Caitlyn's POV:
I stayed at Ashton's house until it was completely spotless. Everything was picked up from the floor and thrown away, and all of the furniture was pushed back into place. It took quite a while, with regular breaks of doing nothing, and when we were finally finished, Ashton's mum got home.
"The house is looking oddly clean." Ashton's had mum said as soon as she walked in, a eyebrow raised. Ashton laughed, before telling her how we both cleaned up.
I stayed round Ashton's house for another ten minutes before I told him I was going home. I'd been thinking about the Luke thing the whole day, and even though I haven't heard his side of the story, the text said enough. Whether it's true or not, why would that girl send him a text saying that anyway?
It was Monday, and I was on my way to school. I was grateful that I had Jasmine to spend the day with, because I need to talk to her about Luke. I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk to Luke yet, I still feel quite confused and upset about it all. At least I can go to school and talk to Jasmine about it all.
I had put no effort into my outfit and hair today; I just really couldn't be bothered. I was wearing leggings and a baggy hoodie, my hair up in a messy bun. The closer that we got to school, the more nervous I was getting. Obviously I would see Luke today, and no doubt he'll be standing at the school gates with Calum and Michael like he is every morning. By the time I got off of the bus, my hands were sweating and I was chewing on my lip.
I walked quickly from the bus stop to school, and just like usual, Luke and his friends were standing outside school. I stood on the opposite side of the road, waiting for the traffic lights to go red so that I could cross. Cars drove past, and I was hoping that they would cover me so that Luke wouldn't be able to see me. But to my luck, a car starting tooting its horn, causing all three of them to look in my direction. Calum and Michael wrinkled their noses and looked away, but Luke stood there staring at me.
As soon as the lights went red, I quickly crossed the road. I looked down, away from Luke, but I could still feel his gaze on me.
"Caitlyn!" I heard someone shout.
My heart started beating really quickly. I was being really stupid, but I'm not ready to talk to Luke this early in the morning. When I saw Jasmine walking towards me, I let out a sigh of relief.
"Hi." I sighed.
"Hey! What's wrong? You look shit scared!" Jasmine said, laughing slightly.
"Cute, Caitlyn finally has a friend." I heard Calum say. I looked down at the ground, but before I did, I saw Jasmine shoot them a dirty look.
She's completely different to me, instead of being scared and shying away from all of the teasing and the remarks, she stands up to them. All last week, people were pushing her, calling her names, and she really didn't let it affect her. She just gave them dirty looks, rolled her eyes or even replied to them with a remark before carrying on talking normally.
Jasmine pulled on my arm, making me walk with her into school. She started talking about her weekend with her parents and how boring it was, while I just listened. I was glad that she was talking, because even though I wanted to talk to her about the Luke thing, I didn't want to yet. I haven't even been up for two hours, and I'm still really tired.
She walked with me all the way to my first lesson, before telling me that she would meet me at break time and going off to her class. I was kind of thankful, now I didn't have to cooperate in a conversation and I could just stand in silence, not doing anything. People slowly started to gather behind me, before Mr Smith opened the door and told us to come into class.
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At break, sure enough, Jasmine met me. We went outside where I normally go, by the tree. We sat in silence, my back against the tree, with Jasmine facing me.
"So what was wrong this morning?" she asked me. How did she even remember that to bring it up?
"It's just something with Luke." I replied, shaking my head a bit and shrugging.
"Explain?" she asked me, coaxing me on.
"Well, I went to that party on Saturday," I paused and she nodded her head before I carried on. "I got really drunk, and I slept at Luke's house. Then in the morning his phone was on the side, and he got a text from some girl saying that she had fun last night and that she wanted to do it again some time."
"Oh." was all that she replied. When I looked at her, her eyebrows were knitted together, and she looked like she was concentrating or something. "Did you ask him about it?"
"Well, no. But what else could you say? Why would she text him that if it wasn't true? It's a bit desperate isn't it?" I carried on, shooting loads of questions at once.
"Do you even know who this girl is? She might be really desperate, you never know. Maybe she has this huge crush on Luke and she thinks that being creepy and weird is the only way to get him to like her." Jasmine replied, trying to lighten the mood but not really helping with it.
"Somehow I don't think that's right." I replied, frowning.
"Caitlyn, yes the text does sound like something happened. Yes maybe there is a chance that something did. But you'll never know unless you hear Luke's side of the story first." she replied, her voice gentle.
"How do you know that Luke won't just lie to my face? I could ask him and he might say that nothing happened, but maybe something did happen and he's just lying to me." I told her. I always think the worst of things, but bad thoughts are constantly in my brain. If there's a pro, there's always a con and that's one of them for this problem.
"Ask him. Let him explain to you, that's all that you can do. Luke is your boyfriend, right?" she asked me, crossing her legs.
"No, Luke isn't my boyfriend." I told her, moving around a bit, trying to get more comfortable.
