Chapter Thirty-Three
It's been a week, and weirdly, it's been a good week. I haven't self harmed, I've been smiling more, and for some weird reason I haven't seen Shane, Sarah or Megan around at school, it's so weird, because I haven't seen any of them for the whole week. Maybe they dropped out or something, I really don't care because no one has been mean to me all week, I haven't gotten any 'go kill yourself' texts, since I smashed my iPhone, I bought a new one the other day, and a new sim card, so they can't text me anymore of those texts.
I haven't seen Luke much this week, only at recess and lunch. We always spend a ton of time together after school and stuff, but I don't mind because he and the boys are have been writing a bunch of songs, rehearsing songs for gigs at a few different pubs.
I got a job though, finally. I've been handing my Mum some of my money to replace all the pocket money she had given me in the past, but she only wants me to give her a dollar, nothing more. I had an argument with her telling her I owe her, but she says she doesn't care, she doesn't want me to pay her back. I got a job at Village Cinemas, I'm a cashier at the snack bar, we're so many rude customers are at, they always complain saying 'Give me more fucking popcorn, this isn't fucking four bucks worth!', then I snap at them telling them to bring their own popcorn next time, I'm surprised I'm not fired.
"Here you go, enjoy your movie." I say, smiling while handing a two girls two boxes of popcorn, and two drinks.
I look up at the clock seeing the time as 8:00pm, the time my shift ends, I work from 4:00-8:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I get payed nine dollars and hour. One hundred and forty-four dollars a week, that's really good.
Daniel comes and takes over his own shift, and I gather my things ready to leave. I pick up my phone, seeing I have two miss texts from Luke. I grab my jacket, and slip it on, taking off my working hat, shoving it into my bag. I slip my bag onto my shoulder, and exit the cinema through the 'STAFF ONLY' exit. I undo my ponytail, about to unlock my phone to read the full texts from Luke, but a call comes through from Luke. I slide the green button and press the phone to my ear.
"Hi." He says, chuckling afterwards. I chuckle too, smiling.
"Hi." I say, smiling, biting my lip afterwards. This boy makes me so damn happy. So, darn happy. I hear him taking a few deep breaths, and Ashton's girly giggle in the background. Like I've said before- I think- Ashton's giggles vary, Michael agrees with me on it too. Sometimes he sounds like a teenage girl, he says, and other times he sounds like an old man. We both agree on it. I hear one of the boys making kissy noises, and I hear Luke cover the phone with his hand-I'm guessing- and hear him tell them to shut up, faintly.
"How are you?"
"Good. You?" I say, kicking a few rocks with my feet, something I don't do a lot but something Luke does all the time.
"I'm good too, it's nice to be finally hearing your voice."
"It's been seven hours and twenty five minutes since the last time you heard my voice, your talking as if you haven't heard my voice in weeks." I say, chuckling, hopefully getting my Math right for once.
"Yeah, but we usually hang out after school all the time, this is just so…out of my routine." He says, chuckling. I chuckle.
"Well, you were being cute. I like it when your cute." I say, biting my lip.
"I'm not cute!" He exclaims. "Everyone tells me I'm cute, and even Calum does, I'm a man! Men aren't cute, they're mean't to be hot, and stuff." I chuckle at him.
"Hey, I said you were being cute, I didn't say you were cute." I say.
"I am cute!" Luke says. "I'm a seventeen year old boy that likes penguins, how much cuter can I get?"
He just said he wasn't cute and that he was a 'man' and now he's telling me that he is cute, this boys well never stop confusing me, will he? Damn, Luke and his confusing words.
"You just said 'I'm not cute, I'm a man.' and now your saying you are cute. Your confusing me, Luke. I get it, your a cute man." I say, mocking him. I shove my hand into the pocket of my pants, and sit down on the 'smokers bench' I don't smoke, and I don't like standing up for too long.
"Okay, I g- Shut up, Michael!- I get it, I'm a cute man, and your a beautiful girl, so we're even." He says, I blush at the fact he called me beautiful, I thank him, while smiling.
"Luke and Nessy sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G, first comes the love, second comes the marriage, third comes the baby in a golden carriage." Michael sing songs. "You should have use protection, Luke."
I widen my eyes, and now see the reason as to why Luke told Michael to shut up.
"Tell Michael that I heard that, and that I'm going to slap him." I say, standing up and making my way to the front of Village Cinemas. I walk down the pathway, stepping in the tiles, being careful not to touch any of the cracks. Step on a crack, break your mothers back. I know it isn't true, but I just have fun avoiding the cracks/lines.
