Her Absolution

Chapter 21

    I’m driving home from the support group dreading to deal with this school group presentation. I mean Marcus and Camille are great and I can deal with Ashton. The problem is that Megan. Will she start a fight with Ashton or will they behave? I don’t want trouble or fights, more so in my own house. I know we all want to finish this presentation as soon as possible. The tension between those two is horrible.

    Support group wasn’t bad, it actually made me feel calmer. Hearing and talking to others about the similar feelings we are currently having it’s calming and good. This way a person knows it’s not alone and they are people who want to help, people that are in the same situation. It also brought down my stress levels from all that it's happening, specially with Ashton.  

    I hear my phone ringing, its Sarah’s ringtone. Great it’s 12:10 p.m. They must be already at home. I park not wanting to get in an accident or provoke one. 

Sarah: Auty, they're here. Well except Malibu barbie. It’s obvious she is going to be late. Anyway we are in the terrace talking. See you in a bit.

Something click on my mind. I asked Sarah the one question dread but I have to know. 

Autumn: Ok, be there in ten. Mom is not talking to them, right?

Sarah: Well, she’s talking to Ashton. Look just get here already. 

Autumn: What? She's talking to who? Fine!

    I put the car on drive again. Like I said I wasn’t going to text and drive. I don’t waste anymore time and go home, wanting to get this over with. What could possibly mom be talking to Ashton of? Or Ashton to mom? It took me 8 minutes to get home.

    I parked the car in the garage and enter the house. I hear laughter all the way form the backyard. I don’t drop my bag on the floor taking it with me. As I approach the doors to the patio I see Ruby playing with Selene. When Selene and Serena came last night for dinner, Selene found out that Sarah was staying the night so she pleaded her mom to let her stay too. So, the moms said yes, and Ruby and Selene had a sleepover. We could hear them all the way to my room.

    I open one of the doors and step outside. The girls were playing on the grass with their toys. I can see that Megan hasn’t arrived. Marcus is being his playful ways with Camille but she’s not biting into his games. Poor Marcus but I'm glad that Camille is not one of his others flings. Sarah is talking to them trying to get Marcus to restrain himself, at least Camille had backup. Just like Sarah said mom is talking to Ashton. From where I'm standing it doesn't look like a serious conversation but it wasn’t either a laughing one.

    Ashton is giving me his back and mom is in front of him. Mom was wearing one of her florals dresses the ones she uses when she is going to paint. Ashton is wearing black shorts with a red tight shirt, making his muscles seem like they are going to pop out, and some black sandals. His hair is all messy it seems he didn’t even try to tame it. Mom sees me and smiles going back to the conversation with Ashton. 

“His hot isn’t he?” A girl's voice whispered it in one of my ears. 

    I turn around and see Megan standing behind me with all her expensive clothes, shoes, and bags. She was wearing a tight light blue mini skirt with a white crop top, white heels, and a black bucket purse. How did she enter my house? “How you get in Megan?” 

    She gives me a playful smirk and put her free hand on her hip. Is she trying to intimidate me or something? Did she think that with those clothes or that she is rich she can do it? This girl is far gone from reality. She clearly needs a check up with her doctor.

“Your dad open the door for me. You didn’t tell me you are Jhony Maverick daughter’s. His hot by the way. And so is Ashton, I saw you checking him out.”

    Ewww. I know my dad is handsome and has good quality for someone his age but to hear it from her it make want to vomit. And she is totally delusional, me checking him out? No, way. Well maybe a little but she doesn't need to know. 

“Gross Megan. That’s my dad, have some respect. And here I thought you were just playing mean, but I see it’s true.” She still has that smirk on her face. I so want this presentation thing to be over. 

“Please girl it was just a compliment to him. Also Ashton will never go for a girl like you, so don’t try anything and stop living in fantasy world.”

    Little does she know that I know for a fact that Ashton will go for a girl like me, even if it's physical. And if she knew what happened a few weeks ago, she will go ballistically insane. It almost feels like she is jealous or something. If she still wanted to be with him she shouldn’t have cheated on him. 

“Oh shut the f**k up Megan. I haven’t done anything to you. And be careful how you speak in my house, they are children in it. By the way, its none of your business if I take a liking to Ashton or he to me because you are nobody to him. You lost him the moment you slept with another guy in the parking lot.”

    When I mention the parking lot and the guy her eyes went saucers. “How do you know that?” Not wanting to tell her that Ashton told me and playing a little with her doesn't seem bad.  “Megan everyone knows.”

    I cross my arms and see her face to face. She is clearly still hung up on what happened. And I don't know what I did to pissed her off. She moves closer to me.

“He told you didn’t he?” You can hear the anger in her voice. The way she talked it wasn't a question but more of a statement. I'm still not going to tell her he was the one who told me but I can taunt her with it. 

“If he did what’s the problem?”

    Megan doesn’t answer my question but keeps staring at me. Do I have something on my face? Then she moves her eyes to see something behind me and then look back at me. What’s her problem? She says nothing and goes to sit on the terrace, living me questioning her reaction. She starts this conversation and she leaves it at that? Crazy. 

“You okay? Did she bother you?”

