Chapter 6

* a couple of months later, it’s December*  I wake up and get ready for school and climb out my window, that's been my way in and out so that my dad doesn't catch me and Ash together. I knock on Ash’s window and he opens it, he’s ready and grabs his star necklace off of his nightstand and puts it on. I help him out of his window and we walk to the bus stop.

   The bus comes and we get on holding hands, Ash and the bus driver do their normal ‘good mornings’ and ‘hellos’ and we go to the back of the bus. “Well look who the dog brought in,” Subree says glaring at Ash.I glare back at her and she rolls her eyes and looks away. Ash and I talk for the entire bus ride, his laugh is adorable.

   We made it to the school and got off the bus. Every time someone pointed or laughed at AshI told them to leave him alone and every time I did, I caught Ash peacefully smiling and he thanked me.

   We go into the cafeteria to eat breakfast and Subree’s group walks up to us.  “Hey Waylen, do you mind if we talk to Ashen in the hallway while you keep eating breakfast?” Subree said it with an ‘OK’ tone but I still didn’t trust her considering this morning.

   “I don’t know, I guess it's up to him,” I squeezed Ash’s hand but he didn’t do anything. He just pushed his tray away.

  “Hey! I told you to at least eat half your food,” I said but he just stuck his tongue out at me. I’ve been trying to get Ash to eat more since it turns out he used to starve himself. 

    “Keep sticking your tongue out at me and I’ll bite it,” I take a bite of my food and smirk when I notice how red his face is.

   “Are you two just going to ignore me?” Subree put her hand on her hip and a disgusted look. I kiss Ash and turn back around to her.

   “Well, you ARE annoying.'' As I say it I hear Ash scoff out a giggle but Subree seems to get pissed and yanks his arm causing him to wince in pain and surprise, which causes me to stand up.

   “If I let you TALK to him you have to PROMISE ME that you won’t do ANYTHING to hurt him mentally or physically.” I point at her and look her dead in the eye which makes the rest of the group even look a little worried but Subree just smiles, Jay on the other hand looks away.

   “Yeah yeah I promise.” She waves her hand and starts basically dragging Ash since he doesn’t walk very fast.

Ash’s point of view 

   The group drags me into the hall and pushes me up against the wall and instantly punches me in the jaw causing blood to drip from my mouth or maybe my lip, my face was too numb from the punch that I couldn’t tell. They kept punching me in the head until I fell to the ground and they started kicking me.

   “Oh yeah, before I forget, isn’t today that Christmas party when there's no class all day?” Subree asks, poking me.

   “Then take this as my gift to you,” she says, smiling and kicking me in the head before walking back into the cafeteria talking to the group about the winter dance tonight. My vision blurs then goes black, I feel dizzy.

Waylen’s point of view

   I see the group walk back in but I don’t see Ash. I stood up and walked over to the group which was laughing and grabbed Subree’s shoulder, turning her around. “Where’s Ash?” I say in a decently harsh tone.

   “I don’t know,” she says, playing with her hair. I get a mix of worried and pissed and stomp off out of the cafeteria. The bell rings but we don’t have any classes so I just ignore it. I get into the hallway and see Ash on the ground covered in bruises and bleeding. 

   “ASHEN!?” I ran up to him helping him up. He lays his head against my shoulder mumbling words that I couldn’t quite understand but I just pick him up and walk to the nurse who doesn’t do anything and just says she’s on break and she can’t do anything since it's bullying. So she just gives us bandages and ointment. Stupid Ms. Harp.

   I carried Ash to a bench in the hallway under a poster that was put up last week and set him down. “What exactly happened?” I ask while wiping the blood from a spot in his head, it wasn’t very deep at all but it was bleeding quite a bit.

   “S-Subree’s group,” he says, his voice breaking a little. I feel like a flame just lit near me, that girl made a promise and instantly broke it.

   I finished with the spots on his head and took off his jacket to look at his arms. They have a few bruises, one being a bruise from when Subree grabbed him to bring him into the hall, it was an exact shape of her hand and was already a greenish color. This is the first time I got a good look at his scars, and I didn’t like it, there were a bunch of scars on the top and bottom of his arms.