The car park only has three cars, and two people walking near the cinema and a group of people walking down the sidewalk. I begin to walk down the sidewalk too, listening to Luke tell Michael off for another dirty rhyme, and listening to him also telling Michael that I'm going to slap him.
"You finished work at eight, yeah?" Luke asks.
"Yeah." I say. We both go silent, and I walk around that group of people. Not even Ashton, or Michael were making any noises.
"Wh-"
I get cut off by the sound of Calum's voice.
"We just past your girlfriend, you dick." He says, and not through the phone, clearly. I turn around to see the group of boys I had just walked past, seeing that I had just walked past my boyfriend, and three good friends of mine. I turn around, and begin walking over to them.
Luke hangs up the call, and runs up to me before I even get two meters to him and the boys. He wraps his arms around my waist, and bends his legs a bit to match my height, and buries his head into my neck. I wrap my arms around his neck, my phone still in my hand.
"I missed you." Luke says, placing a kiss on my neck. "I kept telling the boys, and then Ashton suggested we walked to your work, to go see you. Seven hours and now," He grabs hand holding my phone off of his neck, and checks the time. "Thirteen minutes is a lot of time away from each other." Luke places another kiss on my neck, I press my hands onto his chest, pushing him away. Ashton, Calum and Michael are right behind him.
"Aw, I missed you as well." I say, kissing his cheek. He grabs my hand, lacing his fingers with my own, and we all begin walking. Ashton stands next to me and side-hugs me. I let go of Luke's hand and give all the guys a quick hug, and I slap Michael on the arm for what he said, and tell him to not be dirty. He just smirks.
I grab hold of Luke's hand, lacing our fingers together.
We ten minutes away from my house, and the subject we are all currently talking about is Sarah's, Shane's and Megan's disappearance. Like why they haven't been at school and stuff, since the cinema is a fair few minutes away we've talked about everything except for this.
"Maybe Sarah got pregnant with Shane's kid too, and they had to like leave school or something." Calum says, wrapping an arm around Luke. I smirk, pushing Calum's arm off of Luke.
"He's mine. I don't share." I tease, poking my tongue at him.
"No, Lukey here..is mine." Calum teases back, poking is tongue at me.
I grab onto Luke's arm, and Calum grabs onto Luke's other arm. He begins pulling Luke over to him.
"He's mine." He says.
"Uh-uh, he's mine." I say, pulling Luke back over to me.
"Mine." Calum says, pulling Luke back over to his side. I pull Luke back over to me, and some how made Calum fall in the process. I pull Luke to my side, and watch as his eyes widen.
"Shit. I didn't know you were that strong. Your pulling hurt more then Calum's and he pulls fucking hard." Luke says, he then skips over to Calum's side. Calum's already standing up, and smiles at me. We're only mucking around. "Sorry, Ness. But, I love Calum, he's my babe."
I fold my arms over my chest, and give him a 'oh-really-now' look. I then skip over to Ashton and Michael. I grab Ashton's arm, and stand close to him.
"Ashton's mine then, he's my baby." I say, ruffling his hair. He giggles like a teenage girl once again making me giggle too. Luke all of a sudden, walks over to Ashton and I. His smirk falls off his face, and he actually looks a bit serious. Ashton and I burst into a fit of giggles, laughing at Luke's serious reaction.
"No! I'm your baby!" He says, grabbing me, pulling me away from Ashton. Ashton chuckles, and so does Michael and Calum. "I'm your only baby. Your my only babe."
Someone's a little jelly. Jokes.
"Anyway, I agree with Calum. Seems like a thing those girls would do. Shane just won't stop shooting out non-blanks." Michael says, running a hand through his hair. I know he said something dirty but I seriously need to get used to it, he's a guy and 99% of guys are dirty minded, so I might as well get the hang of it. Luke stares down at the ground, biting his lip. Calum wraps his arm around Luke again, and I smile at him. Michael and Ashton walk on the side of us.
"What's up, baby?" I ask, hip bumping him. Is it bad that all of a sudden I got that silly Justin Bieber song stuck in my head? And I was like, baby, baby, baby oohh. I'd rather call Luke the name of a Justin Bieber song, then what girls these days call their boyfriends a lot now, which is Daddy, that makes me want to like majorly throw up.
"Nothing, and did you just hip bump me?" He asks. I nod my head.