"If he isn't your boyfriend, then why are you so upset about all of this? If he did have sex with that girl, then why does it matter if he isn't your boyfriend?" Jasmine asked me.
I thought about it for a moment. Luke isn't my boyfriend, so it's hardly as though he cheated on me, if it did even happen. But then I thought about it a little bit more. Luke said that he liked me, and that made me feel special. The fact that he might have had sex with another girl when he said that he likes me makes me feel like shit. But the bigger part of why I'm upset is because I really like him.
"I don't know, because I really like him." I admitted, my voice quiet.
"Then let him explain to you Caitlyn. At least hear him out before you jump to conclusions and ignore him." she told me, pushing a bit of hair back from her face.
"You know, you're right. Thank you Jasmine." I replied, a smile on my face.
I stood up, and thought of what I would say. I wasn't going to look for him now, lessons start in five minutes. So instead, I walked with Jasmine to my next class and thought about what I would say at lunch. At least at lunch we would have a lot longer to talk about things. If we spoke in break, we would have five minutes and probably wouldn't be able to say everything that we needed to say.
When I got to my class, I had a few minutes until I had to go in, so I quickly pulled out my phone and sent Luke a text.
Me: Can we talk at lunch? Meet me at the tree
Without waiting for a reply, I locked my phone and put it back into my pocket before walking into class.
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During the next two lessons I had before lunch, my phone was constantly vibrating. As soon as lunch started, I walked to the tree. When I pulled out my phone to look at why it was vibrating so much, there was a lot of texts from Luke. I didn't bother opening them; I just put my phone back into my pocket.
I got to the tree before Luke did, so I tried to prepare myself. Most of me didn't think that anything did happen that night, but a little bit of me is telling me to not be so naive, that if he got the text it could have happened. It took a while, but I finally thought of what I would say to Luke when he got to the tree.
A few minutes later, I could see Luke walking towards me. He was taking large steps like he usually does, while I have to chase after him if I'm walking with him. He was walking quickly too. In no time, he was standing right in front of me. He looked down at me, probably waiting for me to speak up, because I was the one who asked him if we could talk.
But when I opened my mouth, everything that I had prepared just minutes ago was completely out of my mind. I blinked, before looking up to meet Luke's bright blue eyes.
"Did you want to speak first or can I?" Luke asked, breaking the awful silence.
I nodded, but Luke just looked a bit confused. "Erm, you." I stumbled.
"Okay, well first, nothing happened. I know that it looked like something happened, and God if it was the other way round I would be beyond pissed off. I probably wouldn't even be talking to you right now, so thank you for asking to speak and letting me explain myself. Basically, I used to go to parties a lot more than I do now. Before I met you, Brooke was like my girl on the side, if that makes sense. No relationship about it, just drunk sex. Brooke was a bit more obsessed really, and, she got my number. Then when I met you, I really liked you. I really like you, not liked, because I like you." Luke said, stopping and going a bit red. I nodded for him to continue, fighting the urge to smile at him blushing.
"Well anyway, I didn't really go to many parties because I spent all of my time with you. I enjoyed spending time with you, and the more I did, the more I liked you. But when I went to that party while we were hanging out and stuff, that time I came to your house drunk, I had been with Brooke that night." Luke carried on.
My heart sunk slightly hearing those words. I had known that Luke had been with a girl that night, he told me when we were sitting in my living room, and I felt a little bit jealous then. Now that I knew it was the girl who he's regularly with at parties, it made me even more jealous but I didn't interrupt Luke, I just carried on listening.
"After that though, there was nothing. I told you that I liked you, because I do. Brooke would still text, she still texts now, but you can even look through them, I ignore them all. Brooke is so fake; I don't even know why I would get with her at parties. Yes, on Saturday she did come over to me. I was trying to find you, and she came over to me, forcing herself onto me and trying to get me to a room." Luke tilted his head to the side, scratching the side of his neck and licking his lips before continuing.
"She wouldn't get off of me, and it was grossing me out at how desperate she was. When I'm drunk, I obviously don't know what I'm doing because if she does that all the time, it's just really desperate. Anyway, after trying quite a lot, I got her off of me and went looking for you, and that's when I found you in Ashton's room before you were sick. After that I was with you all night, I wasn't going to leave you when you felt like shit. I wanted to look after you, so I brought you to my house and then went to sleep."
I chewed on my lip, kicking my feet around the grass.
"When we woke up, like I said, I thought that breakfast would make you feel better. Then I went to the toilet and that text came through. When I came out of the bathroom, I got really worried when I saw you crying, I didn't have a clue what had happened. But when you pushed me to the side and ran out of the door, I saw my phone screen go dark out of the corner of my eyes so I looked at it. When I saw the text from Brooke I got really angry, and I tried going after you to explain but you were already at the end of the road, and you obviously didn't want to talk to me."
I was looking down at the floor now, still kicking my feet and playing around with my thumbs. Luke reached out, softly putting a finger under my chin and lifting it up so that I was looking at him.
