LA to The Bay

Chapter 1: Nine months earlier

Nine months earlier

When I told Louis that I needed more time to think after he had sweetly, delicately, told me that he loved me, I meant just that. Like maybe a month or two to get my head together since I was still mildly distressed, okay foaming at the mouth and rambling each time I recalled the moment I had watched him snogging the face off my so called best friend. Lottie. Her who's name shall not be mentioned.

What I didn't mean was that he should use that time to go travelling around the world with said biatch whilst I stay here, a gorilla in the mist of this black holed wilderness, Buckinghamshire, England and with only a prescription for a poor man's Prozac to keep me company. Oh and my mother and a weekend job at Greggs, serving greasy pasties and custard filled doughnuts to the obese, whilst I re-sit my A levels following the catastrophic failure which has been the past two years.

A failure which culminated in my diagnosis with panic and a D grade in chemistry. A D grade! That might just be the worst bit about this whole rotten episode. I have never achieved a D grade in anything before now. And yet people have the nerve to question why I'm depressed.

'You've got to believe me Niamh. Lottie and I are not going out together and we aren't going to start whilst we're away.' Louis had hissed when he found me maudlin in the corner at their leaving party. 'But she's going travelling and so am I. We both want to go to the same places so it makes sense that we go together.'

I look over at her now, the girl I've grown up with, dressed in denim hot pants and a spider web top exposing, like, totally all of her back. Just how much flesh can one person bare? Doesn't she have any modesty and realise that despite it being summer that it's totally inappropriate given that she is still in England and it is raining outside. I can just imagine how she's convinced herself that such an outfit choice is merely her way of getting in to the spirit of the epic adventure she is about to embark on, and that she is not in fact her showing off that she has been on the sunbed and has at last got she wants, aka running off with my gorgeous ex-boyfriend, Louis. He of floppy hair and hot boy slenderness. But like I say, I can only imagine that this is what she's thinking since I have still to speak to her, and she knows better than to approach me now. Our mothers have had words.

Thankfully the Prozac is working, and where I might previously have been drowning in a whirlpool of emotions, an out-pouring of snot and tears and wine infused saliva, now I can instead hold my head high and study the paisley pattern of the wallpaper allowing these still waters of calmness to delude me.

For we all know that they are merely palliative, that beneath the "it's okay I believe you", that inside I'm crawling. Crawling and clawing to grab at her long blonde hair and yell, "how dare you do this to me?", that "he doesn't want you, he never has", but instead I'm stranded, yet crawling none the less.

The fact that she will be with him in foreign lands of sunshine and bikinis, able to touch him casually just as the moment requires, able to acquire a catalogue of memories that only they can share, able to dedicate the time necessary to make him fall in love with her. To allow him to forget me. It makes me want to kill her.

'You're going to do great Niamh.' My friend Liam interrupts me, his sincere and confident voice the only stability now, apart from the drugs, which have kept me afloat these past few months. 'Focus on your studies and clearing your mind and before you know it you'll be joining me at Med School.'

'I hope you're right.' I close my eyes resolving that I am. The clarity of the drugs helps me realise that I am, that it's only me who is in charge of my destiny, that it's only me who can knuckle down, uninterrupted away from the incessant chatter of my now departed fellow youth, and make my own way to Medical School. For other than Louis, that is what I want to achieve; and if I get my act together, by the end of the year, who knows, maybe I can clamber my way out of this hell mouth and maybe I can have both?

Authors note: For those wondering Niamh is an Irish name and is pronounced Neev. It means bright and radiant, and in Irish mythology she is the daughter of the god of the sea.

I like to imagine that Niamh would be played by Taylor Hill. I know she's American but she's got that beautiful but gawky look about her which I think that Niamh does too. I imagine Lottie as Cara Delevingne, she's confident and wildly popular. Let me know who you imagine.

The song I uploaded for this chapter is Wicked Game and the cover is by Lana Del Rey. This is an important song and will reappear if you keep reading this story!

Please be kind and remember to vote and comment. Love Ally xx