I took a deep, trembling breath and prepared myself to answer the phone, even though I knew the other person on the end of the line would know that I had been crying, my voice obviously thick with tears.
"Hello?" I asked timidly, hoping they wouldn't hear the ache in my body that I felt so deeply at that moment. I was being weak, I knew I shouldn't have been. I needed to suck it up and get over it.
I forced the ache down deep into the pit of my stomach until I could just barely remember that it was there and the voice on the other end of the phone began to speak.
"You don't sound fine, Red. Tell me what's wrong," Sebastian implored and I let out a groan, wondering what he was doing wasting his time on me when he had plenty of beautiful celebrities surely at his beck and call.
"I can't," I choked out, afraid that if I unloaded my family drama on him he wouldn't want to be around me anymore.
"Can't or won't?" he asked, the anger in his voice sending shivers quaking down my spine.
I shifted a little in my bed.
"Both?" I said, stating it like a question. I wasn't even really sure myself.
"Well try," he prompted me and I sighed out, just wanting to get the conversation over with so I could rest my tired body and mind.
"My parents divorce is just putting me in the middle of things, that's all..." I trailed off unconvincingly.
"Uh-huh," he responded, showing me that he actually wasn't convinced.
"Sebastian, what do you want from me?"
"Who says I want something from you?"
I stopped and thought about his remark for a moment. He was right, he didn't have to want something from me just to talk to me.
Did he want me to be his friend? His bootycall? Or even his girlfriend?!
I grimaced at that last thought. I wasn't whole enough to be anyone's girlfriend, at least not for a long while.
"Everyone wants something from everyone, its just how life works...." I trailed off, my throat closing up as the all consuming pain in my chest overtook my will to speak.
"Okay, yeah you're right. I do want something from you."
He paused. I held my breath.
"I want you to be happy," he finished and all conscious thought left my body.
Sebastian Jennings, who'd known me for less than two weeks, wanted me to be happy? It just didn't make sense to me why he cared so much, so that's exactly what I planned to ask him.
At least, it was until my mother started knocking on my door.
"Thank you but I am perfectly happy. So I'll talk to you later. Goodnight," I said to him, promptly ending the call before he could protest.
The last thing I wanted was my mom worrying about me on the phone late at night with a boy.
She didn't wait for me to tell her to come in as she pushed my door slightly ajar and poked her head in, her usually perfectly coiffed faux blonde locks in a disarray from her nap on the couch downstairs.
"Who was that you were on the phone with?" she asked me, the compassionate look she once held now replaced with a permanent scowl of suspicion etched onto her face.
"Just Josie, she was texting me and said I seemed a little down so she called me to make sure I was alright," I lied effortlessly. The less my mother knew about what had really been going on, the better.
Her scowl didn't go away, it only softened a bit. She didn't necessarily love Josie, she only tolerated her. We didn't have as much money as her family did and when she was able to get me better Christmas presents than my own family, it had created a wedge between my mom and my best friend.
Add in the fact that with my parents divorcing, that also meant that his money was going with him as well. That made for the perfect storm of hurt feelings and anger on every side.
The ache bloomed inside my chest a little more at that thought.
I cleared my throat and tried to push back all of the hurt inside of me at that moment and said goodnight to my mother, turning over to go to sleep.
My curiosity got the better of me however and I found myself cyberstalking Sebastian again.
Everything was normal like always...except for a post that went up less than twenty minutes ago.
Curious, I clicked on the Instagram picture and the air whooshed out of me like a popped balloon.
It was a picture of him and one of the most gorgeous looking women I'd ever seen. His arm was around her shoulder and she was pressed up against his side, arms wrapped all over him as close as she could get to him.
I mentally cursed myself for being so jealous, but it didn't stop me from creeping her page as well.
I already knew who she was. She was an actress, started out on Disney channel but when she got big, she left them and went to more risky tv shows filled with adult themes and foul language that would make anyone uncomfortable.
She'd started wearing more provocative clothing and soon enough, she'd started a pop culture revolution and trend setting.
Her name was Ali Hyland and her profile had even more photos of her and Sebastian than he did. Her first picture of them started the day of his last concert, the day I met him.
In this picture they were holding hands and sitting down at a table, gazing at each other and he had a big smile on his face. One that he'd never given me.
Of course he had a girlfriend. And what did it matter that he was trying to get with me? I didn't matter to him.
I was insignificant in his life, tiny in comparison to the big things in life that he would go on to accomplish and already had.
I locked the phone that he'd given me and threw it on the ground beside my bed not bothering to charge it.
I closed my eyes and allowed the sleep to consume me, the all powerful ache throbbing deep within my chest.
***
The next morning was almost better. My father never got the chance to apologize to me because I had switched phones and new numbers so he didn't really have a way to contact me, and because I didn't have to hear his voice again the ache was considerably smaller but I was still hurting.
I got ready for school like normal and hopped down the stairs, ready for anything the world could throw at me that day.
Until I got downstairs, that is.
"Holly, honey there you are I've been calling and your mother wouldn't let me up to see you. I'm sorry for what you heard on the phone last night it wasn't my intention to-"
I cut him off as I shoved my body weight into his shoulder pretending I hadn't heard a word my 'father' had just said.
"I'm going to school I don't have time to deal with this today," I said to my parents, a look of shock on their faces.
They had never seen me act so cold and detached to them before and I wasn't trying to make my mother feel badly, I just didn't want to deal with the pain.
As if on cue, a sharp blooming ache filled my chest and I had to blink back tears and desperately will it to go away.
I ran out the door and sighed in relief when I spotted Josie's familiar black BMW with the tinted windows and rushed to get inside.
My back was turned to her as I looked behind me towards my house one last time.
"Josie you'll never believe the shit show that happened last night," I started, but the words died in my throat as I heard a familiar chuckle that sounded far too manly to have come from my female best friend.
I gulped.
"No don't stop on my account, now was this show of shit before or after you left my place?" Sebastian asked me and I cursed myself for forgetting the drove similar cars and ironically made the exact same mistake he'd made the first night we met.
I looked over and saw that he was wearing a white v neck shirt that showed off his toned abs, one arm resting comfortably on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift, his signature cocky smirk plastered on his infuriatingly handsome face.
I couldn't speak as he reached over me and shut the door for me, for some reason it was like I was in a state of shock and couldn't say a single word in response to him.
"Speechless? Yes I tend to do that to women," he said to me, trying to make the air less tense but it was like I had sucked all the good energy out of the car.
The ache blossomed into a cavern in my chest and travelled up through my throat. I could barely breathe.
I looked at my hands and let the thoughts consume me as Sebastian shook his head and looked towards my house.
"Don't worry I'll get you out of here," he said, and with that, his fancy BMW roared to life and sped out of my neighborhood, my family home and my parents far behind me.