"Ugh, why are these boxes so heavy?" Sarah complained, taking one from the kitchen.

"It's all my plates and bowls and shit. Take one from the bedroom if you can't handle it." I tease her. She puts the box down to flip me off before picking it back up and transporting it next door.

I'm moving into her and Sammi's apartment today, and all my friends have arrived to help transfer the stuff from mine to next door. I told Luke and Sammi that I could handle it, but I think they just wanted an excuse to bring everyone together.

It's been a week since I got back from Flora's. I saw Dr Lanthorn twice already, and I feel much better being able to talk to someone. I don't know why I resisted this, it's not like I ever hated it going. I guess I was just confused and upset. I'm glad my friends care about me enough to help me like this.

"Come on, Niall, stop fooling around!" Louis yells at the Irish boy. "You're going to break somethi--" He says just as Niall jumps off the couch and knocks into the lamp. Thankfully it didn't break, but Louis berated him for a while and made him sit in the corner while we cleared the rest of the stuff out.

"What else do we need to take?" Michael asked, walking back into my apartment.

"Just a couple more boxes in the kitchen." I say, taking the last items from the cabinet and putting them into an open box.

Michael picks up two boxes stacked on top of each other and walks out.

Once we finish, Sarah calls for pizza since we didn't want to cook anything after moving for a couple hours.

We haven't started unpacking anything yet, we decided to take a break before tackling it. We're sitting in the living room, watching random YouTube videos cast onto the TV, having just finished eating.

Luke and Sammi are whispering to each other and looking at me. They wave Michael over and he gets in on the secret. I give Luke a suspicious look, but he just smiles innocently.

There's a knock on the door.

"Ash, go answer that." Luke says, trying not to grin.

"What's going on?"

"Just go,"

I sigh, standing up and opening the door.

I'm shocked when I see the person on the other side.

"A-Awsten?"

He grins and opens his arms, engulfing me in a hug.

"It's been forever, man, hasn't it?" He chuckles.

Awsten was my roommate at the beginning of the year, and after a suicide attempt he took a break from school and moved home. Awsten was my first friend I made at school, and after we got relatively close last year we decided to be roommates this year.

"I can't believe you're back!"

"Of course you couldn't keep me away." he pulls away and winks at me.

"Your hair!" It's bright green and he grins.

"I know, I needed to make some changes, and this just made me happy." he says simply, shrugging. "So can I come in? I smell pizza."

"Of course!" I invite him in, leading him to the kitchen. I get him a couple leftover slices (which is a miracle that there's anything left over since Michael and Niall are both here) before we join everyone else in the living room.

Luke gets up and greets him, as he's the only other person who really knows him well. Sammi's met him a couple times, but doesn't truly remember him.

"Guys, this is my friend Awsten. Awsten, this is everyone." I introduce them individually, and he smiles at them, giving a little wave.

He ends up getting along well with everyone. Besides my couple days with Flora, this is the first time I've been truly happy since Vi was kidnapped. I was almost able to forget my sadness and be present with my friends. It felt wonderful.

Michael, Calum, Niall, and Louis left around 1:30 in the morning. Harry was already back home for the summer so he couldn't make it. We ended up just leaving the boxes unpacked so I could spend time with Awsten. Luke and Sammi went back to his place around 2, and that's when Sarah went to her room. Awsten was going to stay over in Sammi's old bed in my room.

"Just like old times, yeah?" He asked, giggling quietly after I'd turned the lights out.

"I really missed you." I said.

"I missed you too." We texted a couple times during the year, but he was busy with therapy and he got a job working at a grocery store a couple days a week, and I was busy with Vi, so we didn't get to catch up often.

"Can anybody hear us in here?" He said randomly. I'd thought he was asleep since he was silent for so long, but his voice shocked me awake.

"I don't think so. Sarah's on the other side of the apartment and there's no one else here. Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." I heard him shuffling around and his phone flashlight turned on. I winced, shielding my eyes from the brightness. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw him sitting up in his bed. "Luke told me about your...investigation."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I sigh, shifting so I was facing him, propped up on my arm. "I had to give the stuff over to the police, so I'm pretty much done with that. It was a stupid idea, you don't need to tell me. I've talked about it in therapy, and--"

"No, are you crazy? It wasn't a stupid idea. I want to help."

"Wait, what?"

"I know everyone's been scolding you for what you've been doing, but I thought it was brilliant."

"You're serious?" I sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed so I was sitting up.

"Yeah, mate. Vi saved my life, she literally jumped off a building for me. I would do anything to get her back."

The sincerity in his voice surprises me. I knew Vi saved his life, but I didn't realize he felt this strongly.

"You're serious?"

"Yeah. I owe her my life, the least I can do is help her get hers back."

"Wow. Okay, great. Let's talk tomorrow about what we can do then."

"Seems perfect." The blankets rustle again and he turns the light out. "Good night Ashton."

***

I spend a lot of time with Awsten in the next two weeks. We spend a bit of time at my place, but Luke and Sammi are often there and I know they wouldn't approve of us continuing the investigation. We spend half the time at Awsten's place when his parents are gone, or the public library. They have small study rooms you can reserve, so we hang out there.

    It's been exactly two months since Vi was kidnapped. I know the chances of finding her, especially alive are slim, but I'd like to know what happened to her.

