I graduated last week and that is the reason this update took for ever to finish. I've been a mixture of tipsy and hungover every time I've written but I hope it is decent.
This chapter is dedicated to @arixellemarie because of the absolutely heartwarming and motivating comments you left on my work last week. It was truly inspiring. Love you x. Hope you enjoy.
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Rosie's POV
Green eyes reflected back at me as I stood in front of the mirror in my room, only dressed in my underwear. Matty had left a note, that he and the rest of the guys had gone to a meeting about the album. I smiled and swayed to the familiar tune of "sex" that apparently had made it onto the demo of their album, I had gotten last night.
I ran my hand across the small purple-ish marks that were delicately but generously spread across the skin of my neck. I could still feel the electrical, tingling sensation of Matty's hands on my body, his breath in my ear, his lips on mine. The feeling of his love.
Even though his smell and touch still lingered on my skin, I was still missing him and yearning for him with every inch of my body. I loved him. Simple as that.
I shook my head, trying to shake myself out of my little Matty-bubble and tugged on a black, fitted turtleneck and a pair of mum jeans. The snow was still laying on the ground like a thick, cuddly duvet and I shivered just by the thought of stepping outside of the flat. It had been a long time since I had had a day without the company of my four flatmates, and I reached for my phone in the hopes of preserving the relationship with my best friend.
" Hey Alex. You up for some ice-skating and hot chocolate? <3 "
I didn't even get to put my phone down before it beeped, signalling that my best friend had replied.
" Morning R. Sure thing. I do sick pirouettes.<3 "
" If you say so. I'll pick you up in ten x "
I tugged my phone into my back pocket and put on my boots and a thick jacket before making my way to the front door. I patted down the front of George's jacket, snatching his car keys from his pocket before walking out to his sorry excuse of a car. It probably wasn't safe to drive, but it was the only thing available. Plus it had winter tires, which turned out to be a good thing because the small streets to Alex's place hadn't been cleared properly.
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Much to my surprise, Alex wasn't kidding when he had said he was good at ice skating, and I had made a complete fool out of myself multiple times by falling on my arse, resulting in Alex having to pick me up repeatedly.
" I swear my bum is aching," I whined, rubbing my lower back as I reached down to untie the laces on the skates after our 30-minute skating session.
Alex laughed and stood from his spot beside me, skates in one hand as he reached out his free hand to help me up. I grabbed it, still a little wobbly after my feet had been cramped up on those blades of death. I swear, I was lucky my skull hadn't been cut open by the number of times it nearly had hit the ice.
" That's because you are so incredibly clumsy. I swear, I think your butt was more in contact with the ice than your actual skates were," he laughed, tugging his woollen beanie down to cover his ears.
It was rather cold and late noon, and we quickly turned in the skates we had rented before entering the small café that was beside the ice rink. We were quickly assigned a table, and Alex being the Instagram addict he was, demanded that we took a picture together before I was allowed to touch my hot chocolate. And so, he asked the waiter to take pictures of us. One with his arms wrapped around me, the other where I had wiped whipped cream on his nose, resulting in him being cross-eyed.
" Jonah is gonna love these," Alex chuckled as he tugged his phone back in his pocket.
I grinned from ear to ear as I picked up my cup and finally sipped the sweet chocolate substance.
" How are things with you and Matty?" he asked, blowing into his own cup to cool the hot liquid.
" Like love wise or addiction wise?" I asked, holding the mug firmly between my hands in the hopes of warming them up.
" Both," he clarified, leaning back and raising a brow.
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Matty's POV.
" Turn down the treble a little, will you?" I asked, pointing towards the screen in front of George.
We had been adjusting the last small details on the album in the studio for the last three hours or so, and at this point, it was just straight up nitpicking. No one could tell the difference anymore.
I leaned back in my chair and scrolled through my phone with a heavy sigh. Normally I was thrilled to be doing this, but I was tired, I needed a smoke and now that I was back in the studio I could suddenly hear Rosie's father's voice in my head. It had been a messed up day when we visited her family. I had felt incredibly out of place but also incredibly guilty after meeting her brother.
I shook my head, trying to avoid my stream of thoughts and turned my attention back to my phone. Alex had posted two pictures of him and Rosie. I assumed, she had taken her time off from us to go and hang out with him. Not that I minded. I was over and done with being jealous of him, even though the way he held her in the first picture made me question his alleged homosexuality.
I double tapped and continued scrolling, but nothing really seemed to catch my attention.
