I'm not exactly unfit. I'm just not capable of running for longer then two minutes without breaking my inhaler. Morever, I have no intention of running for leisure. Absolutely none. Since I have never intentionally gone for a run, the only person that has ever seen me take part in this form of torture, was Luke. Bear in mind, it wasn't intentional- yet look at the state I was in. Therefore, he wouldn't want to go running with me again, right?
"Speed up, Soph!"
You'd think that, wouldn't you.
"Remind me why I'm doing this, again?" I panted, for the third time. My head was hurting, my knees were in pain and let's just say my mood, like my physical fitness, wasn't in the best state.
"It's a great way to clear your mind." Luke breathed from a few metres in front, not even out of breath yet. "Besides, I thought Calum told me you were into running?"
Oh yes, Calum. My boyfriend.
Of course.
Him and everyone else had, according to Luke, had all gone out that night 'to clear their minds' after he explained to them my innocence. I don't blame them, plus the press wasn't making it any easier. Turns out the night was a little wilder then expected, leading to the group splitting to different bars throughout the night. Thankfully, Bree had texted me assuring me they were all safe.
"I thought you ran competitively?"
"Clearly."
There was so much that was wrong about this moment in time. Firstly, I was up at six.
Six.
That's like the middle of the night.
Why did I allow myself to be dragged out of my snuggly cocoon of warmth at the crack of dawn, you ask? Well, when a six foot three manchild starts jumping on your bed, it's bound to wake you up. Secondly, it was Luke and for some odd reason, I couldn't say no to him.
It may have been because it was about five hours prior to when I usually wake up and my brain wasn't properly functioning.
Or maybe it was because Luke was in a snapback and he looked pretty damn attractive.
But let's just go with the first answer.
Let's go for a run, he said. It'll clear your mind, he said.
In fact, yes, it did clear my mind, alright. My mind was almost empty. Not of worries, oh no, I had tucked those in the back of my head for later. Conciousness. Yes, that's it, that's what I was lacking.
Long story short- I was about to faint.
"Is this what hell feels like?" I wheezed, my vision splitting into two as I narrowly avaoided a lampost.
"No pain, no gai-"
"What year is this, 1982?" I flung myself against the side of brick wall, slipping down until I was in a sitting position. "Shut up." I drenched myself with the contents of my water bottle, which I very stupidly filled with orange juice.
"What the heck are you doing?" Luke turned around, approaching me with a strange, perplexed look present on his face.
"Cooling down." I continued tipping the orange liquid over my face despite the wierded out looks Luke was sending in my direction.
"That's probably not the best ide-"
"Don't tell me how to live my life." I remarked, too busy attempting to regain oxegen into my system.
He rolled his eyes, chuckling to himself as he reached into his jacket, pulling out a small towel.
"You could have just told me you were tired." he smiled, wiping my cheek, clearly amused as I glared at him.
"I'm sorry, you must've missed my pleas during that twenty minute rendition of 'Eye of The Tiger' I had the pleasure of hearing back there." I snatched the towel out of his hands, patting my sticky self down.
He lifted his hands to his head, his arms, from his hands to his shoulders, were sweaty under the rising sun.
"Oops." he shrugged, "Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it, though." he winked, taking back the towel and folding it back into his pocket.
"You worry me sometimes." I shuddered, folding my arms. "How much longer 'till we get to the hotel?"
"About five more minutes?" Luke said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. And maybe, for a boy who's legs were approximately the length of Germany, it was. But this was five minutes of my precious time. Time that could be used for eating or sleeping. Valuble stuff.
I groaned, collapsing my whole body onto the ground.
"Sophie?"
"Go.. Go without me!" I sighed dramatically, flopping about on the ground like a casualty in a movie. "Leave me be..."
"And I'm the one your worried about?" Luke muttered to himself, shuffling towards me as I continued my oscer worthy injury scene. He lifted me up from my waist, flinging me onto his back. Luke grabbed my arms, tightening them around his neck before plopping his hat onto my head.
"You smell of orange juice." He joked, as he piggy- backed me the rest of the way.
"That's odd, I wonder why." I replied, smiling into his shoulder. "Giddy up horsey!" I laughed as Luke neighed, speeding up. "Ride like the wind!"
A muffled snort came from below me.
"What?" I asked, feeling Luke contain his laughter as I turned my head towards him.
"Huh? Nothing." He spluttered, looking directly in front as he tried to keep a straight face.
"Luke, what's so funny?"
"Neigh."
"Luke."
"Neigh!"