    The police contacted me once, that Officer Wingingdon guy called me to check on me, ask about therapy, and let me know they hadn't found much to go off of. If Awsten wasn't here, that call would have probably been a lot more distressing. I might have thought Luke was right and I didn't have anything solid to go off of, but Awsten helping encourage me really made the difference. We made a good team.

    "Okay, what's this here?"

    He's looking at my notes again, going through them to see if there's anything we can get from it. I took pretty good notes, and without the actual journal, it was all we have to go off of.

    It's the page from when I "interviewed" Chelsea, where I was supposed to ask her where she got the idea for the lawn mowing volunteer opportunity.

    I've filled Awsten in a bit on what happened with Chelsea, but we didn't really get too into detail.

    "Chelsea is that bitch president of the volunteer club. I tried to talk to her, and even though I could tell she was hiding something, she pretended she was innocent."

    "We need to talk to her again." Awsten decided, typing something into the notes on his phone. He preferred to keep digital records, whereas I like to write with pen and paper. It made me feel closer to Vi, since she always kept record of things in her leather journal.

    "That might be hard, I don't think she'd really be open to meeting with me again...I was kind of rude to her. She was supposed to text me and give me the records, but she never did. Don't really blame her," I guess that day I was sort of out of hand.

    "Dude, she has records? Of what?"

    "All the people who signed up for the lawn mowing thing. There's a discrepancy regarding Flora's lawn care, Vi said she met some dudes who said they were Flora's grandsons, but Flora doesn't have any grandsons. That was my big lead, the thing that Luke said wasn't really important."

    "Are you joking? That's great. We definitely need those records now. Call that girl." He's still typing into his phone and I sigh, pulling mine from my pocket.

    "She probably won't want to hear from me."

    "Doesn't hurt to try, mate. Get on with it."

    "Fine, but I'm going to go outside."

    Awsten waved me off, looking at a couple other pages while I got up.

    I dialed Chelsea's number as I exited the quiet library. I opened the door and stood in the foyer where they had a book drop box and a couple posters showing the library's services. I see one of the posters for the lawn mowing service and chuckle.

    I hear a phone ring as someone walks into the room, and I stop when I see Chelsea; she looks at her phone and sighs before she looks up and notices me.

    "A-Ashton!"   

    "Hi, uh, why are you...what are you doing?"

    "I tutor at an elementary school and I come here to get books to read to the kids sometimes." She dumps a bunch of thin children's books into the drop off box. "You were calling me just before?" She reminds me, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and looking at me expectantly.    

    "Yeah. You said you'd send me the records, but you never did. I was hoping I could get them now."

    She sighs.

    "Sure. I uploaded them to a Google Drive, I'll share it with you." She pulls her phone out, typing around before I hear a ping from my phone, notifying me of the new email I received.

    "Wow, thank you so much. This is going to help a lot."

    She frowns, nodding and walking past me into the library.

    "Uh, you wouldn't want to help us, would you?" I ask, following her inside.

    She stops, giving me a confused look.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Well, my friend Awsten and I are heading up a search to look for her. I know you guys weren't exactly friends, but I don't know, I thought maybe you'd want to help us?"

    Chelsea sighs.

    "If I didn't have to be at the school in half an hour, I'd definitely help you." She smiles sadly. "I really am sorry, Ashton. I just..."

    "No, it's fine, I don't know why I said that." I run my hands through my hair. "Have a good rest of your day."

    She nods and I back away, heading back to the study room.

    "I don't hate Vi, you know."

    I scoff before turning around to face her.

    "I was jealous of her. After only showing up to four meetings, she already had everyone's support. It took me two years to get enough people to want me to be president, and she was nominated for the position having only been there four times." She shakes her head. "There's just something about her, no matter what she faces, she's just so confident. People can't help but love her."

    I swallow the lump in my throat. If only Vi could hear this right now.

    "I know what you mean. I miss her so much. I just want to see her smile, hear her laugh one more time. Tell her how much she means to me...I didn't really get to say goodbye."

    Chelsea hiccups a little sob before turning away.

    "G-good luck with your investigation. If I can help in any way, let me know."

    "I will, Chelsea, thank you."

    She turns back with a conflicted expression on her face before waving and walking toward the children's section.

    "I got the files." I tell Awsten upon my return to the room.

    "That quickly?"   

    "Yeah, she sent them over right away." I open my laptop and pull them up. I don't know why I lied to him about seeing her here, but I had to process what happened out there before I say anything to him.

    I still feel like she's hiding something, but until I can figure out what and how to approach her, I'm going to let it go.

    "Here, this is the address the person who called for Flora gave." Awsten says upon finding her name on the list. "Is that her address?"

    "Nope, that isn't hers. It's nearby here though." I say, plugging it into my phone.

    "I say we give it a visit." Awsten meets me eyes. "We've got ourselves a lead."

***

No one guessed Awsten, so no ones gets any bonus points :( vi's father is actually dead, it isn't him. But I guess that's kind of close since the two of them acted together and stuff. So maybe half a bonus point for that?

Sorry it's taken me so long to update, I've been helping my aunt and uncle move and I've been so busy when I get home at night I'm just too exhausted to write and I go right to bed and then get up in the morning and do it all again lol but hopefully I'll have some time this weekend.

Anyway I hope you're all doing well!! If you've listened to Ashton's new album, comment and tell me your favorite song from it, or a song you connect with if you want. (Or any 5sos song if you haven't)
I think I like Drive best atm because I like the thought of just going out for a drive when you're upset and don't know what else to do.

~ashtonfortherwin