matty
you do learn quite a lot about yourself when you get to my age.
when i was about twenty-two i thought i already had all the knowledge in the world. foolishly fueled with weed and alcohol and girls that i had wrapped around my fingers for being in an amateur band... that turned out to be a completely stupid assumption, clearly, seeing as though i'm nearing thirty and the biggest realisation in my life thus far is that i know completely nothing.
that, and the realisation that i don't like where i am.
like mentally. physically. i don't feel happy.
and i know for a fact that happiness is incredibly fleeting and short, but fucking hell.
i think i haven't felt happy in a long fucking time.
i remember when george and i had come up with i like it when you sleep and i knew right then we were going to be fucking huge. and i told myself that i was going to be completely clean and spend all my money on expensive art and traveling and all that shit. that i was going to be happy.
but now... now i'm just a lonely depressed artist in my late 20s with heavy dependence on drugs and alcohol and finding ways to distract myself from myself.
but hey, look at me, i've got a number 1 hit on the radio, pretentious paintings on the walls of my bare london home, and a conventionally attractive girlfriend who i don't even have feelings for.
sometimes i look at myself in the mirror and think what life would be like have i not been selfish.
i wouldn't have gone deep into drugs.
i wouldn't have lost rhiannon.
maybe we'd still be living in that terrible flat in manchester, george would have moved out at some point and so would adam. having ross around would be alright, i suppose.
truth of the matter is, my friendship with the guys took a heavy strain because of my awful decisions, and i know it's been a year and life has changed drastically since then, but there are moments where i could feel their disappointment in me. and it's not a really nice feeling to have.
if i wasn't selfish, rhiannon would've still been with me. hell, i don't think i would've made a fucking record because i'd be so caught up in her. i wouldn't even be this famous, i suppose.
we'd probably get married on a whim.
and i could be working at a library just to give us both a good life. or a record store.
it's rather odd to me how all my life i've desired nothing but fame and wealth and power, and now that i've seen the world and experienced the things people would literally die to have, at the end of the day i find myself still, strangely, longing to come home to that shitty flat just to have her resting on my shoulder while we watch shitty television and drink cheap wine and smoke and cry because life doesn't make sense.
i suppose that's what happiness is supposed to feel like.
but i don't know. i keep getting this stuff wrong.
and i've no clue why it's only taken me this time to try and get things right.
---
rhiannon
in a rather pathetic attempt to slow down time, i take the longer route home.
by the time i get back to my flat, my boots are no longer as soggy as they once were. my socks are still mad uncomfortable, but it's none of my concern at the moment, especially once i see ollie's bags sitting outside our door.
the flat is oddly quiet when i let myself in.
no one's watching shitty reality shows on the telly, no one's dropping wine glasses accidentally on the floor. i don't hear laughter, or anyone talking, really.
"ollie?" i call out, just to be sure he's still here and not dead, which i suppose is not a normal thought to have.
i check the kitchen, then his room, then the bath.
my chest begins to tighten. what if alice had done something to him? god... my thoughts...
before checking the rooftop, i take off my socks and put on these purple fluffy sandals that alice had got me at a flea market many moons ago. we both know it's not my taste and i kind of knew she'd only wanted to piss me off by getting them for me, but it was fine.
the rooftop looks empty except for a few unoccupied chairs, and ollie lighting up a cigarette in the distance.
his bright blue eyes are replaced with the saddest glare i have ever seen.
"ollie." i say, i doubt he's heard me seeing as though he doesn't turn to my direction, so i slowly shuffle to the empty seat right next to him, the cold wind creeping up on my skin.
nothing seems to be going right everywhere i go.
"i'm so sorry, ollie." i mumble under my breath.
ollie looks at me for a second before turning to his cigarette.
"it's fine, rhiannon." he replies. and i know it's not fine, i know he's got nothing but love for alice and she just threw it away like it's nothing, and i know that he's the only good guy alice is ever going to get. he was there for her in days she couldn't be there for herself.
i would kill for someone like that.
i can smell the smoke lingering in the air. i look down on my stupid purple sandals. "alice really said she was cheating on you?"
"she is, yeah." ollie clenches his jaw. "she said she's grown tired of the relationship and was only waiting for the right time to tell me."
i frown. "i'm sorry." at that, i hear him inhale sharply.
"stop apologising, rhiannon. it's for the best."
i begin to shift awkwardly in my seat, because... i don't know. being in situations like these have always made me feel awkward. "so, where will you go now?"
"i've booked a night train. i don't know, to be honest with you." he chuckles to himself, might be because of his mistake of not thinking things through. "i might go stay at a motel before i could find a decent flat... or something."
"maybe i could go with you?" i suggest. "i mean, to the station. you might need someone to help you load your things and--"
"that would be lovely, yeah. thank you."
for some reason i begin to feel sick. or nervous, i couldn't say.
i wonder where alice is.
"i still can't believe she's been over me and never told me about it." ollie says suddenly, and i can tell in his voice he's over with hiding his anger. "you do know she's at his place right now? i think she's thinking of living with him even."
alice. ever-spontaneous, ever fucked up alice.
i stretch my hand out quietly, and ollie takes it, holding my hand with much force i feel like he's going to cause it to bruise. after awhile his grip softens, and so i look at him, and he's crying, and before i know it he's on my shoulder with my arm around him and i'm here trying to understand how love can crush even the most beautiful people into the most broken pieces no one would try to even fix.
---
matty
gabby and i are sat in complete silence in my car.
we were always kind of quiet together, come to think of it. not because it's comfortable but because i'm just not quite interested in her.
i'm still waiting for her to process whatever's going on in her head, and she's taking quite a long time but i don't blame her.
if someone had just told me that they do not love me anymore, i'd feel pretty shit too.
i suppose i'm done trying to sugarcoat things.
"it's rhiannon, is it?"
a million things she could have said after a long period of silence and she had gone for a question i am too terrified to even answer.
because truth is i don't even know if rhiannon will take me back. i have a feeling she won't, but i know at this point i need to at least try.
"yeah." i reply quietly.
it's beginning to rain pretty hard outside that for a moment i think gabby doesn't hear me, but it's the way she starts wiping the tears from her eyes that's giving me the notion that she's heard me loud and clear.
"i don't know what to say." she says after awhile.
same here.
"you still love her, don't you?"
very fucking much.
"matty, i just want you to answer me."
"i still love her, yeah, i do." i say nervously. "and i know it sounds utterly stupid, i don't even know if she still feels the same way after all this. i'm really fucking terrified but i know that... if i don't do this now, i'm going to regret not making this decision." i exhale deeply. "and i'm really sorry, gabriella. believe me, i am."
"i always had a feeling it was still her." gabby whispers. "i just thought maybe this time, it could be me, know what i mean?"
i know what she means, and i hate myself because i know it could never be her.
"i'm... i'm really sorry." i say again, trying to look through her while she's going through her phone, the tears glimmering on her cheeks.
"it's--it's fine." she shuts off her phone, and it's dark again. she looks out the window. "could you drive me to your house so i could pack my things?"