The Only Exception | W2S

THIRTY THREE.

20k!!!!! Wowieeeee thank you thank you thank you <33

we've finally done it??? the slowburn is (basically) over but holly still has many bumps in the road to come (my poor girl (I'm acting like I have no control over what happens))

It happened in the early evening. No one had been expecting it. I certainly hadn't. 

I was curled up in my bed, barely paying attention to the show I was watching on my laptop when my phone started to buzz. I ignored it, like I always seemed to do these days. 

But then it started to ring, and ring, and ring. That wasn't quite so regular, and so I turned my phone over, seeing multiple notifications rapidly filling up my lock screen. 

Somewhere, deep down, I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. This was an exact replica of that day in March last year, and I knew it had something to do with Matthew. Or maybe Harry. Either way, it wasn't anything good. 

The first message I'd bothered to open was from Cathy, sent just two minutes previous. 

From: Cathy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v84nsHsIe9x

I'm already contacting his agency to get it taken down 

I don't bother replying, instead just clicking on the link, which brings me to Matthew's YouTube page, a new video with just my name as the title. It had been posted nearly ten minutes ago. Already it sat on eighty thousand views.  

My door burst open, and George and Hattie were there, both of them looking equally as concerned. 

"Might as well make this a watch party," I say dryly, shuffling over in my bed, allowing them both to climb in. "Have you watched it yet?"

They both shake their heads. "We've only just seen it, wanted to come and check on you first," Hattie explains, as George just wraps an arm around me. 

"I'm sure he's just chatting shit. Like all the other times," he says, trying to sound reassuring, but this time it doesn't quite have the desired effect. 

Displayed on full screen, Matthew's face haunts me. Next to him stands his new girlfriend, Evie. 

I was never going to be a match for her. 

"So, as you've guessed from the title of this video, I'm finally breaking my silence on my ex-girlfriend, Holly Peterson," he starts, and unfortunately so far he hasn't said anything outrageous. 

It's true. He hadn't said anything about me since the breakup. He'd just continued to post with Evie, and pretended like he'd been dating her the entire time. 

Me, on the other hand, had been quite vocal about the breakup, especially over the past few months, after I'd crawled out of my depression pit. 

In some twisted way, I always feared that it gave him a slight advantage, and now it seemed like he was cashing it in. 

I think I'd tuned out, because I was brought back to reality by George shouting out loud, looking like he wanted to smash my laptop on the floor. Even Hattie looked frightened. 

"What? Wait, let me rewind, I wasn't listening," I spoke, feeling slightly panicked. 

"Holly is an insecure and unstable individual. She likes to make up fantasies in her head, but it's just not like that in reality. She turned everyone on the internet against me, accusing me of cheating when it was, in fact, her who caused the deterioration of our relationship," Matthew says, and I can't believe what I'm hearing.