❀ J U L I A ❀
I was laughing and I didn't really know why, but I did know that the room was starting to spin and it looked pretty. My hair was stuck to the back of my neck with sweat and my cheeks were probably flushed from the alcohol, but the best thing about it was that I didn't even care.
Through my blurry vision I saw Calum sloppily dancing a few feet away, and I tried my best to stop myself from spilling my drink on people as I made my way over to him.
"It's getting hot, so I'm going to get some air!" I tried to yell over the music.
"You're going to eat a pear?" Calum shouted confusedly.
"No, air!"
"You're going to eat some air?"
Even through my drunken haze, I still found myself able to roll my eyes.
"Get some air! Outside!" I motioned with my hands and pointed to the entrance of the club, sighing when his eyes lit up in realization.
"Oh! I'll come with you just to be safe." He said, taking a swig of his beer before following me outside.
The fresh air was such a stark contrast to the stuffy club that it immediately began to clear up my mind. Inside, the music and alcohol and lights provided a decent distraction, but outside where only the bass could be heard, all my problems were beginning to come back to me.
"Ashton is a two-timing dickhole." I blurted to Calum, downing the rest of my drink in one gulp shortly after the words came out of my mouth.
My mind began to turn fuzzy again and a laugh burst out of my lips when I registered the insult that I had just said.
"God, I sound like Rachel." I leaned myself against the wall to try and stop myself from falling over and registered Calum doing the same next to me.
"Your model friend?"
My head felt heavy and I slowly turned to look at Calum. "That's the one. You remind me of her sometimes. I'll introduce you two one day, but she's always travelling and stuff."
He ducked his head down, mumbling his next words like he was reciting something from memory.
"I want to travel the world and finally be able to breathe for once."
I stared at Calum, wondering if he was a little more far gone than I'd thought.
"What the hell are you on about?"
The boy took another swig of the bottle in his hand before shaking his head, staring distantly at his scuffed up Vans on the cracked pavement.
"It's just- you reminded me of something Rachel once said."
My head snapped up and I looked at his blurry form in a daze. "Wait- you know Rachel?"
"No, no, my Rachel; a different Rachel. Except she's not really mine anymore." His voice was rough and resentful, but my confusion only escalated as I tried to wrap my drunken mind around what he was saying.
Noting the puzzled look on my face, Calum chuckled bitterly. I noticed his knuckles turn white as he clutched the bottle in his hand tighter. "You probably know her better as my Amnesia girl."
The inebriated state I was in made it a little easier to deal with the shock that came from his statement, but I still tried to soak it all in.
"So, there's two Rachel's... my best friend, and your-" I cut myself off, not quite sure what Calum's Amnesia girl exactly was to him just yet. "Uh- how do we know they aren't the same person? I mean, the Rachel I know is 5'3 with raven hair and an attitude that's going to get her in trouble one day."
Describing my best friend started to make me sad, so I quickly reached for Calum's beer and took a sip, cringing at the taste.
"There are a lot of girls named Rachel in the world." Calum began. "The one I knew had long, raven hair too, but she was the opposite of trouble. She was quiet and smart and kind, and really reserved..." he swallowed, cutting himself off.
"She sounds amazing," I nodded, encouraging him to continue. All I wanted was to distract myself from Ashton, and after all, there was no better time to share your feelings than while you were drunk, right? "Keep telling me about her."
"She was beautiful and intelligent, and she never saw in herself what I saw in her." He started, pressing his lips into a tight line as he stared blankly at the cigarettes and broken glass that littered the dirty ground. "She was passionate about things she loved, and she loved music, and her eyes always lit up whenever we talked about our favourite bands. And god, her eyes were this pretty mix of dark green and light brown, and her-"
He broke off and a muscle worked in his jaw as he stared angrily at the road in front of him. I held out his beer bottle to him tentatively, and he reached for it, taking a large gulp of beer followed by a shaky breath.
