Catch or Fall

Chapter Nineteen

Ashton

I wake up to find Harper lounging on the sofa, laughing at whatever she's seeing in her laptop. She's wearing her Storm Troopers pajama, and her hair's in a messy bun. Still, she looks cute and hot at the same time. A smile spreads across my face thinking I'd get to spend most of my mornings with this hot chick from now on.

"Hey, babe. What's up?" I ask.

"Oh, you're awake!" She exclaims. "Well, I'm just reading comments from the blog post I wrote for Norton Local Online."

"You wrote a blog post? Spill what it's about." I take a mental note of reading her blog post later when I get home.

"It's about friendship, and how they usually start and end. It's dramatic, I know."

"If it's dramatic, why are you laughing?" I ask, moving from the bed to the sofa.

She shifts to face me and closes her laptop. "Some of the comments are funny because I can truly relate. It's like someone typed my words down."

"So, it's based on a real story?"

"Yep. That's why I think people can relate to it because it's real," She says, her expression getting serious now. "But reading the comments made me think that people get through shit even in friendship."

"Please provide details."

"I mean, my high school friends stopped talking to me after I broke up with James McKenzie because that makes me so not cool." She rolls her eyes and grunts. "They treated me worse after they heard that I'm part of a scholarship program and that I work for my allowance. Talk about real friends."

"That sucks," I admit. "That's a lot of drama and you need to stay away from people that causes drama to your life. At least you have Judy and Katrina now."

"Yeah, Judy and Katrina are angels. They do not judge me for who I am, and they do not care if I have money or not. We don't need to be present in all parties just so people can gush about how cool our girl group is, and we don't need to one-up each other."

I nod as I listen to her. Back in Mulberry High, my friends and I only hang just because people think we're cool together. Beyond the surface though, we had this unhealthy competition, needing to look better than the other. Still, we continued to pretend there's a solid foundation to our friendship when the only reason we got together was that our families told us so.

"But it's kind of my fault," she mutters. "I was the queen bee, and I tossed friends away like they're dirty clothes when they didn't suit my needs. Oh well, they did the same thing to me, and that was my karma."

"At least you learned from that and gained real friendship after," I say. Not everyone has the confidence to admit when they're wrong and I admire Harper for that.

"So, Ashton..." Something in Harper's voice unsettles me. "What will people say when they see us hanging out more often now?"

I sigh, knowing that the nasty things people tweet about her are getting to her head.

"To be honest, I have no idea what they will say, but you know what, fuck them. It's not their fucking business," I tell her.

"But what about Samantha?" she asks. "The last time I saw you together, you're too comfortable."

"Well, that's my fault," I admit. "We're already done months ago, but I just have no balls to tell her straight up. Although, I thought I did, but she didn't get the message, so..."

"You have to tell her," Harper comments. "She deserves proper closure, you know, and I don't want her to drag my hair over you."

I laugh at that. "Harper, you don't have to worry. Sam's a cool chick, even though she doesn't look like it."