Ash’s POV
I somehow managed to stay home for another week, and not just like a couple of days like originally planned. You see, I still wasn’t feeling very well. Not the whole mental thing going on with me right now, but it was physically. Also not the bruises. I just felt sick, having to run to the bathroom every once in awhile. It was likely that I was making myself feel sick, if you know what I mean, like it was all in my head. But Isobel decided to keep me in anyway. It wasn’t like I minded, though. I really wasn’t ready to face everybody at school again.

It might sound sad, but Alex coming home really was the highlight of my day. I had nothing to do the hours I was awake and he wasn’t around. There was no homework to do, because I missed out so much, and every time I tried to catch up with what I missed, I would be throwing up again. On one hand I really wanted to get better, but apparently I also didn’t want to at the same time.

I literally had nothing to do other than hang around and watch TV. Although I didn’t feel like doing anything, I also didn’t feel like lying around all day. Sometimes I would feel very sick, like I seriously wasn’t going to get better soon, but often I also felt like nothing was actually wrong with me. It was really weird. Like, I wasn’t really sick, but at the same time I was. It might have been some weird virus or something.

Anyway, back to the highlight of the day. I felt bad. I had basically just dropped Jack completely, and I didn’t want him to think I used him. It was just that Alex was now here everyday, looking after me even though he didn’t have to. One moment I only wanted to be around Jack and was terrified of Alex, but now I was attached to the one I never thought I would be. I, myself, did not understand why. With what Luke had done to me, I thought I would have been terrified of any guy, no matter how nice they were. But now I was just hoping from one to the other. I did not understand why.

It was completely pathetic that I was on the couch in the living room, waiting for alex, knowing that his car would pull up any second. I was just sitting there with a blanket draped around me, looking at the front door hoping to see Alex walk in. It wasn’t like it seemed to bother him, but it made me feel like shit. Once again, I was letting myself become dependent on a guy, something I had never seen myself doing. But I couldn’t do it all by myself, and I knew that trying to act strong would be the wrong decision.

And then a car drove onto the driveway. I recognised it and immediately perked up, ready to rush over to the front door. When Alex finally entered, I ran over to him, hugging him tightly and resting my my head right against his chest. He chuckled and wrapped an arm around me, kissing the top of my head.

“Hello to you too,” he grinned down at me, already used to me doing this everyday. I was actually surprised he wasn’t fed up with me already. It was actually the same exact routine the entire time… oh shit. I couldn’t be going back to my old ways, right? This wasn’t another OCD thing where I would have to go through the same routine the entire time or I’d feel like something terrible would go down? No, it couldn’t be.

“I missed you,” I whispered out unintentionally. Was I really that girl now? The one who could go without their boyfriend for a couple of hours? Except, Alex was my boy friend, a friend that is a boy, not my actual boyfriend. But you probably know what I mean.

“Well, good, ‘cause I’ve been missing my buddy in nearly every single class,” Alex laughed, trying to lighten up the whole fact that I hadn’t been to school in ages. I could have totally taken offense to that joke, but I decided not to go there. I didn’t want to fight with him, that would only leave me in tears.

I pulled away and looked up at him, “what did I miss?”

He gave me an awkward smile, walking past me to go to the kitchen and get himself a drink, “umm, nothing really.”

---
Alex’s POV

“Umm, nothing really.”

That wasn’t exactly true, I just didn’t want Ash to know. Let’s just say that things had gotten a lot different at school. Well, a lot different might be an exaggeration. However, there was some stuff going on around Ash having been raped. Since nobody actually knew what happened, only that she ran out during class, there were so many rumours. Everybody was trying to figure out what happened, and it made me feel like shit. At first I tried to get people to shut up, but now the whole school was talking about it. I couldn’t get hundreds of students to just stop taking.

The rumours going around were terrible. At first it just started out with the rumour of her being raped, but now it had completely escalated. People were making up where it happened and when it happened, who did it, and how Ash had behaved. They were all acting like they knew all the details. And I was the one in the middle of it. Everybody came to me and Jack asking us if some rumour was true. Both Jack and I had agreed to always tell them that it wasn’t right, even if it got really close to the actual thing. We weren’t going to let this happen to Ash.

Even though there were so many rumours, many students were also coming up to me asking me to tell Ash that they hope she’s doing fine. I, of course, never told Ash since I didn’t want her knowing that the whole school was speculating, although she probably already knew something like that was going on. But, you see, the majority of people were nice about it and concerned about Ash, however that was exactly it: the majority. That did not include everyone. There was this group of people who made fun of it, joking around and wanting to make it even worse for Ash.

Who lead this group? Remember that guy when Ash just came here? The one who teased her about coming from Germany? The one who got hit by the board marker in music class? Yeah? Maybe you might recognize his name: Stewart. I don’t know what his motivation was, but he always liked to make fun of other people’s problems. Nobody feared him, and we all actually thought he was very weird. The bullies are not always the ones who get everybody to obey. He had a couple of friends, but we all just ignored them. Now, however, I kept my eye on them, ready to pounce. They were not going to make fun of Ash like that.

And then there was Ash who kept giving me more and more affection as the days went past. That really didn’t help the humongous crush I had on her. I was really trying to put my feelings aside so I would actually help her as a friend, but it just seemed so impossible. Maybe it would have been easier for me if I let her stay with Jack, and let him be the first person she went to, but I messed that up. I wasn’t sure how Jack felt about it, but I felt like I had taken Ash away from him.

I was giving myself false hope with the way Ash acted around me. Yes, I knew it meant nothing and that she wouldn’t even be close to ready to have a new relationship if she thought about me that way. There was just no way Ash and I would ever end up together, and I just had to get over her, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t suppress those stupid feelings I really wanted gone. She was just so beautiful in every way, and I couldn’t help it.

Occasionally, I still got the nightmares; I just wouldn’t forgive myself for what I let happen. They even started to give me anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. It absolutely terrified me, making me believe I was being punished for my actions. Ash and I had started a deal, however. Whenever she had bad dreams or was scared, I would come to her, or she could come and climb into my bed, and if I had another anxiety attack, she would help me and fall asleep with me. So, basically we would fall asleep separately in the evening, only to wake up together nearly every morning. My parents didn’t seem to mind, though. It was like one big support system Ash and I had built up, and so my parents were fine with the whole thing.

I didn’t mind falling asleep with her in my arms, though.

Notes

I wasn't going to put this chapter up yet, but it seems like I'm ahead of my schedule... I was planning on putting this up on Saturday, just before I left for three weeks, but it's up now. Pretty happy about that, because this is a shitty filler chapter and I would hate to leave you guys like that. Instead it might now be a cliffhanger.... oops.
Soon enough the gifs will come back, though ;)