Aliyah's P.O.V.
On my ride home, I felt like bursting out crying. I didn't even make it through the whole day without crying. I know Ashton saw me crying in the hallway, that's why I rushed into the bathroom, so he wouldn't ask me any questions.
I've barely even known Ashton, I only met him six hours ago at the beginning of school, and he's already asked me on a date! I've known guys for months and none of them have asked me on dates. I bet Ashton will end up not liking me, he barely knows me, why could he like me. Once every other guy got to know me, they all ran away like I was a disease!
I lay my head on the steering wheel and take a deep breath, maybe I would actually have a good time tonight with Ashton and we would end up being friends, I kind of need another friend besides Kayla. She's been my best friend forever and I wouldn't trade her for anything, she'll always be here, but I need other friends too.
My phone goes off as soon as I pull up in the driveway and I open the message.
From: Unknown
Hey, it's Ashton :) I was thinking I could pick you up around 5 and we could go for pizza and maybe the arcade. Xx
I look at my house, the paint peeling at the sides, the steps on the front broken, a few boards on different windows. I didn't have to money to repair my family’s house, and my dad doesn't care enough to get a job and try and fix it up, you'd think it was abandoned at first sight. I wouldn't want Ashton knowing I lived here.
To: Ashton :p
Umm, could I meet you somewhere? I'll probably be at the mall until we go, so I could just meet you
I quickly send the text and stuff my phone in my pocket. I hope the lie was believable, I don't want him anywhere near this place, and it disgusts me. I quickly go down the hall and into my room, locking the door behind me. My brother, Richard, would be gone until tomorrow, he's been working the late shifts at his work to help pay for the electricity and water bills lately, something I'm very grateful that he does, because I'm so focused on school.
My phone buzzes and I pick it up, checking my new message.
From: Ashton :p
You could come by my house then, and then we can go in my truck :) The address is 1782 Larenburg Dr.
I get a new change of clothes, a pair of gray skinny jeans, a black tank top and a beanie. I turn on the water and step into the shower. I shiver slightly at how cold the water is. I quickly wash my body and hair before getting out of the shower, I still have about thirty minutes before I have to leave, it took me thirty minutes to get home from school, and once I got my clothes together and took my shower, it's already four, and I should leave around four thirty to get to Ashton's house by five.
I'm not too big on make-up. I usually just put on eye shadow, lipstick and mascara. I'm not overly confident, I feel like I need more make-up but I don't like spending the time to put it all on, it seems like a waste of time when you're just going to rub it off at the end of the day.
The door at the front of the house slams shut and I hear something fall over, obviously my dad is home now. I pull on my converse and push my phone into my back pocket. I walk down the hallway, cringing when I see my father passed out on the couch with a whiskey bottle in his hands. I pick up a couple of bottles that are littered around the house and put them in the trash.
My dad sits up on the couch and looks over at me. He takes another swig of his whiskey and smirks at me. "Why don't you run into the kitchen and get me another bottle of whiskey, I'd appreciate it baby." I shake my head and begin walking away when he stands up. "You’re a worthless piece of crap! You don't do anything for me anymore!" He throws the bottle at me and it hits the side of my head, leaving a cut right above my temple.
I quickly scurry out and into my car, looking at the cut in my rear view mirror. I hold a tissue to the cut, hoping it will stop bleeding by the time I get to Ashton's house. After going through several tissues, the bleeding stops. I check the address in my phone to make sure it's correct as I pull up to a gated community. No way that he lived in this place, only the richest people live in here.
The farther I get into the small community, the bigger the houses get. I pull up into Ashton's driveway and look at the cut on the side of my head. It's noticeable, but it stopped bleeding and I managed to get all the blood that had gotten around the cut. I admire the flowers in the front lawn as I walk up to Ashton's door. I ring the door bell and then hear feet on a stairwell.
Ashton answers the door with a smile and lets me in the house. I can hear talking from another part of the house but ignore it as Ashton tries to balance on one foot and get his shoes on. I laugh and grab his shoulder, offering a support system.
"Thanks." He laughs and smiles at me. His smile fades when he notices the mark on the side of my head. "What the hell happened? I don't remember this being there earlier today." Ashton runs his finger over it and I wince, causing him to immediately retract his hands. "Sorry, maybe my mom will help you clean it up. It looks like it hasn't been disinfected." He examines it and I shake my head.
"No, it's fine. I just fell and hit my head on my dresser." He gives me an odd look and then sighs.
