12 hours | short story | 5sos

five

|avery|

no one would shut the fuck up. the dark basement was beyond chaotic as everyone yelled and accused each other of writing on the board. i could barely see straight from the amount of noise in the room, and it was beginning to piss me off.

one of them had to have written the words sprawled across the whiteboard. it damn sure didn't just appear, and i was certain we would have already found someone if there was anyone down there with us. the sound of a pin dropping would have echoed off of those walls- no way was anyone besides the seven of us in the basement. it had to be one of the six other people standing around me.

"can you all please shut the fuck up?!" i finally shouted, ceasing the other arguments in the room and bringing the attention to me.

six pairs of eyes stared at me expectantly, waiting on me to continue.

"someone down here wrote it, and i'm betting whoever wrote it also moved calum's textbook. so help me god, when i find out which one of you assholes just locked us in for the night-" my voice had lowered in volume, but i was still visibly fuming.

"wasn't me!"

"it wasn't me, either!"

"okay!" i cut everyone off before i heard the same sentence six times, not believing any of them for a second, "fine. what do we do?"

"i don't have any secrets," sasha shrugged, sitting down against the wall and looking up at the rest of us. she didn't seem bothered in the slightest.

i glanced at calum, who, to my surprise, shrugged as well.

"i have nothing to hide. i'm an open book," ashton smirked.

arissa was being unusually quiet, keeping her head down and her arms crossed over her abdomen. she was in defensive mode- it was obvious that she was hiding something.

i rubbed my hand down my face, letting out a sigh and dropping cross-legged on the floor. i hated that i had zero clue what was going on or what to do. there was no way someone had locked us in the basement with the intention of posting our deepest secrets on social media. i couldn't even think of anyone who would want to do that, let alone someone who would have dirt on all seven of us.

i tried to be very open with my friend group, but of course there were things that i'd kept hidden. i'd kept stuff from luke, even. however, i wasn't sure how "real" the writing on the board was, and i wasn't going to air out my dirty laundry if i didn't have a reason to.

"so what? we all just sit here for twelve hours and then they unlock the door?" michael scoffed, sitting down as well.

"i guess," luke shrugged, "i don't get the writing, though. i don't have any secrets."

"apparently we all have at least one," ashton said, "and i certainly don't intend on letting it get posted online."

"so?"

"so," ashton sighed, standing up and standing in the middle of all of us, "i guess i'm telling you all my secret."

everyone stared at him expectantly, waiting to see what he would say. he waited for a few moments, likely for dramatic effect- it was ashton we were talking about- before continuing:

"sasha, i like you."

sasha let out an inhuman noise as all of our jaws dropped to the floor in disbelief. we'd all suspected it, but actually hearing the words come out of ashton's mouth came as a shock.

"well, okay then," michael spoke, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over all of us. ashton didn't seem the least bit embarrassed, and sasha looked like she'd just been hit by a train. it was probably going to take her a while to process that.

"that's great that ashton could admit his feelings," michael continued sarcastically, "but i have nothing to say. no secrets. you guys already know everything about me."

"same here," calum shrugged. everyone turned their attention to calum, who stared at his phone. the idiot had to have been playing candy crush because there was zero cell service in the basement.

i laid my head on luke's shoulder, closing my eyes. i was exhausted when we left ashton's house, and i doubted that i would be able to get much sleep on a concrete floor with a bunch of idiots making unnecessary noise around me. it was going to be a long night, whether we were revealing secrets or not.

"i suggest the rest of you spill whatever it is you're hiding," ashton spoke, sitting back down against the wall.

"you just don't want to be the only one who embarrassed themself."

"i didn't embarrass myself." ashton spoke with a shit-eating grin on his face. he seemed very confident in his words, surprising me. he'd just admitted feelings for the girl sitting two feet to his left- how was he being so nonchalant?

"whatever," michael shot back, rolling his eyes.

i rolled my own eyes before closing them again, leaning further against luke. a silence had washed over us again, though it wasn't awkward. no one really knew what to say- there wasn't anything to say. except for the deepest, darkest secrets that we'd apparently all been keeping from one another.

when i'd read the board the first time, only one secret came to mind. it was the only thing i'd ever kept from everyone in the group; revealing it would tear them apart. they would all hate me. i couldn't say it, but i also couldn't risk it being posted to social media. that would make everything one hundred times worse.

my thoughts had nearly lulled me to sleep when sasha's voice brought me back to reality:

"guess i'm going next, then."

|edited 04/26/2022|