What The People Don't See

I stand in front of the mirror, my heart racing in time to the music that's reverberating through the floorboards. It's hard to do this when you're not off your face. Cal and Adam are. I can see them on the landing, their reflections bobbing up and down in the bathroom mirror. They're trying to give eachother piggy backs down the stairs but are fighting about who gets to go on who's back. Idiots...

I start splashing my face with water when some girl comes stumbling in, releasing her stomach's contents into the bath. That's it. I'm going home.

Calum grabs me around the waist as I try to get past him and his drunkard boyfriend. I laugh when Adam grabs my legs and they swing me back and forth.

"Boys put me down now! I'm going home!"

"Oh Stella won't you take me home!"

They both start singing some fucking song I've never heard of and I manage to wrangle my way out of their arms and down the stairs. Eloise is on the coffee table in the sitting room, pretending to play the guitar and pushing anyone who tries to join her away. She waves at me as I'm going out the door, pushing through people I apparently go to school with but don't even know. I don't even want to know.

The air is cool outside, and it's a relief to finally smell something other than vomit and sweat. I fumble in my coat pockets, looking for my cigarettes when I remember that I quit. For fuck sake, why do I care about my health again?

I turn to cut through the park, laughing silently to myself when the church bells start to ring and I realise it's only eleven pm. I'm such a party animal.

I can see the bench up ahead. The one with mine and Ross's name engraved in it. We haven't spoken in a while now and I feel pretty guilty about it. But we've both been busy with our own lives and no one can really be blamed for it. I do miss him though, all the fucking time.

Once I reach the bench, I sit down and trace over the engravings running across it. You can barely make out our names anymore, they've been drawn and written over so many times, not to mention that damage this bench has endured from the wind and rain. I wish I had something to re-engrave our names with but it doesn't matter if I can't see it anymore. I know it's there. This will always be our bench.

I'm about to get up when a voice stops me. It's barely a whisper but I hear it and it has my heart running backwards against my chest. I look up and Ross is standing there, a small smile playing across his lips. I want to say something, anything but I'm terrified of ruining the moment, of slicing up the silence unneccessarily. It's okay. He breaks it for me; he always does.

"Need a pen?"

Fin.

42,359 words later and I am finally finished! Glory to the Hallelujah!!! I want to apologise for taking the story down a few months ago and for the complete silence. Life has been hectic the past few months and getting myself out of bed most days was a trial in itself. Thank you for all the kind messages that I've only just seen. I promise I will respond to them all!

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for every single vote, comment and message. It really means the world to me and was usually the only thing that kept me going over the past two years trying to get this done. The ending is not exactly what I had in mind a few months ago but things change and it will have to do. I'm not sure why after all this time I decided to come back to this but it seemed important. This is the first story I've ever completed and even though it's just a fanfiction, and it is far from perfect, I am still immensely proud of it. So thank you for coming on this journey with me xx