"Yup, I just did. I know when something is up with you." He doesn't answer back, and we continue on about these idiots whereabouts.
"I'm really curious to know. But I hope they don't come back, you've been smiling so much since they've left, and no one else at school is picking on since they did." Calum says.
"I told the police." Luke blurts.
What is he talking about?
"About…?" I say, dragging on the word.
"I told the police they were bullying you, sending you texts telling you go die, and that list of suicides to do. I couldn't take, Ness." Luke says, I widen my eyes at him and we all kinda stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk.
"You did what?!?" I say, raising my voice a bit. "Luke, they are still going to pick the shit of me, oh my burgers, Luke they are going to-"
"I called up the police the day after the gig, and told them, they went to Megan's, Shane's and Sarah's houses to ask questions, they've all been fined for harassment, they have to pay $5000 dollars, and do community serve if they can't get the money, and that's what they are currently doing. They ended up getting suspended, the police spoke to the principal, they checked Megan's, Shane's and Sarah's mobiles and stuff, it's really detailed and I don't a lot b-" Luke explains.
"How come they didn't talk to me?"
"It's sorted, I handed in your smashed phone, they screen was smashed but the phone itself was damaged, and they checked the texts, they spoke to me and stuff it was all really complicated but in the end, I had enough proof, so they didn't need to really talk to you. Just leave it at that."
I can't believe Luke told the police about this all, I'm sorta mad because it could make everything worse, it's Shane, Sarah and Megan, they don't stop no matter how much shit they get into, Megan's already been sent to Juvi for stealing, but it didn't stop her from stealing, Sarah's entire family as at least been arrested twice, her damn sister in law was locked up for murder, and Shane's just a pussy.
But I'm kinda more thankful then anything, cause I have this small gut feeling telling me it's all going to be fine now, I hope it will be because I think if it continued on, that I would end up being depressed or something, and that's a road I don't want to go down.
"I'm really pissed at you for doing that without telling me, yet I'm actually really glad, and thankful you did, because I never would have done it, and because I actually have a feeling that everything will be normal again." I say, pressing my lips onto his rosy pink cheeks, he smiles.
"Your welcome. So were in the I-love-you-yet-I-hate-you stage?" Luke asks.
"No." I say. "I don't even have a sprinkle of hatred towards you, it all seems to be just love that I feel towards you."
"Thank god, I would hate to go through that stage." He says, lifting my hand, holding it between both of his hands. "Your hands are cold." He then blows his warm breath against my hand, pressing a kiss onto it afterwards.
"Stop with this cute stuff!" Ashton says. "This is going to sound so fucking girly but, you guys are so freaking cute!"
We all chuckle at Ashton, and Calum walks over to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders instead of Lukes. I let go of Luke's hand, and wrap my arms around Calum, giving him a nice big hug, as an apology for making him fall onto his ass earlier, I do feel bad, I mean your talking to the girl that feels bad for stepping on ants, and checks to see if their okay, when clearly their not, Calum's like…adorable. All these boys are, Luke's a little cute penguin, Ashton is…Ashton, Michael's my unicorn…these boys are adorable. Wait…they are adorable men. If I told Luke that he and the guys were adorable, we'd be having another one of those conversations about him and the guys being men, and that men aren't 'adorable'.
We finally get to my place, I search around in my purse for the keys to the house. While I search for them, Luke wraps his arms around my waist from behind, and places a kiss on my neck. I turn around, and nudge him.
"Luke. Ashton, Calum and Michael are right there." I say. I turn around and see Michael standing behind Ashton, his arms wrapped around Ashton's waist, while pretending to kiss Ashton's neck. Calum laughs.
"Luke. Ashton, Calum and Michael are right there." Ashton says in a high pitched voice, mocking me. I don't know how to feel about this. So, I just laugh.
"Who cares, Yenessa. I missed you even though its been seven hours and thirteen minutes since I last saw you." Michael says, mocking Luke. We all just burst in a fit of giggles, Calum slaps Luke on the back while Ashton, and Michael just laugh, and laugh.
I unlock the door letting them all come through before me, they all said on the lines of 'ladies go first' but I shook my head, and said no, smirking over at Luke, because he knows exactly why I don't let myself go first before guys anymore.
We all go upstairs, in the lounge room and kinda just sprawl ourselves out on the couches and floor. I lie on the floor on my back, exhausted from our sorta long walk, Calum and Luke are lying across the big couch, while Ashton and Luke are sitting in the two single couches.
I look up at the ceiling, and hum a song the boys wrote.