" Mate, are you even listening?" George said, hitting my foot which rested on the table beside his computer.
" What?" I glanced up from my phone and tugged it back in my pocket.
" How do you want the guitars layered? Which one in the front and which in the back?" He asked.
Honestly, I was rather annoyed that I was the one having to make these decisions. George, Ross and Adam where more than capable of thinking for themselves, but then again, they were probably just as aware as myself, that I would most likely change everything they did anyway.
" Just put Adam's guitar as the lead," I decided as the door swung open.
I rolled my eyes. The record label had hired this girl Jane as our "assistant", whom we knew from our teenage years. She was good looking with her long blonde hair and big boobs, not gonna lie, but she was also incredibly annoying.
" You guys hungry? I'll go and grab you something," she asked, bending down beside my chair to pick up her purse. Her boobs almost fell out of her top in the process. I swear she did it on purpose.
" Please," George moved his eyes, from where they had previously been locked on his screen, to look at her, or rather her boobs. " I'm starving."
" What would you like?" she asked with a chuckle and smiled innocently at George. I swear they were probably shaggin.
I didn't even know why we needed an assistant, or why it had to be her, and I hadn't really been listening when it was explained to me. Something about, how it was good to have an assistant that already knew you. Which, to me, sounded absolutely fucking stupid.
The only acquaintance she had with us was because of the fact that she used to shag about with us about a year ago, or so. It was back when we had just moved to London.
Other than the fact that she " knew us" I didn't really get why it had to be her. The only thing she was good at was looking hot and working her mouth, and that was to be understood in more than one way.
But oh well, I guess there was not much more to it, maybe the ability to brew some coffee, but I guess that was about everything an assistant was to do anyway.
" Anything really," I said, wanting her to leave again. She was a reminder of everything I didn't like about myself.
" Alright then," she mumbled and turned on her heel and exited the room to go and pick up some food somewhere.
" She's fit," George said, turning his attention back to me after having followed her with his eyes as she left the room.
" I think what you are trying to say is, that she has great boobs," Ross corrected, receiving a high five from Adam.
" Shut up," George said and edited something on the computer.
I knew he didn't fancy her. She was the sort of girl who spent every waking moment of her day trying to seduce people. Not that it was a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, she was great in bed, but that was a chapter I was done with, and secondly, she was only ever in it for the excitement and potential drama. Not that there ever was any. I was pretty sure she had been with every member of the band and there was no jealousy between us. It was just sex.
" If we have this done and perfected by next month we can still manage to tour the UK this year," George said, averting the topic of conversation.
The door suddenly opened and I turned around in my chair, mentally preparing myself for whatever rubbish that would exit Jane's mouth now, but to my surprise, it was Rosie, standing there with two bags of food in her arms.
" I brought fish and chips," she announced, making everyone stand from their seats before crashing down in the lounge area in the corner of the room.
I guess we were all way more hungry than we had originally anticipated cause in a matter of five minutes, we had devoured every little piece of food she had brought.
" God, it's like you can read our minds," George said, leaning back in his chair, throwing a napkin at the table in front of us, that now only contained greasy newspaper wrapping and empty soda cups.
" Well, I do study the human psyche," she laughed, winking at him from her spot by my side, " and on that note," she added, grabbing her bag and looking through it before pulling up her psychology book. " I have some studying to do while you guys finish whatever you were doing before I arrived," she added, opening her book onto a page where a little neon sticker stuck out from the top of the page.
I smiled and looked back at George with a raised brow as if saying 'shall we?' but he just smiled and shook his head.
" You can stay here another 15 minutes. We have to re-record the bass and Adam's guitar in 'Settle Down.' There's some unwanted crunch on the recording," he explained, making me nod as the three of them gathered their instruments, though they all stopped in their tracks by the sound of the door opening.
" So, I'm telling you it's snowing again and it's absolutely freezing outside, and then the Italian was closed so I had to walk all the way to Maccies," Jane rambled as she entered the room with two McDonald's bags in her hands.
I rolled my eyes. I had almost forgotten about her.
She smiled triumphantly, lifting the bags above her head, but as soon as she saw the rubbish at the table she dropped it all to the floor with a frustrated sigh. " You already fucking ate?"
Now, Rosie lifted her nose from her book and looked confused at first, before standing from her spot on the chair, reaching out her perfect little hand towards Jane.
" Sorry, that's my fault. I didn't know you were buying them food. I just tried to help," she explained, seeming sincerely sorry about the 'extreme effort' Jane had put into getting the McDonald's food that was now scattered across the carpet on the floor.
