literally though this story is so bad like i cannot stand to read it but it's finding the time to rewrite it that is the problem since it's such a long book, there are countless plot holes and things are unrealistic and don't make sense and gah i've just come a really long way since I wrote this it's awful and i don't need anyone else to tell me so because i know i know ok
I'm currently editing this so bare with for the cringey chapters:S I honestly apologise and truthfully feel sorry for people who read the first half of this since I started writing this when I was like twelve and now i'm almost fifteen and can we just put it in the way that my 12 year old self is not one I like to revisit. So it does need re-writing and I'm in the process of doing so, it's just going to take a while considering it's a long story with fairly long chapters. So just be aware of that.
Reminders (A/N):
I do not own the characters of One Direction and any associated with them in real life. However, any other fictional characters are strictly mine and this whole story is copyrighted and the breaching of so is punishable by law.
This story will contain; strong language and moderate scenes of violence, and mild mature and sexual content. For these reasons it is strictly PG-13.
Can I also just point out that I'm British and I've had people ask me what certain words/phrases mean etc. so if you come across something you don't understand then just ask and I'll try my best to explain:)
-- Picture This: Book 1: Chapter One: --
Ashley's POV:
Smiling to myself I breathed in the sweet and salty ocean air letting it swirl in my nostrils. The sun was beating down heavily causing the sand to burn your feet and the water to give you tiny shocks of warmth as you entered it. As it pressed against my thighs the plastic deck chair was scalding against my skin causing me to arc my legs away from it every few seconds. Tinted by my sunglasses the sky was a soft, pampered baby blue the backdrop canvas to the occasional white cloud floating across it’s endless blanket. The feeling of sitting around the bay near the rocks was almost foreign to me I hadn’t done this in so long, but that made it all the more special as the sand massaged in between my toes, the heat from the sun gently cleansing at my skin as if washing away any worries I may have had. I’d missed this, a lot.
Death causes people to act differently; sometimes they spend their time mourning and immersing themselves in everything that the person of annihilation was ever about. We, decided to ignore it completely. When my Auntie died everyone seemed to be wistful for about a week or so and then as the boxes of her stuff slowly piled up, the room stripped, the curtains drawn, the door locked, everyone just dropped her like a stone. It was almost like doing all this was going to make it okay, like it was going to make it seem like it never happened. Like I never had a better relationship with her than I did my own Mother. Everyone seemed to move on so quickly, that was everyone but me. But nobody paid very much to attention to me anyway in my family, so maybe it didn’t matter.
There were a lot of things that Jane liked; simple things usually, but the beach was the best. Maybe it was how at night, if you went down just as the colours of the sky were turning orange, merging into each other with peak as the sun slowly sunk into the horizon, it was empty. And it was kind of like a blank canvas, you could walk anywhere, do anything, and nobody would even know or care. Or maybe it was how something so beautiful could be carved by nature and not man. But whatever it was, it was special to her. And since we had a very tight knit relationship, it became immensely special to me too. It became our place. We had more of a Mother-Daughter relationship than me and my own Mum did and the summers here with Jane were the best. Building sandcastles for me and my chubby toddler legs to knock over within a minute, licking ice-creams that ended up more on my top and around my face than in my stomach. But the best thing of all was the water, it was so simple but yet so beautiful how you could immerse yourself in this salty spray of the ocean, engulfing yourself within the perfect blue water, and even better, as she held me. Her dainty hands around my child’s waist as I kicked my legs about acting as if I was scared so she would carry on holding me. It was safe to say I was a water baby back then.
But who thought somewhere and something so magical and almost enchanting could be the bearer of something so sinister, hollow and bleak? Not me, that was until it finally was. The evidence right before my eyes delivered to me in the usual sweetie we have something to tell you manner. At the tender age of four years old death was a whole another world for me. So it was safe to say that I was all for confusion when I was informed that she had died right in the ocean. Nobody really knew what happened that night, of course everyone had the audacity to offer up their scenarios at the worst of times, but all in all, there was no real evidence found. And after two months of investigation the police did what everyone else but I did: Case Closed. It was made out to be that simple, like you could put this stamp on this piece of paper and press a button on a computer and the case of death is forgotten about along with the person who was the victim. Apparently to everyone it was that simple, everyone but me.