"You guys up for a game board, or something? We always watch movies, so I was thinking a game of Monopoly, kicking it retro style." I say, remembering where the untouched Monopoly is sat up at the top of my wardrobe doing nothing but collect dust and spider webs. My Mum's never here to play, and Lavinge won't play anything but dolls. I jump up. "But first," I say, walking over to the door. "This girl needs her jiggle juice." I say, smacking the side of my bottom, copying that chick off of Pitch Perfect.
I run down stairs grabbing a bunch of food, and climb back up, seeing the boys not looking so exhausted, and instead tackling each other. I drop the food onto the coffee table, and walk to my room, grabbing the monopoly game board from the top of my wardrobe, having a few difficulties to get it.
I go back into the lounge room, and see the boys still tackling, I walk back into my room, changing out of my work uniform into something comfy a.k.a a singlet and sweats. I roll my eyes when I see pillows thrown around the lounge, Michael hiding behind the couch, and Calum and Michael stacking on top of Luke.
I slam the door purposely, and the all just giggle, and so do I.
"Get off my baby!" I say, running over to the boys and grabbing Calum and Ashton by the wrist, trying to yank them off of Luke. I let go of Calum, seeing as he is seriously like glued to Luke, and also he's kinda stuck under Ashton.
I pull Ashton by the wrist, walking backwards to try and get him off, he giggles like a little girl, but then screams like one too when I finally get him off of Luke. I grab Calum by the hand, and begin to yank him too, he then tumbles off of the couch, onto the floor and says 'ow'. I bend down and give Ashton and Calum a hug, saying sorry for hurting them. Luke stands up, running a hand through his hair. He takes me by the hand, and some how ends up pinning me onto the ground in one swift action. He sits on my legs, pinning my wrists on to the side of my body, as well as just pinning my whole body in general.
"Ashton, Michael, Calum." He calls them over.
Calum, Ashton and Michael crawl over to Luke and I, Luke gives them a look and then all of a sudden, hands are digging into my sides, into my neck, just everywhere besides my leg, tickling the crap out of me. I giggle like crazy, Ashton tickles me around my neck, Luke had lifted my singlet up a bit tickling the skin on my stomach, Calum helps him out, and Michael just tickles me everywhere. I giggle, and scream, this is too much tickling for me to handle all at once. Since my hands are set free because Luke let them go to tickle my stomach, I tickle Luke's neck, making him stop tickle me, and making him giggle. Luke jumps off of me, and ends lying on the floor. In the end, we all end up being tickled. It was the most funnest yet painful thing, I was laughing so much, and so hard that my chest was starting to ache.
We've been playing monopoly for the past twenty minutes, Blink 182's Greatest Hits album playing in the background, we've been going crazy, eating all this junk food, listening to this awesome album while playing monopoly, we've all cheated, and we keep stealing money from the bank when we loose money, Luke's winning he bought the two navy blue colored blocks of land, and put hotels and everything on them, and everyone keeps landing on it, and we all end up having no money.
The intro to Dammit begins to play and the boys kinda stop playing monopoly all together, and jump up pretending to play guitar.
'It's alright to tell me what you think about me, I won't try to argue or hold it against you, I know that you're leaving, you must have your reasons, The season is calling and your pictures are falling down.'
Calum mimics the lead singer, singing the song in the same pitch and ton. The other guys are just kinda jamming on their 'air' guitars. I just sit back looking at them like crazy people, Luke walks up to the stereo, turning up the volume a bit.
"Did you hear he fucked her?" They all say together. 'A day late, a buck short, I'm writing a report…'
I sit there giggling at them. They all go bonkers at the chorus, and I just sit there laughing, boys will be boys though, but I've never seen any boys have such a strong love for music as much as these boys in front of me, they just live for music. I reckon if music didn't exist they wouldn't be who they are today, at all. Neither would I. Music is love, Music is life.
See what I did. Shrek is love, Shrek is life. Music is love, Music is life. Oh, well I found it funny.
I grab the bag of chips, a shove a handful into my mouth. I like Blink 182, especially this song, but I don't know how to 'jam' to it. Put One Direction on, and I can jam to that, I promise, put on one of the boys songs and I could too. The song C'mon C'mon, the One Direction boys made up a 'dance' move to it-note they can't dance for shit-that's how I jam to one of One Direction's songs. Or I just spin around in circles to You and I, pointing at random things as if I'm singing to them.