   When I finished being a doctor boyfriend we walked over to our lockers. Ash stops and stares at his causing me to look as well, the word fagot was written in big letters on his locker with smaller written sentences around it. Ash started crying and I could tell he was reading the smaller words and sentences, he put up his hood and sat down in the corner as I walked up to his locker to read. ‘Loser’ ‘why are you still here?’ ‘what happened to you ending your life’ ‘go back to cutting’ ‘harasser’. I couldn’t stand to read anymore, these people are terrible. I walked up to Ash and sat next to him. “Is all of that true, should I go back,” Ash says looking up at me. I grab the sides of his hood and give him a small kiss.

   “No, definitely not, I don’t know what I would do without you.” as I say that Ash smiles.

   “Oh yeah I have something for you,” he says, reaching into his bag and grabbing a present that says To checker boy From Starboy and hands it to me. I reach into my bag and hand him two gifts.

   “You open yours first,” Ash says, laying the gifts I handed him next to his bag. I open up the gift and it’s a picture frame with a picture of Ash and I with the waterfall behind us. Ash opens his and he smiles-it's a picture that he liked from one of our dates, a picture of him holding chopsticks feeding me sushi cause I was too scared to try it- he laughs a little and gently puts the frame in his bag and I do the same. Ash opens the other one - a ring- he looks up at me a little confused.

   “It's a promise that I'll never betray you like everyone else did,” I say, putting the ring on his finger. He smiles and hugs me and I hug him back. I take out my laptop and we watch a horror movie but turn it off when Ash gets scared and we decide to have a spelling contest which Ash wins of course-he’s straight A’s when I have three F’s WHO EVIL BEING PUTS LETTERS WITH NUMBERS- yes, I’m still in algebra, I never passed it. After the contest, Ash starts helping me with my homework.

   “Ok next question for science, what are clouds made out of?” Ash says taking off his reading glasses and laying them in their case. I think for a while.

   “COTTON CANDY,” I say and we both burst into laughter. 

   “No that's incorrect you weirdo,” Ash says, wiping tears away from his eyes from laughing too hard. I look up at the posters all around the hall. They were put up last week and the date on them is for today, a winter dance. I took dance classes when I was younger, I find it fun but I’ve never had anyone I wanted to go to a school dance with.

  “Hey Ash?”

  “Yes?”

 “What do you say about going to a school dance tonight?” I look at him and he smiles nervously.

 “I don’t know how to dance” I feel a big smile form on my face and I quickly grab his hand making him stand up with me.

  “I’ll teach you!” I pull him towards me and he smiles.

   “Alright, I’ll go to a stupid school dance with my stupid lovable boyfriend,” He pokes me in the chest as he says it and then stands o his tippi toes to kiss me. I love him.

    Later that night after school I took Ash to the dance on my motorcycle, it took so much convincing him, he didn’t trust it at all. It's dark so when we walked into the school I finally saw his suit, a star pattern tie, white button down, dark blue suit jacket and pants. Mine is just a classic black suit with a white button down and gray tie.

  “You look handsome Ash,” I say and grab his hand, he chuckles and pokes me.

  “I am definitely not the handsome one, That's a word that suits your character more,” he smiles and continues holding my hand as we walk into the gymnasium. Song and laughter fills the air as we enter. Ash’s grip on my hand tightens as he looks at Subree and her group, except one boy I don’t recognize, he looks like Subree, maybe a brother. Ash starts backing up to leave the gym but I just pull him back.

  “Hey, its ok, we’ll stay away from them, just dance with me, ok?” I look at him and he takes a deep breath before giving a small smile and nodding. I smile and we walk to the opposite side of the gym before I put one hand on his hip and put his hand on my shoulder before taking his other hand in mine.

   We dance the entire night away lost in our own worlds, Ms. Haren takes our picture with her polaroid, well pictures, she wanted a few for herself. We kept two, one for Ash and one for me and overall it was a good night. We went home together and once more I stayed over so waking up next to him only made it better.