when Luke drove me home, he was in a good mood, and now that he's in a bad mood, I don't really know what to expect.
What I had expected obviously wasn't good, and neither was his driving. He was speeding even more than he normally would. "Slow down!" I kept saying. I didn't want to put him in an even worse mood with my commands, but I didn't want to die either.
Luke stopped at a traffic light and sighed, turning to look at me. "Sorry Caitlyn. My dad's just really pissed me off. I'm so angry with him."
"Do you want to stay at my house tonight?" I offered. My mum was completely fine with things like that, she didn't know that Luke and I like each other, but I think that she would be happier if she knew that.
I've never really had a boyfriend, other than ones from when I was really young, the ones that don't mean anything. I don't have many friends either, so when Luke started coming to our house, it was all a little bit too exciting for my mum. She immediately planned out my future with Luke, saying that we would be a really cute couple and that we should date each other.
Little did she know that back then I used to be really afraid of Luke and I used to hate him a lot. It's all changed now though. Apart from my mum still thinking that me and Luke would make a great couple and that we should be one. I'm just thankful that she never said anything like that when Luke first came to our house.
"If that's okay. Yeah." Luke agreed.
"It's fine, honestly." I told him.
"I'm sorry about earlier, too. I shouldn't tell you what to do, I just know what parties get like halfway through and then at the end. They start off pretty normal but then they go crazy, everyone's drunk, people are going off doing obvious things, people are drinking even more. I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable with it all, because I know that you don't like things like that." Luke told me.
He's right. Telling me all that stuff now, I was kind of regretting agreeing to go to this party. The stuff that Luke has just told me literally seems like my worst nightmare. I've never been very social, no one really likes me. The only person at this party that I talk to is Ashton, who is the only person I talk to other than Luke.
"I'll be fine." I assured him, even though I knew I probably wouldn't be.
Luke pulled up outside my house, slamming the brakes down making me jolt forwards. He mumbled an apology before getting out of the car. I got out of the car myself, sighing in relief. Luke was waiting for me to get to where he was before we walked up to my door.
I never bring my key with me because I know that someone will more often than not be at home, so I knocked on the door and waited for an answer. My mum opened the door and smiled when she saw us both.
"Is it okay for Luke to stay round here tonight? His dad has to go out tonight and Luke didn't want to stay home alone." I lied. Why would Luke not want to stay home alone at his age, he wouldn't be scared or anything.
"Of course he can! That's fine, hunny. Just don't sleep on the living room floor again." my mum joked.
"Sorry, that's really embarrassing." Luke said, laughing awkwardly.
"Don't be embarrassed, it was funny." my mum said before walking back into the living room to watch TV.
Luke and I went up to my room. Luke got straight into my bed, really making himself at home. I picked up some clothes to change into and went into the bathroom to change. I quickly brushed my teeth and went back to my room.
Luke looked like he was about to fall asleep at any minute, and I climbed in next to him. His arms automatically grabbed me, pulling me into him and hugging me.
"Night Luke." I mumbled when I was nearly asleep.
"Night Caitlyn." Luke mumbled back before we were both asleep.
AN: Sorry for the boring chapter, but the next one will be better!