At least she was the one that was going to clean it up.
I knew that Jane lacked some basic social skills but I was still rather surprised when she just snorted, turned on her heel and left the room.
Rosie slowly lowered her hand, placing it on her upper arm, rubbing it uncomfortably.
" Don't mind her. That's what I do," I said reassuringly before gathering our trash and tossing it in the bin, as George, Ross and Adam left to go to the booth in the other room.
Rosie stood nailed to the same spot for about a minute before she eventually sat back down, picking up on the page where she had left off.
" Have you had a good day?" I asked, sitting down after cleaning the table.
She was incredibly focused and I chuckled at the way her eyebrows were furrowed. Clearly, she was having a hard time understanding something she was reading. At first, I thought she hadn't heard me, but after tilting her head in confusion and shaking her head, she finally closed it and looked up at me with a small smile.
" Yeah, Alex and I went Ice skating, but in reality, we didn't do much skating, it was mostly thirty minutes of me falling on my arse, and him picking me up," She explained with a giggle, as she moved to sit beside me.
I chuckled and grabbed her hand. " You are rather clumsy," I laughed, fiddling with her fingers before looking at the book she had pushed across the table.
" Hard to understand?" I asked, making her furrow her eyebrows again as she gazed at the book.
" It's this model for psychoanalysis by this dude Freud, that I don't get," she said, making me chuckle at my own lack of education. She might as well have spoken Russian.
" Why did you decide to study psychology?" I asked, looking at her face that was resting against my shoulder at this point.
" I don't know," she sighed, playing with my fingers before looking up to meet my eyes. " I guess, I thought that I could help my brother," she continued. I could feel a knot of guilt form in the pit of my stomach.
" I actually wanted to talk to you about him," I said slowly. I wasn't quite sure how she would react.
She didn't reply, but I could feel her nod her head against the surface of my shoulder.
" I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," I continued under my breath. At this point, I was fiddling with her fingers to distract myself from the thoughts of her brother that was now haunting my brain.
" What do you mean?" she asked, lifting my hand to her lips, placing small delicate kisses on my knuckles. She had a tendency to do so when she knew that I felt bad about something.
I leaned back enough to force her to sit up straight and face me.
" It's just. I knew you moved here to get away, but I didn't know from what, and now that I know that you left to get away from your drug addict of a brother, I can't help but feel terrible that you moved here just to be exposed to another," I explained, cupping both of her small hands in mine.
" Matty, stop," she said with a sigh, looking at our hands before meeting my eyes. " You always do this. Stop feeling guilty." She lifted her hand to my cheek, running her thumb across my jaw with a caring smile.
She was right. I did always feel bad when something I did affected her. Normally, I only thought of myself. I had a tendency to set fire to everything around me but I would never ever allow a flame to touch her, and if she occasionally did get burned, I couldn't help but feel responsible for it.
" But I do. You moved to get away from drugs, drinking and your unsteady daily life and what you got here was just the same," I continued, removing her hand from my cheek. " I just, I'm sorry, ok? I know you didn't tell me about him because you didn't want to make things harder for me, but I can't help but feel bad about everything," I explained further, seeing as she looked down at our hands that were resting in my lap.
" I didn't wanna risk changing your behaviour around me. I wanted you to know me for me and not for my background. You changed because you wanted to and not because you felt pressured to because of my past, and that is the true path to getting better in my opinion. Besides, I didn't choose my brother, but I did choose you, with everything that comes with you. I love you, Matty, so don't think you owe me an apology. If anything, you proved to me that there is, in fact, hope," she explained with such gentleness and love.
I couldn't help but smile.
" I'm more motivated than ever. When I had that talk with him outside of your house, I saw myself in him so much it was scary. I could relate to his restlessness and desperateness so much, that it pained me to watch. It was like seeing myself a year ago. I wanna get better and I'm really really trying, not only for you but also for myself, but It's very hard. I'm just happy you haven't lost faith in me," I said, cupping her face between my hands, lingering my lips against her forehead.
" Do you remember what you said to me the first time we talked about my addiction?"
I could feel her shake her head no against my lips that still rested against her forehead.
" You told me that I needed an anchor," I reminded, leaning back enough to catch her eyes. " You are my anchor," I whispered.
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Ok, so the end here is a little cheesy, but that is the only way I could manage to end this chapter. Let me know what you think, and don't forget to vote and comment.
Also, if you have any ideas, feel free to send me a message! I would love to hear your wishes and ideas for the story <3