"Lucas, I'll tell your mother on you." I said firmly, a sentance I never thought I'd say after my tenth birthday.
"Th- That's," His face reddened as he cracked up with laughter. He licked his lips, his face turning to mine as he giggled foolishly.
"That's what she said."
***
Back at the hotel, Luke, after his self- proclaimed, extremely hilarious innuendo, had gone back up to the suite. Whilst I was in the cafe below, treating myself to a very well deserved muffin.
Classy was an understatement. The so called 'Cafe' could've easily been a five star restaurante with all the right componants: Snobby waiters, speckless surfaces and drinks so expensive you'd expect to have the straw carved out of gold.
I plonked myself down on a velvet (I repeat, velvet.) stool up by the counter, ignoring the glares from the workers as I left mud trails on the was-glossy floors. I think it's fair to say that I stuck out like a sore thumb. Surrounding me were people dressed in immaculate suits and dresses, hair coiffed neatly and shoes so spotless they squeaked as they strutted down the lobby.
Just as I was estimating how much hairspray there possibly was in one womans hair, a certain girl with a blue mane caught my eye. In fact, she didn't just catch my eye out of coincidence- she was heading right towards me.
I whipped back around in my seat, my focus on gobbling down the mountain of a chocolate muffin in front of me. I heard the sound of a stool moving, indicating that she had sat right beside me. I felt a tap on my shoulder,
"Sophie?"
For some reason, I had thought it was a good idea to have stuffed my face with cake, oblivious to the fact that it would be applicable and frankly predicatable that she would try and talk to me.
"Person?" I replied, my mouth still full. I wanted to kick myself for thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I pretended to not know her she may have just mistaken me for someone else. Even though she had addressed me by my own name, but still, that was only a minor stepback in the plan.
She laughed uncomfortably,
"Ani." she pointed to herself, "Can I talk to you?"
A few moments passed as I held a finger up, shrugging coyly as I gestured at my full mouth. She nodded as I swallowed the contents in my mouth. Ani smiled, waiting for my reply. Which, by the way, she wasn't getting as I quickly took another another bite, grabbed my muffin and scurried out of the cafe.
I raced through the lobby, carefully cluthing my muffin as, to be honest, the muffin was probably my main priority right now. Well, that and getting away from Ani of course.
"Sophie, wait!" Ani chased after me, the sound of her boots getting louder by the second. I repeatedly pushed at the button of the elevater, hoping that the doors would open before Ani would reach me and possibly skin me to death.
Thankfully, the elevators did open and I jumped in as soon as I did so. Unfortunately for me, fate only cooperates with me for a minimal fraction of the time, as Ani managed to catch up with me right before the doors slid shut.
"You're a fan of running away, huh?" she said, referencing to the other day, which in no way made me want to talk to her any more then I did already. Which, for the record, was a big fat zero.
"Oh, you were talking to me?" I babbled, suddenly realizing that I was now in a small enclosed area with a girl I had been warned about multiple times of. "I, uh," I took another bite out of my muffin, attempting to act casual even though my bladder was threatening to burst. Nice visual for you there, huh.
"I didn't realize." I smiled sweetly. A high pitched ring sounded and the elevator doors slid open, "Ah, well this is my floor so if you'd excuse me..." I trailed off as I attempted to escape. Ani's hand heavily slammed onto a button on the side, re- closing the doors, leaving me facing the metal slides.
"Cut the crap, Sophie." she said suddenly, her forehead creasing as glowered at me. "What's going on here?"
I tilted my head, mirroring her expression. Her face was pale and her eyes were droopy. The night out had clearly taken a toll on her. She was dressed in the same shirt and jeans she had wore the last time I saw her and her frosted hair was thrown to the side.
"Why don't you tell me." I challenged, raisng my eyebrows amused at the look of surprise on Ani's face. "I should've listened to Bree," I shook my head, "She warned me about you."
"Excuse me?" she said, taken aback. "Don't bring Bree into this, she's just a-"
"She's my friend." I interupted. "And she is a lovely girl. She doesn't make false accusations, she doesn't frame people. Nice girl." I grimaced at Ani, "You should try it sometime."
"Wow..." she laughed to herself, running her hand through her hair. "Calum can do so much better, you realize that, right?"
I wanted to punch her. I could have, that is if I had the upper body strength and didn't have a delicious muffin in my hand that I definately wasn't going to waste on a person like her. Also, she had a pretty face and pretty face can only get you so far in life, anyway.
Hopefully, one day, that fact will punch her in the face for me.
