Sidelines ✔️

60 • Bonfire's • 60

"Charl, Harry's right if you don't get out now, when will you?" Tommy asked me. "You haven't left the house for ages, yet your leg is fine. All you do is mope about all day doing fuck all. You need to do something social, socialising is good for you."

I looked at the three of them cautiously. "Do our parents even know we're here? You know they're trying to get me to leave town, right? Is this your grand plan to get rid of me? Help me fuck up so they finally do everything in their  power to get me to leave?"

"We just want to go to a party, what makes you think this has anything to do with you?" Sebastian  shook his head, rolling his eyes.

"Because you're literally trying to drag me with you?" I said, raising my eyebrows at Sebastian and then glancing to where Harry's hand was still gripped around me arm. He promptly let go of me.

"Honestly Charl, we're just tired of seeing your miserable face around the house. It's not pretty." Harry explained to me. "Now look at you, you're looking more like your self again now that you're not wearing sweatpants."

I looked at Harry blankly. "I don't know if I should take any of that like as a compliment or an insult."

"We'll leave that to your imagination." Tommy butted in and I glanced at him to see him showcasing an identical mischievous smirk to Harry. "But seriously, let's go. We're missing the fun." Tommy said, coming over to me and dragging my arm.

I sighed and let them drag me in the direction of the music. "You three better promise unless some law requires you to admit anything that happens tonight, nothing that happens here leaves this beach. Got it?"

I saw the three of them look to each other uneasily.

"Agreeing to something like that will depend on the facts of the situation." Sebastian told me, looking at me warily.

"You can have our word, Charlie. You wanna know why?" Tommy said, looking at me with far too much self-assurance for my liking, but he didn't care about my apprehensiveness as he continued anyway. "Because I have complete and utter confidence  that nothing note-worthy is going to happen tonight. The most shocking thing that will happen is you will have fun and forget about everything that has been done. Got it?"

"For once, Tommy might be onto something." Harry nodded, smirking at me and then ruffling Tommy's hair.

I sighed defeated and let them take me in the direction of where the noise and the light were  coming from. As we came closer, i saw dark silhouettes around the fire  like stragglers on a dance floor. There was enough distance between the different groups for them to feel like this was a private party. Although, it was only early for something like a bonfire party. I could only assume more people were going to join us soon.

"You made it!" I heard someone say excitedly. I looked up to see Freya bouncing towards us. She stopped by Sebastian, grabbing onto his arm. "I've been alone with Jack for the past fifteen minutes. How could you do that to me?" She said, looking at Sebastian.

He gave her a quick smirk. "It's not like you can't handle jack on your own. You're pretty capable with being alone." He said and glanced to me, causing nerves to rise up in my stomach. "We've been preoccupied with trying to drag her out of the house."

I looked to Sebastian uncertainly, noticing a strange look in his eye as he looked at me. It was weird being so acknowledged by Sebastian, i didn't know how to react to it.

"Charlie!" Freya beamed, coming over to me and wrapping her arms around me. I felt a little surprised being embraced by her, given that she wasn't really my friend, but i timidly returned the hug as she'd been nothing but nice to me. "How are you feeling? The boys have been so worried about you. Sebastian told me everything, I'm so sorry for what happened!"