Just as I was sneaking past the kitchen to get out of my parents sight, my mom began to call for me. I groaned loudly, not wanting anything to do with either of my parents at the moment.

"Danielle, come here!" She yelled, waving me into the kitchen.

"She likes to be called Dani, Samantha." My dad sighed. Finally he understood that I did not like the name Danielle.

"Well Charles, I named her Danielle, didn't I? I can call her whatever I please." My mom glared back at him.

"What did you want?" I asked. I didn't have anywhere that I needed to be, but I would rather be alone in my room than talking to my parents.

"Your father and I are partnering up for the next few months and my company will be advertising for his company, so we just - "

"Why are you even telling me this? I don't care." I cut her off, rolling my eyes.

"If you would just let me finish!" My mom huffed. "We're going to be inviting a lot of our colleagues over for a party next month, and we just wanted to let you know so you had time to invite some friends of your own."

"You want me to bring friends to one of your work parties?" I scoffed. When I was younger I wasn't even allowed to these parties, much less any of my friends.

"We decided that it would be a fun time for you and all your friends." My father shrugged.

"Invite Brooke and Luke, or that Asian boy you hang out with." My mother said, pulling out her phone and looking down at it again, like she had began to totally tune it out.

"I'm pretty sure he's not Asian." I said warily. I only had Calum over once before, I don't even know how my mother was able to remember him. It usually took her at least a few visits for her to remember my friends.

"Whatever, just ask some friends to show up. You won't have much fun if you're the only young person here."

I was about to answer but was cut off by the doorbell ringing. I jumped up from the stool I had taken a seat on and went to get the door before either of my parents could, this exiting myself from the conversation completely.

I pulled open the door to reveal Ashton standing there with a huge smile plastered on his face. As soon as he saw me his smile dropped and he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh, it's just you." Ashton groaned. He began to fish through his pockets for either his cigarette or lighter or both.

"Who did you expect?" I asked.

"Well I didn't want your parents to think I'm some burnout if I show up smoking and looking like I hate the world." Ashton chuckled slightly.

"Dani, who's at the door?" My father came up behind me and Ashton stopped searching through his pockets. He looked up at my dad and stuck a hand out for him to shake.

"He's just - " I started to speak but Ashton cut me off.

"Hi, Mr. Murphy. I'm friends with your daughter. I take the bus with her." Ashton said quickly.

"Right." My dad nodded, dropping Ashton's hand.

"Is it alright if Mur - I mean Dani, comes with me to lunch?" Ashton asked.

My dad nodded again, not saying anything to Ashton as he walked away from us. I think he felt the whole thing was weird, this didn't normally happen. I've had boys come and pick me up before but they hardly ever wanted to meet my father.

"Let's go." Ashton grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me outside, making me trip on my way out the door.

"What the hell was that?" I asked as I followed after Ashton, who was already half way down the walkway.

"That was me inviting you out to lunch." Ashton looked back at me, finally taking out a cigarette and lighting one.

"You didn't have to come to my front door." I laughed.

"Right. I thought about throwing rocks at your window and having you jump into my arms but I decided that I would save all that romantic stuff for later." Ashton scoffed, kicking a rock across the street.

"Where are we going?" I asked. We were walking down towards the end of my street, which was a dead end. There was no where to go from here.

"We have to stop at my house first. Actually, we have to stop at a few places." Ashton responded, walking even faster now. "We have to take my, um, friend somewhere."

"You're calling him that on purpose, right? You don't actually say 'um' before you say friends every time?" I couldn't help but laugh at my own stupid question.

"What? Will you stop being, um, friends with me if I do?" Ashton laughed really hard at this, obviously finding himself funnier than I did.

"Shut up." I muttered.

Finally we reached a small house at the end of the block which I assumed was Ashton's and I couldn't help but notice a perfectly fine car parked out front.

"If you have a car then why don't you just drive to school?" I asked, even though I was hesitant about giving Ashton the idea. I didn't really want him to start driving to school, I wanted him to take the bus with me.

"I don't really like to drive anymore. It's my dad's old car so sometimes he uses it when he doesn't want to use his other one. I don't know." Ashton shrugged and I nodded. Then Ashton lead me into the house, not saying another word.

There wasn't much to say about Ashton's house other than the fact that it was extremely messy. I guess that's what I should have expected knowing that there was two teenage boys and another grown man living here, or maybe I was just used to my own house being so clean. We constantly had cleaning ladies coming around, making are everything seemed spotless.

"You better be awake!" Ashton yelled and walked down a hallway, leaving me standing in the front doorway. He came back a second later and grabbed my hand, pulling me with him.

We ended up in a room at the end of the hallway, that was completely dark despite how bright it was outside. I stayed still, my back leaning against the doorframe. Ashton walked over to the bed and hit something, most likely a person. A loud groan came from the bed and whoever it was rolled over, looking up at Ashton.

"You need to get of bed or we'll be late." Ashton ordered.

The person - Ashton's um, friend, I'm guessing - finally sat up, revealing a very pale boy with dark purple hair. He didn't have on a shirt, and I really hoped he was wearing pants under the covers. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and stared up at Ashton with a confused expression on his face, like he didn't quite understand why he was be woken up.

"Get up, if you're late again I'll get in trouble - again." Ashton groaned. He walked backwards until he bumped into me again and turned around, laughing softly.

The boy in the bed glared at Ashton as he flung the covers off of himself - he was wearing pants - and got out of bed.

"Mike, don't do this to me. Go take a shower and get dressed. If we don't leave soon we'll never make it." Ashton begged. The boy -Mike? - pointed to me, and I realized that Ashton hadn't introduced me at all. I was this strange girl standing in this boys bedroom, I bet he was beyond confused.