    I don’t have to turn to know who that voice belongs to, Ashton. His voice is so beautiful, I like every little thing about it. You can hear the sexiness from it and feel the warmth it radiates to my body. Oh goddess, I want him so bad. My does my body react to him? He is bad news. I turn and look at him. And we are close, real close not like that first day of school or in the locker room. But still close, like when someone steps into your personal bubble. I don't answer him but we keep the eye contact. How come I never seen the little yellow that are in his blue eyes?

“It’s none of your business, Ashton. I can handle myself.”

    I can't decipher his emotions or stare or anything it's like he is hiding and keeping himself from me. It's obvious he has issues to go through. I put on my normal face but not smiling. 

“I know it’s just that I don’t want her to bother you.” He is giving me crap, if he care at least a little bit then he wouldn't be acting this way. Like he didn't know me, and cold, and keeping his distance from me. 

“Well you don't have to worry about that. Like I told you I can handle myself.”

“Okay.”

“Fine. Come on let’s get this over with. I don’t want to spend any more time with Megan.” Ashton walks away from me. I'm still thinking about this stupid work. Why did Mrs. Walsh have to put us in the same group?

"Auty?" I loooked down and see Ruby. "What's up sweetie?" She is looking at me with worry. "Did that mean girl made you mad?"

"No sweetie. Why you ask?" She looks to the others and then to me. "Because you look mad." Sweet, sweet Ruby, of course she will pick on what's going on around her. "I'm fine. Go back to play with Selene." She looks at me one more time and goes back to playing with Selene. Mom goes to them and asked them what they wanted for lunch. 

    I start walking to the others and told them to follow me. I see Sarah and mom playing with the girls, lunch forgotten. I head in the direction to where the sheds are, mom’s and mine. Also the guesthouse is in that direction, but nobody has use it in a long time so its really dirty. I take the little path that you can see the entrance on the backyard that it's behind the terrace. The little path is made of concrete, dad did it for us, because the rock one that we had it wasn't the must convenient. But dad put it more like this; “That’s a menace Sophia, the two of you can get hurt or someone else. No, I'm changing it.”

“Where are we going? You have a big mansion, and we are not doing the work there?” Megan and her big mouth, sometimes I want to punch her in it and knock out her teeths. Doesn’t she take a break from hussling people?

“Yeah I’m also curious Autumn.” This time it was Ashton who spoke. Right he didn’t get to see this since he stayed in Parker’s room. 

    By the time I was going to answer them we are already here, there are two sheds. The white one is mom and the ones with different colors and drawings is mine. They don’t look like shed, more like garages. But they are more of studios than what I called them. Dad built mom’s and then when I was little I started to called it the shed. Dad saw how much I like mom’s, so he built one for me when I started taking art classes at 10. It’s also where we use to spend our time before a lot of stuff happened. Sarah, Marcus, Asher, sometimes Camille when she had the time, Ryan, and me.

    This is the one place I haven’t run from, from my memories of Asher. It has always been my safe space and it became my shield after the fire accident. It became more than it was, it became my world. Now the only ones who come in here are Sarah and Marcus, sometimes Ruby. They were looking at my drawings of the outside. I had mermaids, mermans, horses, all kind of flowers, specially a few yellow dahlias. There are also waves, surfboards, trees, fruits, etc. 

“This is the shed. It’s Autumn’s art studio. Her dad built it for her and the other one for her mom.”

    Camille answered Ashton and Megan since I wasn't saying anything. Marcus was already inside. Camille's voice was disturbed like she didn't like Megan much. She's not the only one. I’m guessing that she is also uncomfortable with Megan. But I see that Camille is keeping her distance fromm Ashton. She most be more scared of him than of Megan.

    The shed is big, it has two doors in the front, two windows on each side of the doors. It also has a back door and two windows on each side of the door. When you enter it looks like a studio apartment, it has a second floor. I tell them to come in and to go to the second floor, where it's more comfortable to work on the presentation. 

    On the first floor is my art supply, canvases of all shape and sizes, there is also paint all kind (oil, acrylic, water), brushes, tapes, glue, scissors, etc. There is also a big table in the middle to do my creations. On the second floor there is a little kitchen with an little oven (not the ones of four but of two), a fridge too, a sofa, a coffee table, some cushions on the other side of the coffee table and there is some space to store my paintings on the other side of the floor space. 

    There is currently one painting that I need to move, one that no one can see. I go an move it and hide it behind some other canvases. Mom’s is almost like mine she has different stuff and I told dad I wanted to change some stuff in mine. I told him what I didn’t want and I did want. The stair to the second floor are not the spiral style, the one at mom’s it is. I made mine wide and normal, so that when I go to store the paintings up there I would have no problem caring it up. This place is my little heaven, my safe space, my world. 

    So, it’s kind of weird for them to be here but we can’t do the presentation on the house. Mom will be all over us and three hours later we wouldn’t even have started. No thanks, I want this finish yesterday. Besides the girls will be all over us too. And Ruby knowing Ashton will most likely beg him to play with them. Megan is looking at everything, like she was judging me in her mind. Maybe she is but I don't care. The next meeting will be at Joanne's dinner.