"Mario Kart again... seriously guys." I throw myself down onto the sofa next to Noah and Jolly.
"We finally have even teams where everyone can play, so yes Mar, we're playing Mario Kart. Again." Folio sasses me back handing me a controller.
Sadie, Nick and Folio have all managed to squeeze themselves onto the other sofa.
"If I play poorly it's because I'm jet lagged." Sadie states and I roll my eyes.
"That's bullshit. You've been here two days now. No excuses." I laugh.
Sadie's looking much brighter than when she first got here. We still haven't spoken about her sudden urge to come here or what happened back home and why she was in hospital but I know she'll tell me in her own time, when she's ready.
"Sympathetic as always Mar. Thanks babe." Sadie says as she selects her character settling for Yoshi.
The rest of us pick our characters and we start the game.
"Nah, the fuck. You guys are actually all cheaters." Sadie says as she's the last to finish the game making everyone laugh.
"You'll learn that they play dirty and not fair." I tell Sadie who groans.
"That's bullshit. All you do is ram each other off the road and take shortcuts." Sadie moans.
"We said we were playing the game, not that we play fair." Jolly chuckles as another round starts up.
"Right so I just target you fuckers off the road?" Sadie points at me, Noah and Jolly as we're all the in the opposite team to her.
"Pretty much, but still try to win." Nick tells her.
"Sweet, thanks for letting me know." She rolls her eyes and we start to play again. "Watch your back Margo, I'm gunning for you."
"Ay, I played fair. The boys fucking rammed you off the road not me!" I squeal trying to stay focused on the T.V.
"Meow, cat fight." Folio laughs.
"Shut up Folio."
*
The house is quieter than usual. Noah, Nick, Folio and Jolly are all out having a "Boys Day", fuck knows what that entails.
Sadie's upstairs still in bed so I decide to tackle tidying the house a bit until she's up.
Everyone's mostly good with tidying up after themselves but things like hoovering, mopping, wiping down surface's. etc seem to be "forgotten" about.
I'm humming along to "Blonde hair, Black Lungs" by Sorority Noise when Sadie makes her way down the stairs.
"What a good way to wake up." Sadie laughs and begins to sing along to the song.
"The best way to wake up. How you sleep?" I ask as I tidy away the hoover.
"Honestly better. Being away from London is really making me rethink a lot of stuff." Sadie tells me as she follows me through the house to the kitchen.
"Like what?" I quiz but she stays quiet. I make us both coffee then we make our way back to the living room.
"I can't believe this is your life now." Sadie tells me as I pull my feet under me, curling up on the sofa. I raise my eyebrow for her to continue. "Like this is not the Margo I remember from years ago. You seem so happy. You live with people who love you, they appreciate you. I know you were happy before but like now... god I can't even put it into words. I want that. Don't even get me started on you and Noah. The fact he looks at you the exact same way you look at him. Shit Margo, it's like you were made for each other. You deserve it. You deserve to be happy after everything. I'm sorry I've been a bit of a shit friend."
"You haven't been a shit friend Sadie. You've had a lot going on. You live in London and your life is busy. I've been a bit of a shit friend too." I tell her and it's true. I should have gotten in touch more before Cassidy and I fell out. With Sadie being so far away I always used it as an excuse for not being as close as we used to be. She was only ever a short flight away, fuck she was only ever a phone call away.
"Did Cassidy tell you?" Sadie asks and I shake my head. I have no idea what she's referring to. I haven't spoken to Cassidy in over a month now. "About why I was in hospital..." Sadie continues.
"Oh... no. I haven't spoken to her since that article came out."
"What article?"
"You don't know?" I'm honestly stunned that Sadie is so out of the loop. "I guess that's good."
"No... what article?"
"Damn Sadie... so much has happened. So I obviously met Noah on that night out. We spent the night together, nothing happened and then we spent the following day together. I had no idea who he was. I just thought he was a really great guy and that we had a connection, obviously he's attractive as fuck too."
"Obviously." She cuts in making me laugh.