"Her parents they- they didn't treat her like they should've, and they never supported her, and she was so fucking alone."
We stood in silence for a bit, simply because there wasn't anything I could say to take back Calum's feelings and anguish. All that could be heard was the muffled music pounding from the club behind us and his deep breaths, until he spoke again.
"She was so alone," he repeated. "And I let her down, and damn it, I'm such a dick!" In an instant, he smashed his beer bottle against the pavement and sunk down to place his head in his hands. My eyes widened as broken glass went everywhere, and leftover beer spilled all over the ground.
"Hey, hey, calm down," I tried to say soothingly. "That's not true, you're so great to your fans and to me and to the band-"
"Not back then," he murmured. "She trusted me, and I left her like everyone else in her life did."
In that moment, I realized that this girl wasn't just an old ex-girlfriend, a mistake from his past. This girl was someone who had meant the world to him, and whatever had happened between the two was something that had been plaguing him for years. There was a part of him that would always be messed up because of it, and I vaguely wondered if this girl, whoever she was, was in the same place as Calum or worse, and a day didn't pass where she wasn't thinking of all the ways he had affected her life.
"You know what I think you need?" I said, sliding down to sit next to Calum on the dirty ground. He leaned his head back against the brick wall and looked at me with bloodshot eyes. Whether it was from the memories or the alcohol, I wasn't quite sure.
"What?"
"Another drink."
❀❀❀
An hour later, and we were, as I had put earlier, "drunk off our asses."
We had abandoned the club and took our drinks to our spot outside, and I liked it there because the wall looked furry. Taking another sip of the bottle in front of me, I rubbed my hand across the wall and told it about my day.
A ringing noise suddenly sounded out, and I frowned, patting the wall and placing my ear to the brick to see where it was coming from.
"Julia, turn that off, I'm trying to dance to my own music!" Calum slurred out.
"I can't find it!" I shouted, until I realized it was coming from the thing tangled around my legs. Digging inside, I found the phone and clicked the speaker button, not bothering to read the name on the screen.
"Hellooooo?" I drawled out, sprawling myself out on the ground as I took another swig of the bottle.
"Hey, I'm surprised you're up this late! I've been trying to find time to call-"
"Rach!" I yelled. I recognized my best friend's voice almost immediately and gestured wildly for Calum to come over. "I missed you a lot," I tried to say, but my words melted into each other and I settled for laughing instead.
"What the fu- are you drunk?" she asked incredulously, a hint of outrage in her tone. I exchanged a nervous glance with Calum, but he was more focused on trying to open another beer bottle.
"Uh-"
"Without me?" she continued. "And wait- are you in a club? Wow, the one time you actually get wasted and I'm not even there to experience it."
I laughed again until I started to hiccup. "Yep, I'm drunk, funk, crunk, dunk, duck- say hi to Caldumb!"
Even through my drunk state I swore I could hear her breath hitch. "Do you mean Calum, by any chance?" she asked tentatively.
"Oh yeah," I hiccuped again. "How'd you know that?"
"Lucky guess." she mumbled. "Listen, I think I'll call you back when you're not intoxicated-"
"Vogue?" Cal stumbled over, grabbing the phone from my hands. "Is that you? I miss you a lot-"
"Her name is Rachel you dummy, not Vogue," I drawled, interrupting his interlude before taking a gulp of the drink in my hand.
"Shush," He mumbled sloppily, placing a hand over my face. "I'm trying to talk to Vogue."
We both fell silent, waiting for Rachel's reply, but no sound came from the speaker. I almost thought she had hung up until I heard her take a deep breath.
"Um, hey Cal." Rachel swallowed audibly from the other end of the line. "I- I miss you too."
My drunken mind tried to process why her voice sounded hoarse, almost as if she was close to crying.
"Why do you sound so sad?" I pouted, even though Rachel couldn't see me. "Hand that phone over here, you're making her sad."
