C'Mon, Would It Really Be So Bad?

Family

"You're gonna break your neck on that thing," I commented as Ed rode around me on his new Swag Board. We were hanging out backstage at the venue. Earlier in the day Ed had done some interview and they gave him the Swag Board. He had been on it ever since , happier than a little kid on Christmas morning. 

"I'm already an expert," he disagreed before doing a little spin move. 

I, naturally, got out one of the cameras and starting taking pictures. Then we both heard a ping text alert and my hand automatically went to my pocket. Or where my pocket would have been if I hadn't been wearing leggings. I had forgotten that I asked Ed to hold my phone earlier when I tried the Swag Board. I'm notorious at dropping my phones. And I guess he had just put it in one of his pockets and forgot about it too. He took it out and it lit up.

"Who is it?" I asked casually. 

I kept my message previews on. "Matt." He looked up from the phone at me with a look that said I'm about to give you bad news. 

He got off the Swag Board and brought the phone over to me. I opened the full text and walked over to a nearby chair to sit down and read it. It was his excuse for why he wasn't going to make it tonight. It didn't really surprise me because this is what he always did for some reason. He always acted like he was excited to do something and then at the last possible minute something would come up and he would bail. This is why I didn't even like talking about him...because when you talk about someone enough, people will inevitably want to meet them and in my case, it was really embarrassing to be stood up by my own boyfriend.

"He's not coming," I looked up at Ed. 

"What happened??" He sounded concerned.

I just shrugged. I couldn't even explain it if I wanted to because I had no idea what Matt was talking about. "Um, I guess he's not even in town today." 

"Something come up last minute?"

"I - yeah, maybe. I guess."

"You guess? I'm confused," he shook his head.

I closed my eyes, trying to think about how I could answer without making myself sound like a dumbass push-over. "Okay, remember how I told you he's not much of a talker?" Ed nodded for me to continue. "Well, he's not...very reliable either. He kinda likes to just go off and do his own thing."

"But he has like...8 months to go do his own thing while you're out on the road. So wouldn't he want to see you now on the one night you're close to him?"

I shrugged again to say I don't know what to tell you.

"So this is a regular thing? Him bailing after making plans and you not even knowing where he is or what he's doing?"

I hesitated, trying to think of an excuse. I couldn't. "...yes?" I didn't want Ed to think my boyfriend was an asshole who treated me like shit even though I knew that was true. I wanted him to think that I could manage getting a genuinely good guy. 

"Okay, and why do you put up with that?" He was getting a little frustrated. 

Before I could say anything else my phone started ringing in my hand. I really needed to remember to turn the sound off and put it back on vibrate.

"Who is that?" Ed demanded. "Him??" I looked at him in question. I had never seen him act this way before. He was being very protective of me.

"No, it's my little sister." I walked away from him as I answered it. 

"Hey, Caroline."

"Someone at school said that Ed Sheeran was in town tonight, so I looked it up. Are you here too? With him??"