Alone was a whole other concept for my Auntie. She didn’t like it, loathed it even. Which was why whenever she went for her quiet evening walks on the beach I would always go with her. But then things started to change when she got divorced, a divorce is never pretty, but the word ugly didn’t even begin to cover hers. So when she told my four year old self that she wanted to go for a walk alone I knew that something was wrong. But I was too innocent, and polite to say anything so I had agreed that night. That didn’t mean I didn’t press my face up against the window leaving fingerprints to be cleaned off as she left her long skirt flowing behind her as she trudged across the threshold, down the steps and onto the beach and then disappeared from view, a prominent pout evitable on my full and childlike lips. But all the frowning in the world wasn’t going to undo what went wrong that night. It was like a missing person’s case, although the outcome of death was concluded was a lot sooner than anyone was prepared for, and that included me.
I always knew that the quiet and hushed conversation took behind the almost-shut-but-not-quite-shut kitchen door was a risky one. It was one that was not meant for a child’s ears, the one that if you were to enter the kitchen in hope for another Juice Box you better backtrack right now and wait until Mum’s done on her Kitchen Phone Conversation. But being the close relation I was to Jane and the strange sense of something being wrong, I had stood there at four years old against the wall and listened to my Mother’s tired tone, worry flooding it.
“Yes…No. About eight last night it was, eight yes. E-I-G-H-T.”
My Mother repeated into the phone as if this was a spelling convention and not a missing person’s case. Even in my shortlist memory of what time The Tweenies’ was on that time rang an immediate bell, it was the time that Jane had left for her ‘alone’ walk. And to my knowledge, never came back.
It didn’t even surprise me when she realised I was there and ushered me out worry and concealing of it etched onto her tired face. I was a stroppy child when people kept things from me so I had walked to the lounge hugging a cushion to my chest as I frowned watching the window, waiting, hoping, that just any second now she would walk up the steps, over the threshold and be ready to hold me in her frail arms again that had only got thinner with the depression of the divorce that she was enduring, but we all knew deep down that she never did, and never would again.
It also didn’t surprise me when my Mum sat next to me and tried to act like everything was okay, but I was all ready to bombard her with my frantic child’s scenarios.
“Where is she?!”
My voice was so cracked and dry with that question, mirroring my Mother’s own. That was probably the only thing we held in common, how shaky our voices were when we worried.
“She’s safe Ashley, she’s safe.”
But the uncertainty in my Mother’s tone was clear as day. I had never understood why she had this, if she didn’t even believe or know it herself. To tell someone that somebody’s safe when you have no idea if they are or not is giving false hope, I’d always hated false hope. Even if sometimes it was all I wanted somebody to give me.
After firing reassuring remarks at me and me shooting them down every time with my undivided knowledge that she didn’t know I possessed of she gave up and went back to the kitchen. But I still lingered, keen to eavesdrop if it meant I would know what was going on with Jane.
“She’s not back Michael, she’s not back.”
She had told my Father, the remorse and worry reposing in her tone like black ink on a white canvas.
“She’s not?”
“No.”
At this point I was caught again and then the door was closed, the voices muffled, for me; the conversation running dry. And I was back to wondering again, it had been a smart move in her mind, but to me, it was the worst move she could have made.
I remember the police arriving, their bright jackets were supposed to mean they were helpful people, supposed to mean they were there to do nothing but good. But I knew it was nothing but bad news they were going to come up with. I of course had received the line of “Why don’t you go and finish that book of yours?” And ended up locked away in my room the conversation and action from downstairs absent from me.
But apparently I didn’t miss a lot. The outcome of the case was as dry as the conversation. She wasn’t on her own, it was by the rocks, long story short, she drowned. My Auntie was a lot of things, but suicidal, wasn’t one of them. Which is why when two weeks after the death was announced and anyone who was with her that night was urged to come forward, I thought I had a pretty good idea just who might have been with her that night, and aided her passing. Coincidental isn’t it how two weeks after an unexplained death happens the ex-husband on the victim fleas to Australia and is never heard of or seen again. Therefore avoiding all the interviews and suspicions that were being put onto him.
