Ember Rose

36

{a/n ok before anyone jumps
down my throat; This story
is set in England, We drive
on the left side of the road
and the steering wheel is
on the right side of the car}

It was Friday morning and Chase and I were ready to leave for Ireland. The school week had gone pretty quickly, considering I had a detention pretty much every day after school for being late. Myself and Chase had hung out at break and lunch, along with everyone else, and they've kind of accepted the fact that we're now suddenly friends. Thats what they think anyway.

"My love, stay safe" Aunty May says as she hugs me tightly before doing the same to Chase. Chase seats himself in the drivers seat as I get into the passenger side, both slamming our doors in unison.

"You ready?" He asks, putting the key in the ignition.

I nod with a small grin.

"You ready to be stuck with me in this car for ten hours?" He chuckles.

"Hell yeah" I giggle as he starts the car and with that we were off, giving May a wave as we drove down the road.

We spoke for a good four hours whilst enjoying each others company, but somewhere along the way, I must have fallen asleep.

"Em" I'm awaken to Chase lightly tapping my thigh. "Hey" He chuckles as I open my eyes and adjust to the light.

"We're at the ferry port" He smiles, placing his hand on the gearstick as the queue to get on the ferry begins to move. "I bet you're hungry" He says, as we drive onto the ferry, after confirming a few details with the workers or whatever you call them.

"Starving" I nod. We had snacks in the car, but seeing as I was asleep for a good three hours, I hadn't eaten a single thing.

We get out of the car, following the steward to the main area of the ferry, where he left us to ourselves. Chase dragged me over to the food court, my right hand tight in his. The fast movement giving my wrist a bit of a hard time, but I couldn't cry out on the boat.

"What you having?" He asks, placing his hand on the small of my back as he gazes up at the menu.

"I'll have whatever you're having" I shrug watching Chase roll his eyes at me.

"Two cheeseburgers please, mate" Chase nods to the man who was serving, nodding to him when he asked if we wanted fries.

After a short wait, we're given our trays of food and we walk over to a small, empty two seater by one of the windows of the boat.

I immediately begin stuffing my face with fries, Chase doing the same before stopping to take my right hand in his across the table.

"Was this me?" He asks lowly, examining my bruised wrist.

I pull away, placing my hand on my lap under the table and decide to ignore the question, my eyes averting to my burger.

"Im sorry" He says lowly.

I give him a small look, feeling so bad for making him believe it was him. "Was it- that night at my party when I held your hands to the wall? Em, I'm so sorry, honestly" He frowns.

"Lets just eat" I smile slightly, taking a bite from my burger, Chase doing the same.

After we had finished, Chase had to make an 'important' phone call and made his way to the outside deck of the boat whilst I stayed sat at the table.

I watched him walk along the rail with his phone glued to his ear, frowning every so often as he scoffed down his phone. I didn't know who it was he was talking to but it was pretty clear he was arguing.

After a while he slips his phone into his pocket, leaning his forearms on the rail to peer over the edge of the boat. He was clearly annoyed and I didn't know whether approaching him was for the best, but i did it anyway.

"You ok?" I ask, standing beside him to look down at the - empty water..

"Mm" He nods without lifting his head.

"You sure?" I frown.

He says nothing, turning to rest his back on the railings before pulling me over to stand in between his legs. He wraps his arms around me and we stand in silence. I didn't say anything as I didn't want to piss him off.

After another half an hour or so, the ferry had reached Ireland. We were in the car queueing to drive off of the boat when Chase's phone lit up. Without being to obvious, I took a quick glance at the text, noticing it was from 'Freddy'.  The only Freddy I knew was the caretaker, which i found slightly weird as Chase despised him, but I also understood that Chase might have known another Freddy. I only read the first line of the text though, as Chase took the phone to read it for himself.

From: Freddy: i didn't touch her why? Do y-

Chase scans over the text before placing it back down, taking his left hand off of the gear stick to take my right wrist.

"Who was this, Em?" He asks, examining my wrist.

I gulp with a small shrug.

"Well from your reaction earlier, i'm pretty sure it wasn't me; was it?" He asks.

I shake my head.

Chases eyes evert to the road, still keeping my wrist in his hand as he drives forward just a little to keep his place in the queue, before he looks back down. His jaw clenching.

"This looks so bad" He frowns, gently brushing his thumb over the ugly bruising. You could definitely make out a 'hand mark' from the bruising, where Charlies hand had been positioned, and I guess Chase was making sure it really wasn't him when he lightly wrapped his hands around my wrist, positioning his fingers so that they could puzzle into the bruise. He chuckled softly to himself.

"Their hands were bigger than mine" I glances at me. "So it was a male, right?" He raises his eyebrows.

I shrug, "Chase, please, I want us to enjoy this trip together, not spend the whole time playing sherlock holmes; don't worry about my wrist, I'm fine" I scoff.

Chase nods, placing his hand back on the gearstick.

"What do you think of Freddy, Em?" Chase asks as we finally leave the ferry and start moving.

"The caretaker? He's nice" I smile, Chase glancing at me with a small look.

"He's nice?" Chase almost chokes, earning a small nod. "Has he not ever come across to you as weird?" He then asks.

"What? No?" I chuckle. "Freddy's lovely, Chase. Honestly, he's not weird at all"

Chase chuckles.

"So, You don't find it weird how all of a sudden he started talking to you, never once batted an eyelid at you until around two months ago?" He asks.

I shake my head. "Chase, I know you don't like Freddy, but I don't see why trying to turn me against him will make anything any better" I frown.

Chase nods before focusing purely on the road.