"Oh, right. This is Murphy. Well, Dani." Ashton explained. "She's the one I was telling you about the other day."

"Hi." I said quietly, giving the boy a small wave. He didn't seem very impressed at all, he actually had the same expression on his face this whole time.

"Murphy, this is Michael." Ashton said, finally telling me his name so I could stop referring to him as the, um, friend. "And Michael's going to be late if he doesn't get going, come on."

Michael shoved past Ashton and walked down the hall into another room, slamming the door behind him.

"He actually is mad at the world." Ashton laughed after a second of us standing there in silence.

"Why?" I asked, following Ashton out of the room. We made our way to the kitchen, which was just as messy as the rest of the house.

"It's kind of a long story. I'll tell you while we're waiting for him."

"Waiting for him where?" I questioned. Ashton handed me a yogurt cup and a spoon before closing the fridge. I didn't ask for yogurt, so I set it down on the counter next to me and hoped that Ashton wouldn't notice that I didn't eat any of it.

"His therapy appointment." Ashton shrugged, like it was no big deal.

"Oh," was all I could say.

-

An hour later Ashton and I were in the waiting room of a doctors office while Michael was inside talking - or probably just staring - to his therapist. It was actually pretty awkward, considering that I had no idea before this that we would be taking Michael to his therapy session.

"I could have drove you guys here if you gave me your keys, we didn't need to walk." I said, finally breaking the silence between us. We had been sitting here for the past 30 minutes and neither of us had said anything to each other.

I was usually a lot better in situations like this, especially with boys. I was normally a huge flirt, but something about Ashton made my brain go all fuzzy. I either thought too much about what I wanted to say or I didn't think about it at all. I just wanted this silly crush to end, whether it was a happy ending or not.

"Michael wouldn't have gotten in the car." Ashton shook his head.

"What's, um, what's wrong with him?" I asked, hoping that I wasn't offending Ashton by asking.

"Well." Ashton paused. "Basically his parents were idiots who sold drugs right out of their house and drank too much and all that. Like I said, fucking idiots. And one day, about three years ago, they just left Michael and his older sister alone. So he's always had a few problems because of that. Like, he has bad anxiety and issues with trusting people. And once they came to live with me things were a little better, but Michael's always been a little weird. He used to like me, a lot, actually. He used to look up to me kind of like an older brother until just recently."

"What happened?" I was now completely engrossed in this story. I would have never guess that Michael had been through that much just by looking at him.

"Kenzie, my old girlfriend, is Michael's sister and she's, uh, not really around anymore. It's kind of my fault, and Michael hates me for it. But he stays because now he has no where to go. He's really depressed, actually, and doctors have thought about having him live in this rehab clinic thing, but I don't want him to leave. Besides my dad he's really all I have left." Ashton sighed, looking down at his lap.

The puzzle pieces were finally coming together. Kenzie was Ashton's girlfriend that died over the summer, and she was also Michael's sister. Michael obviously must be upset with Ashton because it was partially his fault, so that's why he stopped talking to him and everyone else. I felt awful, knowing that these two boys have had so much tragedy in their lives and I've lived a few houses down from them the whole time, knowing nothing about it.

"What happened to her?" I asked slowly. I wasn't sure if Ashton was going to tell me the truth or not but I hoped that he was. I wanted him to be able to trust me. And even though I had a huge crush on him at the moment and wanted him to like me back, I think what he needed was a friend more than anything.

Just as Ashton opened his mouth to speak the door to the waiting room swung open and Michael came out. Ashton stood up and walked over to the doctor standing by the door, who handed him a bottle of pills and pointed to Michael, speaking very quickly.

Michael sat down next to me and sighed, slouching down in the seat. He took out his phone and opened up the Flappy Bird app, where he then proceeded to get farther in it than I ever had.

"What's your high score?" I asked, even though I didn't even think Michael would answer me. He held up his phone and showed me the screen, which read that his high score was 245.

"That's really impressive." I said. Michael just grunted and went back to the game, probably mad that I interrupted him in the first place.

Ashton returned after a few minutes later and let out a big sigh, running boy of his hands through his hair.

"Can we go now?" Ashton asked. "I need a cigarette."

Michael stood up straight away and rushed out of the room, not bothering to wait for either us.

"He hates me." Ashton said blankly. We followed after Michael and walked in silence for another few minutes before I thought of yet another question.

"Do you always do this? Take care of him like this?" I asked.

"Pretty much. I mean, my dad is written down as his legal guardian but I'm the one that really cares for him." Ashton said, lighting up a new cigarette.

"Where is you dad?" I questioned. I hadn't seen Ashton's dad at all when we were at his house earlier and Ashton hardly ever mentioned him.

"He works, like, two - or maybe three - jobs to get us by. My mom lives a couple towns over but she doesn't really help out with anything. It kinda sucks, but we manage." Ashton shrugged.

Michael finally stopped walking and let us catch up with him. Ashton tried to pat Michael on the back but he flinched and moved away. Ashton glanced back at me as if to say I told you so, then turned to Michael again.

"Where do you do you want to go for lunch?" He asked Michael, who only glared at him in response. "Okay, I'll just pick somewhere then."

Michael scoffed and walked away again, leaving Ashton and I alone once more.

"Thanks for coming with today. I would probably be miserable if you weren't here." Ashton chuckled softly.

"I'd rather be doing this than sitting in my room all alone." I laughed.

"You're pretty cool, Murphy." Ashton nodded as he took a drag from his cigarette.

I smiled. "You're not too bad yourself, Irwin."

-

Ashton's so cute I cry.

I hope you guys all liked this, I tried to make it a little longer than the last update. Hopefully it answered a few of your questions??