"But still, maybe my mom could help, it's a deep cut and I wouldn't want it to get infected." He trails his fingers down the side of my face nods his head. "Mom!" I quickly shake my head at him and pull him backwards. I may fool Ashton with my lie, but ay good mother would be able to see past the lie, falling on a dresser wouldn't make a cut that deep.
"No, Ashton it's perfectly fine, lets just go." I didn't speak fast enough before a blonde haired lady walks in and smiles at us, a dish towel in her hands. She smiles at me and I smile lightly at her.
"Aliyah, meet my mom, mom, meet Aliyah." I wave shyly at her and she smiles at me again. "Aliyah cut her head when she fell and she refuses to let anyone doctor it, will you?" He asks his mom and we follow his mother through the house and into a large bathroom, probably the size of my room at my house. I'm ordered to sit down on the edge of the bathtub while his mother gets a first aid kit.
"What happened dear?" Ashton's mother questions and I wince as she rubs a disinfectant wipe on the side of my head.
"I fell and hit my head on the side of my dresser." She laughs lightly and shakes her head. She rubs something over the cut and my eyes water because it stings.
"Ashton, will you go get a band aid from the other bathroom. I don't see any in here." Ashton nods and runs up the stairs, doing as his mother told him. "Now, what really happened? No cut gets that long and deep by hitting your head on a dresser, and you would have had to fallen sideways, which I don't see likely to happen." I shake my head as she sticks a band aid on my face. Ashton returns with a package of band aids and gives his mother a confused look when he sees the large band aid already on me "I found them." She says and he nods.
"Okay mom, we're going for pizza and the arcade. I'll be home in a few hours." Ashton leads me out of the house and towards his truck. I climb into the passenger seat as he climbs into the driver’s side. "We're just going down to Ramone's if that's alright." He smiles over at me and I nod.
Ramone's is a locally owned pizza shop with some of the best pizza you'd ever taste in your life. Ashton reaches to change the radio and turns it to a pop station, Maps by Maroon 5 coming on. Ashton mumbles along to the song and I laugh, he actually has a nice voice.
We pull up at the pizza shop and he gets out of his truck. I meet him in the front of his truck and he places his hand on the small of my back, leading me inside. He tells me too take a seat anywhere while he goes to order the pizza. The small pizzeria doesn't have very many people inside. An elderly couple is sat in a small booth. Both enjoy their pizza and water. A boy is sat in a corner, eating pizza and reading a book, and a few teens sit at a table on their phones, ignoring the pizza in front of them.
I sit at a booth and set my phone on the table, leaving it face down so I'm not tempted to look at it. It would be rude to be on my phone while out with someone. Ashton slides in across from me in the booth and tells me the pizza should be out soon.
"So, tell me a bit about yourself." Ashton smiles over at me and I slightly smile back. I would tell him random facts, there's no way I would tell him about my home life, no one besides Kayla knows about my home life, and I plan to keep it that way.
"Well, I'm originally from Branson Missouri, I have a brother, Richard, my favorite color is purple, and I enjoy reading books."Ashton smiles at me, he smiles a lot. "What about you, telling me something about yourself." I draw on my hand with a pen that was on the ground and wait for Ashton to reply.
"I have a brother, Harry and a sister, Lauren. My favorite color is blue, and I also, enjoy reading books." I remember him telling everyone this morning at school that he enjoyed books, and everyone laughing at him. "Oo pizza." Ashton squeals like a kid as the pizza is sat in front of us. It's the medium sized pizza, but I'm sure it could feed four people.
I take a slice of pizza and slide it onto my plate. I use a fork and knife to cut it, putting small pieces into my mouth. Ashton laughs at me when he realizes what I'm doing. He joking put his already bitten into pizza on a plate and begins cutting it, shoveling it into his mouth. I laugh at his mimicking of me which causes him to laugh and somehow pizza sauce ends up on his nose.
I point to my nose, signaling he has some on his nose, he rubs every spot on his nose, except the one with pizza sauce on it. I laugh slightly when he smears it. "Instead of laughing at me, you should just get it off yourself." I grab a napkin and reach over the table, wiping the sauce away from his face, he stares at me for a second and then adverts his eyes when a few people walk in.
Ashton hangs his head low as the boys sit in a booth behind him, I give him a questioning and he grabs the pen I was drawing on my hand with and begins writing on a napkin. He slides the messy hand writing over to me and I attempt to read the scribbles.
'Go get a take-out box, we can finish eating in the park, then go to the arcade.
I nod and go ask for a take-out container. I thank the lady behind the counter as she hands me the box, I set it on the table, Ashton set the rest of the pizza and closed the box, he stood up and grabbed my hand, as he drags me out of the small restaurant I look back at the people he was avoiding. One of them looks at my boobs and I flick him the middle finger and shake my head. Some guys are so disrespectful now a day.