"I hated that you wasn't talking to me, but I knew that I would react exactly the same. Please Caitlyn, please believe me when I say all of this. I seriously don't know what I would do without you. And not just because you're my tutor." Luke told me, and his face went a light shade of red again. He quickly looked away, while I just carried on looking at him.
"I do believe you. I just don't know why she would text that when it isn't true." I replied. After all of that, it was hard to stay mad at him. He stood there, rambling on for at least five minutes, and he sounded so sad, so desperate for me to believe him. I did believe him; he looked so truthful in what he was saying.
"Caitlyn, if I knew, I would tell you. I don't know though, other than the fact that she's really desperate. But I don't like her, not at all. Like I said before, I like you. I've liked you for ages Caitlyn. Why do you think I'm constantly trying to spend time with you? It's not because I want you to tutor me, I couldn't care less about the tutoring anymore. I just love spending time with you, because I really like you. I feel like such a girl right now." Luke said, laughing slightly.
I smiled at him, a bright smile. "I like you too. I'm sorry for not letting you explain when it happened, it was all just so fast, and I jumped to conclusions when I shouldn't have."
"Don't apologise, you didn't do anything." Luke told me, gazing at me.
"You didn't either though. I felt like such an idiot after that text. I felt like I had let you in, and made me like you. I thought that you did it all for a joke, that you thought it would be funny to do that and then see me upset. But now I feel like such an idiot for thinking that, because I know that you're a lot different to how you were before, you're such a good person." I told him truthfully, feeling a bit embarrassed to admit it.
"I would never do that to you Caitlyn. I really do care about you." Luke told me, frowning slightly. He moved his hand until it was in mine, and he laced our fingers together.
"I know you do." I replied, my voice quiet. I watched Luke playing with my hand for a moment and I really did believe that he cares about me.
"So are we okay now?" Luke asked me. I looked at him and he was already looking at me, having to look down where I was quite shorter than him. He was chewing on his lip ring, eyes glued on mine.
"Yeah, we're okay." I told him. He smiled, and took his hand from mine. His arms opened and he wrapped them around me, my arms wrapping around his waist. Luke's head rested on top of mine, and I felt him take it off before placing a kiss to my hair and then putting his head back on mine.
We stayed like that for a while, before we pulled apart. Luke sat down and then I sat down next to him. He was looking down at the grass, picking bits from the ground and dropping them from his hands only to pick more from the ground.
"Where's Calum and Michael?" I asked him. I was quite curious as to whether they know about me and Luke liking each other, and if they do know, what they think of it.
"Does it matter? I don't know." Luke replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"Do they know about us?" I asked him. After I said it I felt a little bit embarrassed, because Luke probably hasn't told them. Why should it matter anyway?
"Not really. They know that I like you, but I don't think that they know I like you in a more than a friend way." Luke told me, making my stomach fill with butterflies. He looked up from the grass and looked at me. He dropped a handful of grass onto my leg, obviously finding himself funny as he laughed.
I frowned but laughed, flicking the grass off of my leg. "What do they think?" I asked him. I was asking him loads of questions, but I was really curious.
"About us being friends? Well they think that I'm stupid, but they're just dicks. They're my friends, yeah, but if they don't like you when they don't know you how I do, they're stupid." Luke replied, flicking a bit of grass at me.
"Can you stop flicking grass at me please?" I asked him, giggling a bit.
"Please?" Luke mimicked me, tilting his head to the side and holding his hand out, pretending to be me.
"You're annoying." I told him, rolling my eyes playfully at him.
"Where's your friend?" Luke asked me. He moved, laying down on his side, still picking at the grass like a little kid.
"She gave me some space so that I could talk to you." I told him, starting to pick some grass myself.
"Do you want to go out somewhere Friday? Like, out, not at one of our houses." Luke asked suddenly.
"You changed the subject quickly." I replied, not answering his question straight away.
"Do you?" Luke pressed on.
"Yeah, okay." I agreed, nodding my head.
"Cool." Luke replied. I saw him smile, but he pressed his mouth into a line, hiding it.
"Where?" I asked him, flicking grass at him like he did to me. When he didn't answer, I was about to flick another bit before he grabbed my wrist, stopping me. He pulled me forwards, and I fell onto my stomach on the grass. Luke was smiling now, not hiding it, and I was as well.
"I don't know yet, do I?" Luke finally replied.
"It better be somewhere nice." I said, looking at him and smiling still. I was only joking; I didn't really care where he took us. We could go anywhere and it would be fun.
"No Caitlyn. I'm taking you to the rubbish dump, and we'll dig through the bags and find some food for us to eat." Luke told me, sarcasm clear in his voice.
"Sounds like a plan." I agreed, and Luke threw his head back, laughing.
AN: Some people have been asking me if I have a twitter, so I have made one, it's @NiallHoransPerf