Now, I pushed my sunglasses higher up on my nose and bit down on my lower lip – a bad habit I had acquired over the years – and began to bury myself in my book again. This was until the blaring of my phone interrupted me, and it was not only the blaring of my phone, but the blaring of the hit single of the boy band my sister was obsessed with that I couldn’t care less for. Didn’t despise of, didn’t dislike of, just didn’t really care. It wasn’t hard to admit they were all undeniably attractive, but I just didn’t really care for much modern music, it was nothing personal. But nonetheless, the constant obsession my younger sister had with changing my ringtone to their hit single needed to stop. Even if it only was for her Caller ID, which I was not, all that happy to see.
Nonetheless I slid my finger across the scalding touchscreen and decided to slip the scolding in right now, before her bright and bouncy voice filled my ears with her ‘fan-girling’ over how excited she was for her new record deal with said boy band, One Direction. It still wasn’t that I disliked in any way, I just didn’t care. But apparently, neither did she about my opinions on them or any modern music for that matter.
“How many times have I told you to stop changing my ringtone?”
I sighed into the phone, this was such an overdone routine the words were almost already rolling off of my tongue before I had put any thought to it.
“I don’t know. Ten? I’ll stop, whatever, sorry. But you have to come back right now, One Direction is here!”
“So?”
“I don’t think you heard what I just said. One Direction is here! In our house, walking on our carpet, you have to come back right now Ashley, right now!”
You could call me crazy, but I wasn’t exactly all that overwhelmed that some studiously good looking boy band members who could sing were walking on our carpet. In all honesty, I just hoped they were wearing socks, since it was my vacuum duty tonight.
“No I don’t? You have to them yourselves El. I’m fine here, have fun.”
I was about to end the call on my pop music obsessed sister when her voice bounced back, full with some other thing to persuade me to return to grace myself with the presence of five boys who were oh so generously using their own celebrity worthy feet to walk on our carpet.
“You have to; you have to sign the thing. Mum’s not in and you’re over sixteen, so come on.”
Before I had a chance to get a word of rejection in edgewise a male voice cut me off obviously gaining closeness to the microphone of my sister’s phone.
“Even if you don’t like us, I wanna meet you love. New people are always fun to meet, don’t you think?”
He asked me. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to freak out right now because one of the attractive boys was speaking to me, but I don’t think I had it in me to if I wanted to. Pop music didn’t exactly excite me, even if it was from some ridiculously cute guys around my age.
Again, before I could reject this proposal another male voice, deeper and clearly with an accent cut in from somewhere in the background.
“If she doesn’t wanna meet us Lou, then that’s up to her.”
I mentally thanked the appearing-to-be-Irish boy for his suggestion to this person he referred to as ‘Lou’ I assumed his name must have been either Louis, or Lewis. Either way. I had probably heard my sister use it before, I just wasn’t really listening.
“Ellie,” I said rather sternly hoping I was actually talking to my sister and not one of the oh-so-talented-and-god-like boys. “You know better than to drag me away from the beach to meet people I barely know, or admire.”
“It’s not a choice now Ashley, it’s a command. You have to come and sign the thing because Mum’s not gonna be back until tonight. Okay? Bye, see you in five minutes!”
She gushed and then ended the call. I scowled at my phone wondering why I gave in so easily as I began to pack up my stuff and prepare myself to meet the A-list celebrities I didn’t know the names of. But the persuasion of my sister was easy to crumble under, many people had before, she had always been the favourite since she sang her first word.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N.
I posted it..obviously. So the video is wmyb because that was the only song mentioned in there^ and it just seemed appropraitte to link it because it just did. It will get better, I've kinda gotta get the stotyline set and shit so ya knowww. Like/fan/comment/vote, please comment? Yeah do all that shiz please. I will continue if I get readers but if I don't then there's not really alot of point;3
-Emily.