Ashley was about to open his mouth to protest but this time it was Rose who beat him to the punch. She walked towards Matthew, Machop still following close behind keeping his red eyes fixed on Ashley. Rose took the potion he offered with a grateful smile. Back at Viridian Forest she'd dropped it without realizing it, she was glad it happened because Matthew used it to save his pokemon Hope. A potion wasn't extremely expensive but they didn't come cheap either. Matthew was being really considerate giving it back to her even though she said he didn't have to. The fact he did was really admirable. She wouldn't see Ashley doing something like that anytime soon, or ever for that matter. 

"Thank you Matthew, I'll keep it for later" She said while opening her bag, placing the potion into a pocket where she kept all her medicine. Rose deliberately took her time because she need to figure out what she was going to do about Ashley. What she didn't want was for him to get his way and have him follow her around everywhere. Staying here in front of the pokemon center was no option either. They would just continue to argue and cause a scene. She glanced at her side discretely to see what Ashley was doing. He was having a staring contest with Machop with his hands on hips, puffing his chest and flexing his muscles. Rose rolled her eyes at the both of them. Neither Machop or Ashley seemed to give up so Rose had to put a stop to it herself. 

She took out Machop's poke ball and carefully aimed it at her new pokemon. 
"Machop return" Rose called out calmly. A red beam of light shot out of the front of the poke ball right at the top of Machop's head, where his three ridges stuck out. It closed its eyes knowing it was about to retreat back into his poke ball. The red light completely enveloped him until he disappeared into the poke ball. Rose waited for the red light at the front of the ball to die out after which she returned it to her bag. Ashley looked relieved and she could tell from the way his arms relaxed, he tried to hide he was doing it but she knew him too well. 

"A-also, Hope and I were going to go challenge the Gym, you wanna come along?" Rose let out a silent sigh of relief in her head. If she went with Matthew she could kill two birds with one stone. She would have the opportunity to train her Budew and get rid of Ashley at the same time. Rose was more than glad to join Matthew and was ready to head to the gym. 

"Yeah you two losers go fight Brock, he's a wimp" Ashley sneered at Matthew and Rose. It sounded like he got his wits back together after he was knocked down by Machop. As usual he took to patronizing, he was all talk and no action. Rose had learned it was best to ignore him, even though that often made him angry it was the best way out. 
Ashley proudly pointed to the Boulder Badge pinned on the black wife beater he was wearing. 
"I already beat the guy, no sweat" With that he turned his back on the pair glancing over his shoulder one last time, winking at Rose.
"Smell ya later Rose" 

Rose did her best to ignore Ashley's words and even though they weren't a couple anymore she was still embarrassed by his behavior. 
"Ready to go?" Rose asked, looking at Matthew somewhat embarrassed by what had just happened.