I get in the passenger seat and Ashton sets the pizza in the back seat. He pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street and turns into a vacant parking lot, neither of us saying anything. He puts the car in park and looks over at me.
"I'm sorry we had to leave in the middle of eating, we can go back to my place and finish up or go to the park or we can go ahead and go to the arcade." He sighs and rubs a hand down his face. "I'm sorry this isn't turning out as planned." He leans back in his chair and slumps his shoulders.
"I'm having fun. It’s fun to stick your middle finger up at random people when they stare at your boobs." Ashton looks up at me kind of horrified for a second before laughing. "Come on, we can just go to the arcade and have even more fun, or if you want to still eat pizza we can do that." I smile and lean against the center console in his truck. He nods and shifts the car into drive.
Ashton runs a hand through his hair and he drives towards the giant arcade downtown and I turn on the radio, 'right round' by flo rida is playing and I turn it up all the way. Ashton laughs at me and rolls all the windows down, several people in other cars give us odd looks as we pass them or catch a stop light.
We pull up at the arcade and Ashton jogs around the car and opens my door for me. He shuts it behind me and surprises me when he intertwines our fingers, His larger hand engulfs mine as we walk down the sidewalk and into the small arcade.
Ashton goes to get tokens while I peruse around, looking at the different games. One of my favorite games when I was a kid and Richard would bring me to the arcade would be the 'play until you win' games and we would always catch the candy before it hit the sensor, and go home with tons of candy and small plastic toys.
Ashton returns with his pants slightly sagging from the weight of all the tokens in his pocket. I laugh lightly and he hands me a few tokens. I insert them into my favorite game and grab the candy in the claw; I stick my hand into the bin and catch the candy, going to grab more candy with the claw.
"I didn't take you to be the type to do that. I never thought to do that." Ashton laughs at me as I stuff more candy into my pocket; he leads me to the game where you have to dance.
"Oh no, no, no." I back away lightly and he laughs at me.
"Come on, it'll be fun, no ones in here anyway." Ashton inserts enough tokens for two players and makes me stand on the platform with little arrows. I try my best to hit the different arrows, but I only get 37% of the moves while Ashton gets 89%, beating me by the long run.
We play a few more games and then a familiar red haired boy is visible, trying to hide behind a machine. When I notice him, I furrow my eye brows together. Why would he be here? I shake my head. I must have been seeing things. Ashton says it's getting kind of late and he has some homework so we should go turn in our tickets.
We both go up to the counter, filled with cheap plastic toys and candy, and turn in our tickets. Ashton ends up with over a thousand and I have four hundred. I get some candy and a few string bracelets and give the rest of the tickets to Ashton.
"Aliyah, do you like panda's or tigers better?" I give Ashton an odd look, why is he suddenly asking such a random question?
"Um, I prefer tigers, why?" I walk closer to him as I tighten several bracelets onto my wrist. I got three purple ones, three black ones, and one of an orange, pink, and green.
"Can I get the big tiger?" Ashton asks the man and points to the giant stuffed animal on the top shelf. Ashton smiles over at me and I shake my head, he should spend his tickets on something he wants, not on something for me.
"No, don't get the tiger down." I point the guy behind the counter. "Spend you tickets on yourself." I tell Ashton but he shakes his head and asks the man to get the tiger again. I shake my head as Ashton hands me the tiger that is almost as long as I am tall. I do smile though, the tiger was all fluffy and I could bury my face in its fur. "Thank you." I say as we walk out of the arcade. I occasionally trip of the tiger’s long tail so Ashton carries it for me.
We climb into Ashton's truck and he sets the tiger in my lap and starts the truck. The thought of how I thought I saw Ashton's friend comes back to my mind, I'm not sure of his name, but I recognized his bright red hair. How couldn't you remember the unnatural bright color?
Ashton pulls up to a gas station and tells me he'll be right back. He walks around in the corner store for a minute before going up to the front counter. My phone begins ringing and I pull it out, answering my brother’s phone call.
"Where are you?" Richard hisses into the phone when I answer.
"I'm at the library." I lie, and hope he can't tell. He'd be mad if he knew I was out with a guy, Richard is one of those protective brothers. He's like the guy from the stories, the older brother that will beat someone up or make sure you take medicine when you have a cough.
"I need you to get back home soon, dad's gone again and the house is trashed. He got in your room and messed everything up, I picked up the glass and trash, but I wasn't going to mess with your clothes and other stuff." I sigh and lay my head in my hand. I usually lock the door to my room, I guess I was in such a rush to get to Ashton's that I forgot too.
