Elodie’s POV
“Since you seem to like hitting things so much, I’m going to have you work with Mark today and he’s going to have you boxing, ok?” Paul says as I step outside the tour bus. I nod my head, avoiding looking over at Mr Polite with everything I had. Last night was so embarrassing. I can’t believe he’d seen me like that. And what if he told people? That scares me just as much. How could I face any of them again after that?
Mark straps me into some boxing gloves and puts the pads on his own hands. “Ok, just take a couple of punches, lets see how you do,’ he says, holding up the pads. I do as he says, and I watch a look of surprise flit over his face.
“That’s really good form,” he comments as I keep hitting the pads, progressively getting harder.
“I took kickboxing for the last 3 years,”I tell him, keeping my focus on the pads as I throw some hooks.
“Really?” he asks, moving the pads around now that he knows I’m not a beginner. “With whom?”
“Started at one of the boarding schools. Then from one of the secret service when dad was elected.”
“You should’ve told us. We could’ve brought someone in for you to train with.”
“Well I just figured you guys were here for the band, not me.” I say giving a slight shrug. I was beginning to feel a slight sweat come on. “Besides, if I can’t sleep and we’re at a hotel, I’ll just go down to the gym and throw some punches at a bag if they have one.”
“Well we’ll see about getting you a sparring partner if that’s something you’d be interested in,” he says. I pause, cracking a small smile.
“Yea, that’d be great. Thanks,” I say sincerely.
“Hey, did I say you could stop?” he asks firmly, but I can tell he’s not actually mad as I start throwing punches again.
I start trying to avoid everyone after that. It’s harder than it seems. Mr Polite leaves me alone, almost as if he’s trying to avoid me also, but Cheekbones and Lauren are harder to ditch. And I live and work with Lou and have to have class time with the Aussies. For those situations, I’ll put in headphones and turn it up loud, pretending like I can’t hear them when they try to make small talk. They eventually got the hint. The next week, when I wasn’t hemming pants legs, or fixing the rips in their jeans, I’d be in my bunk doing homework, reading, or sketching. I knew they were talking about me. I’d walk into the dressing room and their laughter would die off as they saw me. It sucked. I was beginning to think about running away. I could head to New York and meet up with my friends. We could party and have fun and not worry about a thing. It was lonely here when you didn’t talk to people. The boys would go out during the day and do fun things. When we were in Tennessee, Lauren and Shorty went to visit her mom and friends. When we first got to California, Mr Polite and Irish went to Disneyland while Cheekbones, Shorty, and Lauren went to visit Cheekbone’s girlfriend in the studio and Curls went to meet up with some of his friends. The only highlight of my day was the workout in the morning. Who’d have thought that would ever happen? But Mark had stayed true to his word and they’d hired a boxing coach so every morning I got to hit something as hard as I could. It really was great for anger management. We were in California for a long time. They had practically a week’s break before the shows even started. I started waiting until everyone left before taking off on my own. I’d gone to a handful of boarding schools in the area so there were people I knew. I started going to the clubs again every night. And every morning there’d be a new picture on the tabloids. Granted, with the boys in the States, it was usually just a small picture linked to an article further back and not the cover story. That was generally Curls. Still, I could tell Paul wasn’t happy, but I didn’t care.
Liam’s POV
I have no idea what I did wrong. We were getting along just fine but she freaked out. I’d never seen anything like it. After, it seems like she’d changed also. Something just seemed off. She tried to avoid me as much as she could. Granted, I was doing everything I could to avoid her also. I was embarrassed by the obvious shutdown.
“Is everything ok with Elodie?” Lauren and Zayn would ask me and all I could do is shrug, avoiding their gaze. I wasn’t going to tell about the incident. She’d walk into the dressing room while Niall was being an idiot and we were all laughing, but it’d fade quickly seeing the look in her eyes. She didn’t go anywhere without headphones anymore and was quick to tune everyone out if they tried to talk to her. At the beginning, people tried to invite her to things, but after a while of constant rejection that trailed off. We left her alone and that seemed to be what she wanted. She’d had friends here in California and would go out with them. She seemed back to her old self. The partying pictures started reappearing. Rumours of hookups appeared in the tabloids… I was beginning to get worried Paul would send her off again, but it was none of my business. All these thoughts were keeping me awake at night.
I roll over in bed, pulling the pillow over my head as I try to force myself back asleep. According to the clock it was a quarter to three, but that couldn’t be right. It felt like it should be morning already. I roll to a sitting position, resting my head in my hands. I was too restless to sleep. I get out of bed, sliding on a pair of joggers and heading out the door. Maybe a bit of exercise could help me sleep. I head down to the exercise room, but stop dead in my tracks when I look through the window. Elodie was in there, still in full party outfit, beating the crap out of a boxing bag. For all the toughness it might appear, watching her pound the bag, there was something broken about it. The angry focus on her face as she hit it, her heels discarded for the moment, as she punches the bag at almost three in the moment. She looks up as I walk in, the surprise registering in her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she shrugs, wiping her brow with the back of her glove as she stops.
“Me neither,” I tell her. “Hey, you don’t have to leave,” I say with a frown when she starts unstrapping the gloves.
“It’s fine. I’m done anyways,” she says, refusing to look me in the eye as she hooks the straps of her heels in her fingers and heads out the door. I watch her until she disappears from sight and a feeling of frustration fills me again so I grab a pair of gloves my size and pull them on, punching the bag myself. I end up staying there for over an hour until I’m too exhausted to think straight and sleep would come easy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I'm going to start doing that favorite comment gets a dedication again so make sure you comment! I love reading all of them and hearing what you like about the story and what you think is going to happen.
That_Stupid_Girl mentioned the song on the side and I realized how perfect it was for this chapter so I posted it on here if you want to listen to it as you read.