Icing on the Cake

~39~

Panic immediately rushed through me, and it escalated when I realized I couldn’t fight against his force. It was probably only a few seconds, but it felt like a lung bursting hour. Calum and Michael both forced Ashton away from me, allowing me to jump up for air.

Like a mother, Michael said to Ashton, “Sit the fuck down, stop trying to kill Luke and realize that he isn’t the enemy here!”

That finally made Ashton back down. Realizing Michael understood that the producers were the ones to blame felt good, and it gave me a glimmer of hope.

We all sat down, but I sat far away from Ashton. Calum was also quite ready to pounce on Ashton if he tried anything.

“I ought to beat your ass for that!” Calum exclaimed to Ashton.

“Now that you’ve beat me up, are we even or something?” I asked Ashton.

“We’re closer.” Ashton said.

I started crying a little. A little from the pain, and from our fights, but mostly from the memories. “You can’t understand how miserable I was when we were 5 Seconds of Summer. And all I did was break free. I decided I wasn’t going to live in a shell. They did the rest.

“You know what?” Ashton asked. “It felt like you were hiding from us. Why didn’t you share this with us?”

“Keeping my mouth shut was part of the deal.” I clarified.

“I really didn’t believe that you were gay.” Ashton said.

“What?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense. We told you when we were like sixteen or seventeen.”

“But as we were rising to fame, you signed a girl’s boobs.”

“I thought it was funny. That’s why I did it.”

“And you dated a girl.”

“That was them conforming me!” I almost shouted. I looked over to see Michael, to see to my surprise, welling up.

Notes