"Okay, I'll be home soon. Just let me-" I'm cut off when Ashton gets back in the car and slams the door shut, making a very loud noise.
"What was that?" Richard asks and I slightly panic.
"Um, a kid ran into a shelf. He knocked over a bunch of books." When Ashton begins to say something, I shoot across the center console and put my hand over his mouth, ending up straddling his lap.
"Okay, get home soon." I hang up and remove my hand from Ashton's mouth, but he places his hands on my hips. He gives me a raised eyebrow and chuckles at me.
"So, can I know why you shot into my laugh and covered my mouth when I was about to say something?" Ashton laughs and rests his hands on my thighs. I blush and crawl back across the console, sitting in my seat with my tiger back in my lap.
"On the phone with my brother, he's pretty protective of me and doesn't let me go out a lot and he'd have a cow if he knew I was out with a guy." I cross my legs and Ashton shakes his head.
"Why does it matter? You're eighteen, and he's got to be older than you, why does he care?" Ashton grumbles and I laugh lightly, he's upset because my brother doesn't want me dating anyone.
"Actually, I'm only seventeen, and he's twenty two, but he's just always been there for me. We have a close relationship." Ashton just nods and pulls out of the parking lot, heading back towards his house. The truth is, Richard used to be okay with me dating, but after Eli, he's never trusted another guy with me.
Ashton turns up the radio and focuses on the road ahead of us. When we pull onto his street, I notice the three boys gathered around the same car, two houses down from Ashton's. I lean back in my seat and stretch my legs, getting tired from sitting for a while.
Ashton pulls into his driveway and gets out, helping me out. I put the stuffed tiger in the passenger side of my car and then turn towards Ashton. "Thank you, I had fun." I smile and he smiles back at me.
"So did I, maybe we could go out another time." Ashton looks down and I hesitate for a minute, do I? I had fun, but what was this? Are we forming a more than friend relationship? Are we becoming something? Did I even like him? Guess there's only one way to find out.
"Sure, I'd love to." I smile and Ashton looks up at me, smiling more than I am.
"I'll text you about it, maybe we could go tomorrow, but if that's too soon, since we went today, that's fine. Or just whenever you feel comfortable." He looks over at me and smiles, he smiles and laughs a lot, I couldn't imagine him being rude or mad, he's like a little ball of sunshine.
"I'll check my plans, but yeah, I'd love too." When Ashton puts a hand on my cheek and starts leaning in, I panic internally. He was going to kiss me, for sure, as his face got closer, I wasn't sure what to do, I'd never kissed anyone before. I had never held hands with anyone before today.
"Mom! Ashton's about to kiss a girl!" Ashton pulls away a groans, glaring at the girl standing in the doorway, I assume it's his sister. The girl looks around thirteen, and smirks and walks into the house.
"I'll text you." I smile and give him a kiss on the cheek, getting into my car. He waves me goodbye as I pull out of the driveway and onto the street. The whole drive home I'm scared to see what I'll come home too. Richard said our dad ruined my room, there's no telling what all has happened in there. He could have done the dirty in my bed with a woman while I was gone. I shiver at the thought and speed up a bit to get home.
I pull up in the driveway, parking behind Richard’s car. I unlock the front door and walk in. Richard is in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. He gives me and apologetic look as I walk through the kitchen and into my room. I gasp at how destroyed it is, Pieces of glass shatter under my feet as I walk into my room. My bathroom is untouched, but my room, you can barely tell it's a room.
My sheets are on top of my TV, with the scent of alcohol radiating off of them. My alarm clock is laying on the floor, my jewelry is laid across the floor, none of the pieces my mother gave me in sight. I begin picking up the shards of small glass that Richard had missed and dumb it in the trash can. I take my sheets down from on top of my TV and go put them in the washing machine. I hang all of my jewelry back into my jewelry box and place my alarm clock back on my nightstand. The room looks fairly clean now and only has a few things out of place.
By the time I completely finish cleaning the room, putting everything back into its original place, its midnight. I didn't get to study for my test in science and didn't get to do any of my homework. I sigh and lay all of my schoolbooks out on my desk, beginning to work on the homework that I hadn't done.
I wake up and stretch out. I quickly look over to me clock and panic, it's almost eleven o'clock in the afternoon. I quickly stuff all of my papers into my bag and change clothes and brush my teeth.
I've never been late to school in my life.
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Okay guys so these chapters I'm posting are about five pages long and seven pages when I type it in microsoft word, would you guys like shorter chapters more often or longer chapters once a week?
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