The Anthem for a Dying Breed

Aleena sat across the front lounge of our bus from me, flinging elastic bands at me.

"You're so boring." She whined as I once again, picked up the new band and placed it into the pile beside me, too interested in texting Austin to play her little game.

"I'm busy." I mumbled before smiling widely at a picture Austin sent me.

A selfie of him pulling a cute face.

"Why don't we just hang out with him today then?" She suggested earning my attention.
"No matter what I try to get you to do, you're still going to be texting him so let's gtaher some people and go do some interesting shit."

"I'll ask him."

Aleena thinks we should all do something because she's bored and knows I'll be texting you so you may aswell join us x
I pressed send and only seconds later, the bus door opened and Austin tripped up the stairs.

"Are you okay, dude?" Aleena laughed as Austin jumped to his feet, cheeks pink.

"Yeah." He giggled awkwardly before skipping over and sitting beside me, planting a kiss on my cheek.
His phone vibrated in his pocket next to my leg so he pulled it out and angled away from me to look at it.

My phone vibrated as he placed his on his left thigh.

Yeah! Sounds great, where are we going?
I read the text before staring up at him, noticing he was trying not to laugh.

"What?" He asked, biting his lip to prevent his laughter.

"Did you seriously just text me?"

"It's rude not to respond." He grinned cutely making me roll my eyes before tucking my phone away.
"Aren't you going to reply?" He pouted.

"Yes, verbally, you're right in front of me." I laughed lightly.
"Where do you want to go?"

"The beach."

"Should've guessed." I looked over at Aleena.
"What do you say babe, fancy going to check hot half naked guys dripping with salty water?"

"Would be a pleasure." She grinned then jumped up and walked towards the back of the bus, to get ready I assumed.

When I looked at Austin, he was pouting at me, his arms crossed over his chest.

"What? We're going to the beach, why the bottom lip?"

"Two things."

"Alright."

"First, are you really going to call other people babe?" He whined making me laugh.
"It's not funny, you literally have never called me anything cute like that and we've been dating for like three days now."

"Sorry cupcake." He grinned and shuffled closer to me.
"Next?"

"You're not allowed to check out guys that're more attractive than me, okay?"

"Honey, no-one is more attractive than you."
Austin blushed and to hide it, he leant down and kissed me, a habit he had formed over the past few days when he wasn't sure how to respond to a compliment I gave.

"Guys, stop making out." Aleena whined.
"You can do that when we're not supposed to be going somewhere."

"Yeah, yeah." I got up which Austin copied.
"Want to gather whoever and meet us back here in twenty minutes?"

"Okay." He smiled and glanced at Aleena before giving the quickest kiss making me laugh as he rushed off the vehicle.

"Seriously." Aleena sighed as I turned and skipped to my bunk.
"You two aren't even a proper couple and you make me gag."

"Baby, I always make you gag." I winked over my shoulder at her making her laugh.

***

In the end, a whole bunch of us went to the beach, most of whom I hadn't really had the chance to speak to, not that i was going to, I was too distracted by the fact Austin was topless and sat beside me, his eyes glued to my thighs.

Austin suddenly go to his feet and walked away.

I looked to Aleena who was just as confused as I was.
Austin was fine one second and then he looked as if someone had insulted his family.

I got up and jogged after him.
"Austin?" I asked once I caught up with him after five minutes of running.
Damn his long legs.

"Leave me alone." He mumbled not slowing down in the slightest.

"What? Austin come on, what's wrong? What happened?"

"You, you're what's wrong!" He suddenly snapped and span to face me, almost knocking me backwards.

"Wh-what?" I frowned.
"What did I do wrong?"

"Look at yourself, Rayne!"

I did as he said, looking down at myself.
The bruises that still covered my thighs and arms were visible, plus a lot more around my chest and neck.

"They're going." I mumbled not knowing what else to say.
"I know they're not what you want to see but I can't make them go away."

"No, you don't know." I looked up to see he was glaring at a particularly big hicky on my left thigh.
"You don't have to look at this shit all the time."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"I am." I stepped closer but he stepped back so I thought it best to stay in my place.
"I'm really sorry for it, Austin, I am but if it bothered you so much, you should've said something."

"I thought I could handle it, I thought I'd be fine and it wouldn't bother me because I have you now but it does. You wear shorts constantly as if you're proud you let some guy fuck you and mark you."

"It's Danny, not just some guy."

"Which actually makes it worse. You know exactly what Danny's like, we all do, he's a whore and that really says something about you."

"Are you calling me a whore?" I stared at him wide eyed, waiting for an apology but it didn't come, he just stared back.

"I can't date a girl that has love bites from a different guy all over her."

"Are you seriously doing this?"

"No more sunsets, no more dinners, no more 3am texts because you're bored and I'm stupid enough to stay awake to talk to you even though I want nothing more to sleep."

"Austin, please."

"No." He shook his head before turning and walking further away from me.

After some long minutes of going over what had happened, I returned to my best friend.

"What happened?" She asked, ignoring Vic who had been talking but he didn't seem bothered, he looked more concerned for me.

"Uh, I guess we broke up." I responded quietly, still in shock as I stared back at her.
"Can I even call it a break up, we weren't together."

"I guess." She shrugged.

"I thought you two were happy?" Vic asked looking at me confused.

"We were, well at least, I was, I thought he was but this got to him too much, sort of called me a whore, in a way, I guess." I ran my fingers over the marks before looking back at Vic.
"Would you be alright with dating me, well I mean, a girl in this state even though it was before you got together?"

"I wouldn't be happy about it." He shrugged.
"But you're a great girl, I don't know why he'd leave you because of that but I guess I'm not the right person to ask, I don't know Austin as well as I should."

"Alright, thanks anyway." I nodded lightly and looked at Aleena.
"What do I do now?"

"I don't know, go make out with Tay and feel better about it all?"

"Wouldn't it make it worse?" Vic asked looking at Aleena confused.

"Not for my dick." I responded.
Realising Vic had never heard of the existance of my non existant penis, I looked at him with an apologetic look.
"Sorry." I laughed.
"It's a long running joke since I was like fifteen, I think."

"Uh, right." He chuckled.
"That's a werid joke."

"I was a weird kid."

"You still are." He grinned.

"Hey just 'cause you're old, it doesn't mean you can call me a kid!" I whined.

"I'm not old!" He gasped.

"You're ancient, dude." Aleena sniggered.

"I'm done with you two, you're so mean." He got up and left us.

"On a seriousy note, the whole Austin business, are you gonna be okay?" She asked, looking at me with a slight frown.

"Yeah, I guess, I mean we weren't serious, I know I like him a lot and everything but I'll deal." I shrugged figuring it was mostly true.
Sure, I was hurt but I did sort of understand where Austin was coming from.
I just wished he had figured it out before he got my hopes high.