"Anyways, he ended up getting a call to go to work and I didn't think much else of it. We said we'd meet up after the concert. Fast forward that night while Cass and I were at the show I find out who Noah is. I was so upset. I thought I'd be lied to by Noah and Cassidy because she knew. Cassidy told me to hear Noah out and we talked it through. Noah met my grandparents and the kids after he asked me to go with him for the tour. Cass and I then spent another few days with the guys, as we were going down to London Cassidy was just being passive aggressive in the car we ended up arguing and essentially I kicked her out the car to make her way down the road with the guys in the bus. Not my finest moment I admit. We get to London and Folio and Cass were arguing BAD. We could hear it through the hotel wall. By the time the argument died down and I went to talk to her about earlier, about our argument but she had left. Made her own way back home and left me in London. We didn't speak until I got here where she frantically called me apologising... at the time I had no idea what for but she'd gone to a journalist and told them things about the band along with telling them about my last relationship and how it wasn't great. What really hurt though was that she told them about my relationship with Noah that we've been trying to keep somewhat out of the limelight, Noah hasn't commented on it anywhere and I obviously haven't said anything about it either. It just really pissed me off that she has been saying our relationship was great and how good we are together, that it's really healthy but that was the whole reason I kicked her out my car because she was being so harsh about us." The words spill out of me before I can stop them.
"Fuck..."
"Yeah, fuck."
"That's so Cassidy coded. Like I'm not surprised but fuck. It was always Margo and Cassidy. You didn't get one without the other and she did all that over what? I don't understand." Sadie sighs.
"She had a thing with Folio. In the car to London I told her that Noah and I were gonna give whatever we had going on a go. To try make a relationship of it and to be honest I see her point of view. We hardly knew each other at that point and it was fast but it felt right. I think that she wanted that with Folio but they went into whatever it was with a mutual understanding of it is what it is..." I try putting it politely without giving away too much. Thats for Cassidy to tell Sadie if she wants to.
"So she didn't get what she wanted. Classic Cassidy behaviour." Sadie sips her coffee.
"Anyways, what's up with you?" I ask. We've focussed on me enough and Sadie's issues are clearly bigger than mine, she's been in hospital and just packed up to live overseas for a few months.
"Oh god, where do I start?" She hesitates.
"At the beginning?" When I look up from my drink I see Sadie's close to tears.
"I'm just so fucking sad in London. I just work all the time. Everyone else is so happy but I'm not. I don't know where I'm going wrong. All I do is work to try to live there and I'm not even fucking happy there. I have literally no social life down there all my friends stay further away. After getting home from Glasgow all I could think was what the fuck am I doing, you guys are all way happier and I want that. I've worked my ass off for fuck all. I... uh..." Sadie's sobbing, hardly able to catch her own breath.
"Hey, it's okay." I say wrapping my arms around her.
"I thought no one would care so I... yanno..."
"I know..." I whisper.
She doesn't have to say it but I instantly know what she's referring to. The fact that she could have felt like she wouldn't be missed if she wasn't here and that she was better off not being here at all hurts.
"I'm so sorry you felt like that... I'm sorry you felt like you couldn't tell me... tell anyone. I love you Sadie and I'm so fucking happy that you're here." I whisper as she sobs into my jumper. "Hey, shh, it's okay."
I hear the front door open and the boys voices grow closer and closer to the living room. Nick comes bursting into the room spotting Sadie on the sofa, he looks sheepishly between us.
"Shit, sorry. Sadie are you alright?" He awkwardly asks hovering in the doorway. The others sense the vibe and back off.
"Yeah, of course." Sadie sniffles clearly not okay at all.
"You guys are back early." I say as Nick takes a seat opposite us.
"Yeah, Folio wants to go fishing so we came back to get his shit." Nicks eyes are full of concern.
"C'Mon Nicholas you're holding us back now dude!" Folio shouts from the hall, Nick looks sympathetically at Sadie again.
"Do you wanna come?" He asks and I have to stop myself from laughing. I'd pay good money to see Sadie fish.
"Come where?" Sadie asks finally looking up at Nick.
"Fishing. If you want." Nick hesitates.
"Sure. I've held back on things for so long. Why not?" Sadie replies totally taking me by surprise.
"Cool I'll tell the guys that you're coming. You too Mar, yeah?"
"I guess."
"I need to get changed." Sadie states indicating at her PJs that she's still wearing.
"Me too." I join in, I'm not quite in PJs but my hoodies been throughly sobbed on by Sadie. Nick quickly escapes the living room making his way to the boys.
"Sorry about your hoodie." Sadie looks embarrassed as she says it.
"Hey, it's alright. Don't worry about it. It's Noah's anyway." I wink as we both leave the living room to head up the stairs to get ready.
"Ay! I heard that!" Noah calls from the hall.
"You weren't supposed to! Serves you right for eavesdropping!"