If Calum hadn't been so wasted I was sure I wouldn't have been able to grab it out of his hands, but due to his dazed state, I successfully held the device after a tiny scuffle. However, when I glanced at the screen, all I could see was a list of my recent phone calls.
"What the hell did you do?" Calum droned, trying to take the phone back. "Vogue? Hello?" he yelled.
My head was pounding and his voice was way too loud. "Calum chill," I dragged out the last word, trying to get him to quiet down. "We'll just call her back or something."
"It's too late," he whispered. "She won't pick up."
Everything was starting to get a little blurry; it was like a picture that was out of focus. I was so lost in my thoughts, I could barely register what Calum was saying.
"Won't pick up what?" I asked, trying to remember what we were just talking about.
"Never mind," he sighed, leaning his head on mine.
I could only imagine what we looked like to any strangers passing by - a pair of friends that probably just finished round one of vomiting. The image caused an eruption of giggles.
"What the hell is so funny?" Calum asked.
"Us," I said pointing between us. "We have officially reached pathetic on the wheel of drunkenness."
"I definitely second that, but I'm way too messed up to care right now," He laughed, grabbing his drink.
I clinked my glass to his in a toast, spilling a little of whatever exotic alcohol I ordered on my jeans.
As I felt the liquid seep through the denim and onto my skin, the door from the building across from us opened, a stream of light hitting our faces. Matching groans escaped from the both of us and squinting my eyes, I saw a tall blonde step out with some garbage bags. When she spotted the two of us, she quickly disposed of them and jogged over.
"Are you okay?" she squatted beside Calum, inspecting us for hell knows what. Maybe she thought we were injured.
Did we really look that bad?
"What are you guys doing out here?" She asked again when we didn't respond, concern lacing her voice.
Her long, pale blonde hair was right by my face, and all I could think about was creamy butter on toast.
"I could really go for some toast and butter right now," I blurted out.
She narrowed her eyes and sighed. "You're way more drunk than I thought. Alright, let's get you guys up."
Slowly, she wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me up.
"Okay, just lean against the wall and try not to fall over, please?"
I watched as she attempted to lift Calum up, which was a lot trickier considering he was a lot heavier than me. She tried to wrap her arms around his waist, but couldn't get him up. I tried to help her, but that did no good and ended up with me on top of Calum.
"Okay," the blonde exhaled, pushing her hair away from her face. "This isn't going to work. Let me call a taxi and get some extra hands from the kitchen."
Finally, after calling over another waitress, she was finally able to get the both of us up. I leaned on her heavily as we were led towards the front of the club, appreciating the niceness of a stranger.
Even in my drunken state, the reality of the situation hit me. Calum and I had been sitting in a dark alley, drinking away our sorrows and anything could have happened to us.
"Man, we really screwed up tonight," I whispered under my breath.
The pretty blonde glanced at me and gave me a small smile. "We all have those nights. Just try not to end up in a shady alley next time."
I had thought that maybe the night couldn't get any worse, but then Ashton and a group of people I didn't recognize came out of the club laughing. While Calum and I were being dragged into a cab, Ashton was having the time of his life.
Calum, noticing him as well, muttered a bad word under his breath.
As I got into the car, I briefly made eye contact with Ashton. So many emotions flashed behind his eyes- guilt, worry, concern, anger and then nothing. He turned away so quickly I wasn't sure he had even seen me in the first place.
"Where to?" The driver's question made me divert my eyes from Ashton, and after giving him the address to my apartment, I laid my head in Calum's lap.
"Back to the hell hole we go," I whispered, knowing that tomorrow the guys would be leaving, and I would have to face Ashton sooner rather than later.
My stomach churned, and it wasn't just because of the alcohol.
❀❀❀
Q: who is your favourite character in this story so far and why?
dedicated to zara - creamchannel bc my fave chap has to go to my fave person (not rlly ur gross)
also, happy late bday to @ms_fluttershy, i tried to update but it didnt happen lol
ps the new wattpad app is weird