"I'm fully aware of it, actually." I said, desperately trying to get the words out before I lost them in my tightening throat. The doors flew open, I stepped out but not before looking back at Ani, who stayed put in the elevater. "But you don't deserve Ashton, you realize that, right?"
I rushed through the hallway, before knocking franctically at the hotel room, hoping that Luke would open it quickly so I wouldn't have to scream out here. It's funny, there's frustration and there's anger. Frustration, I guess, is just extreme annoyance. It heats up, then cools down.
Then there's anger. What's the cure for anger? Well, I didn't know. That is, until luke opened the door in fluffy slippers and goofy grin. Because right there and the, immediately, for some unknown, non-scientific reason- I forgot what anger even felt like.
"Look at this." he shoved a phone into my face, pulling me inside the room.
I took hold of the device, noticing that it was on a video. I pressed play, watching as Luke stood over my shoulder and watched with me.
"Ed Sheeran." Luke spoke, as if he couldn't even believe his own words. One the screen was a very familiar British artist, strumming on a guitar, singing an even more familiar song.
"I was fifteen when I first covered his songs, if someone would have told me that two years later he would be covering the band's song, i just," he smiled at the screen of the phone that exhibited a cery stripped back version of 'She Looks So Perfect'.
"This is just unreal."
I looked over at Luke. His eyes were glazed over, his smile refusing to leave his face. I took his hand and dragged him towards the bedroom.
"Wait, the video isn't finished yet!" He whined as I opened the door on the left.
I sat Luke down on the bed, ignoring his confused questions and 'Ed Sheeran's so damn cool'.
In the corner of the room, Luke's acoustic guitar leaned against the wall. I grabbed it before handing it over to him.
"Play me it." I demamded, sitting myself down next to him. He shot me another odd look, but didn't retaliate from my request.
He started strumming the intro of 'Lego House', his eyes darting from my own, then down to the guitar before finding their way back to mine each time, without fail.
Luke sang the song out by heart, reciting the lyrics without even thinking about it. His eyes squeezed shut at certain points and his voice tumbled out the lyrics as if he had written them himself.
Suddenly, my mind flashed back to the first time I had met Luke- not forgetting, of course, his infamous penguin pajamas.
From that, it went to the radio station where he helped me answer that extremely stupid question about beverages, yet he helped me anyway.
It puzzled me how that guy back then and the person in front of me right now were the same person, yet it made perfect sense to me. That may not make any sense to anyone else- but that's when I realized. I had been waiting for someone to come and fix me, to solve me. I was a puzzle after all, right?
"And I'll surrender up my heart..." Luke sang, his eyes unscrunching as he stopped strumming. "Swap it for yours."
But that's not the point.
"Oh no." Luke sighed, shaking his head, eyes still focused on mine.
"What?"
"Calum's going to kill me if I do this, but," Luke put his guitar aside, making sure that there was nothing inbetween us. "You can't learn from mistakes if you don't make any right?"
I was the old box of puzzles, with broken cardboard and missing pieces.
"Don't hold me down..." Luke continued to sing without the guitar, so close to me I could feel his soft breath in my face.
But he found the box, and was stupid enough to attempt to fix it.
"I think my braces are breaking..." I whispered back the lyrics as our foreheads touched.
Complete puzzles are boring, anyway. I had always despised the fact I was thrown to the back if the shelf and I would've given any thing for someone to pick me up and solve me. But what happens to the puzzle when you've completed it? It goes back up in the shelf were it came from.
I was an incomplete puzzle. In fact, I am an incomplete puzzle. People are silly enough to pull me off of my shelf and attempt me in the first place.
I'm never going to be solved. But the fact that I was lucky enough for little boy comes around and refuse to give up on me, well, what more could I ask for.
"And it's more then I can take."
Who knew that little boy would be Luke Hemmings.
He started to lean it.
And I let him.
"Sophie!" a voice shouted, followed by a slam of a door against a wall, the sheer volume pulling me and Luke away in surprise.
The rumble of footsteps errupted from outside before Michael burst into the room.
"Sophie," Michael panted, beads of sweat present on his face, followed by Ashton who was in in the same state.
"Woah, what's wrong?" I asked hurridly, panicked under the sudden change in atmosphere.
"We, me and Mikey, we saw" Ashton spluttered, they both looked alarmed and red, niether of them managing out a prper sentance. "They, Cal and Bree, they-"
"What did you see?" Luke boomed from beside me, demanding an answer.
Ashton and Michael looked at eachother before they both faced me.
"It's Calum," Michael started, in a tone I had never even heard him utter before. "We've caught Calum cheating on you."