I Miss You begins to play, I sit there and watch the guys sit down, and begin to sing along to it, I join in too, because this song maybe a little dark, but it's a really sweet song at least to me it is, I like this song.
'Don't waste your time on me, your already the voice inside my head.'
Luke sits down onto the floor, scooting over to me, he sits himself between my legs, and looks up at me singing. Those words repeat again, since the repeat a few times in the song, and he sings that.
We end up playing a bunch of rock/punk-ish music, Bink 182, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, and etc. Seeing as it's a curriculum day at our school on Friday which is tomorrow, I said the boys could stay over. So, I whipped out my One Direction 'Midnight Memories' album. Surprisingly, Calum knows all the words to most of the songs, but he does listen to it in the shower according to Luke.
We had actually finished the 'Midnight Memories' album, so I got out the 'Take Me Home' album, and decided to dance to it.
'Yeah, I've been watching you all night, theres something in your eyes.'
They watch me dance as if I'm a crazy person, but I just continue screaming out the lyrics, who's says I can't dance by myself? I like the music their into but I'll only dance to One Direction, because they do easy 'dance' moves. I hate dancing, but the dance moves they make are fun, and easy.
'So c'mon, c'mon and dance with me, baby.'
"Hey, don't ya'll look at me like that. You guys jammed to Blink 182, and all those other bands, I'm jamming to 1D." I say, running out of breath from dancing. I sit down on Luke's lap, leaning my head back onto his shoulder.
"Yeah, but it was rock music, this is pop music. Plus, your a terrible dancer." Luke says, I nudge him in the stomach.
"Eh. I know I am. I'm tired." I say, wrapping my arms around Luke's neck.
"Same. All that dancing and shouting and singing was exhausting." Calum says.
"Same." says Michael and Ashton at the same time. We all chuckle.
I ask Luke to look up at the clock on the wall to check the time since I can't read it since I'm not wearing my contacts or glasses. Turns out it's 3:32am. Is it weird that I've had more fun with a bunch of guys at a 'sleep over' kinda thing then I've had with girls at a 'slumber' party? Guys are just so outgoing, immature, funny, and just hilarious. Some many girls these days are too serious, I like to have fun, yeah I'm practically saying I'm serious and everything but I swear I'm not, when I try to be serious, I laugh.
"Luke can I burrow you to help grab some blankets and air beds?" I ask, standing up holding out my hand, he grabs it lifting himself up nodding his head. Their's a fold out bed in this couch, and then I have two double air beds, were all kinda sleeping in the lounge, cause it's fun that way.
"Oh, Calum. You'll need to get up, there's a fold out bed on that couch." I say, pointing to the couch. Calum jumps up, yanking his pants up, and he helps me take the cushions off the couch, and helps un-fold the fold out bed that already has blankets and stuff on it.
We're all finally set up in bed. I'm on a air bed with Luke, Calum's on an air bed with Ashton, and Michael's on the fold-out bed. Luke and I put the air bed behind the couch, and Calum's and Ashton's one is on the side of the couch. It's all quite squishy in this lounge.
Luke and I are pressed close to each other, lying on our sides. His arm is wrapped around my waist, and my arms are squeezed between us. His other hand his under my head, and he keep pushing hair out of my face. He smiles at me, and places a kiss onto my lips, before pulling the blankets further up, to cover mine and his own bare shoulders. Four shirtless and pant-less boys are in this lounge, their all wearing their boxes, and the weirder thing is…my Mum is totally 100% fine with it all.
We all hear someone fart, and the room begins to stink like eggs and bacon, that really disgusting smell, Luke and I pull the blankets over our noses, all of us making 'ew' noises.
"Calum!" Luke shouts, chuckling. Calum giggles, and I do too. The room freaking smells so gross.
"Oh, yuck! That's fucking gross, Cal!" Ashton yells.
Another fart is heard in the room, and Luke begins giggling, I shove his shoulder. I say 'ew'. Luke farted, and he's in the same bed as me. I stand up out of the bed, his fart is way more gross then Cal's.
"Luke!" I shout. "Ew. I'm not sleeping with you." I say, making my way to Michael, and where he's sleeping. Luke grabs my hand, and drags me back down on to the bed, covering me in the sheets, he can be romantic as anything, and right now he's being…a boy.
"Fucking hell, Luke! That fucking stinks!" Michael shouts, Calum and Ashton begin to shout about it stinking so 'fucking' bad, and stuff.
"Now, that's a fart to be proud of." Luke says, smirking.
Boys will be boys.