Alyssa
I thought that going camping with the guys would be a fun time, that was until everyone had a massive argument before we even left London. I wish I could say it was just a five minute dispute that was resolved before we got into the cars but I would be lying. It all started with the most stupid little comment that Matty made about Adam. Usually he would brush it off but clearly Adam was fed up of the constant hits that Matty would put out on him. Ross told Adam to ignore Matty's childish behaviour and that led to Adam making a remark about how Matty should fuck off and do some lines because he's more tolerable then.
To say Matty was offended would be a major understatement, even though Adam was only joking and wanted to hit Matty in a sore spot, it didn't sit well with him. That sent Matty into mood that literally no one seemed to pull him out of. He even begun snapping at me for petty little things. This caused me to tell him to stick his camping trip up his arse and refused to go.
I wasn't serious about it though, I still wanted to go and then after half an hour of convincing from Nessa and George I agreed to come. But I refused to go in the car with Matty, I wasn't in the mood to do a 3 hour drive to Manchester with him in the 25 degree heat while he was in a pissy mind set.
I think it annoyed him more that I didn't go in the car with him, Ross and Chelsea since he was excited to use his new car for the trip. I opted for a better car load with George, Adam and Nessa. Which maybe was me being a little more petty than necessary but he was being rude to me for no reason.
By the sounds of it though, we had a much better time on the drive up north. Nessa and I played One Direction songs as loud as we possibly could, singing along terribly until George took the aux back and played Slipknot to "cleanse" his ears. Adam didn't mind what we listened to thankfully.
I didn't really know where we were going to be honest, all I do know is it's not right in Manchester but about a 40 minute drive away. We were closer to the west coast near the beach. It was kinda weird in a way, the place we ended up in was this massive forest that led out into a lake. We parked the cars in an opening big enough for the tents and an area to set up a fire.
"Well you're stuck here now Alyssa, goodluck." George turned towards both me and Nessa in the backseat.
"That really doesn't give me any reassurance about this weekend." I looked at him with slight worry in my voice.
"It won't be that bad..." He trailed off. "Well actually it'll probably be shit now your boyfriends in a raging mood with everyone."
"Yeah that's kinda my worry now." I looked over at Matty's car and he was looking through his phone with a face that said nothing but anger. "And by the looks of it he's not lightened up any."
"Well you're stuck with it for 2 days but hopefully he will have changed his tune by then." George shrugged.
"He can dish it but can't take it sometimes, maybe he shouldn't be such a prick all the time." Adam looked round at me.
"Hopefully he will learn not to be a dick to you all the time then." I gave Adam a small smile.
"This is Matty we're talking about." George laughed.
"Yeah, you're right." Adam nodded and joined in laughing. Ross knocked on the window of George's door so he rolled it down.
"You guys just gonna stay in the car all weekend?" He asked us.
"Has the delicate princess stopped throwing his strop yet?" George shot back at Ross.
"What do you think?" Ross chuckled.
"Then we're locking the doors, goodluck." George quickly rolled the window back up. It made me laugh because even though it started off with everyone arguing in some way, at least the rest of us got over it pretty quickly.
We all bit the bullet and got out of the car, I took as much time as I possibly could due to the fact that realistically, Matty and I have never had a proper fall out. Not really, usually if we have a disagreement we make up pretty quickly or just flat out avoid each other until we calm down. This was unavoidable at this point, so I didn't really know what to say or do.
I helped George take the tents out of the car and start setting them up. "Hold this." George passed me a pole. "And this." He then passed me the pegs.
"I don't really know what the fuck I'm doing so this might end badly." I told him.
"Well I can show you, then you'll have learned something today." He smiled at me.
"I guess everyday is a school day." I said sarcastically, I wasn't brought here on the knowledge that I was gonna learn the ropes of camping. I just wanted to get pissed with my mates and boyfriend.
"Don't be ungrateful Alyssa, you're getting free teaching here." George shot back. When he wasn't looking I mimicked his facial expressions as he talked to me but unluckily for me he caught me. "Fuck sake go talk to the girls then." He huffed. I gave him a sweet smile and handed him back the poles and pegs.
I walked over to Nessa and Chelsea, they were sitting on the bonnet of George's car chatting away. "So this is going to be an interesting weekend." Nessa shot me a smirk.
"You can say that again." I rolled my eyes and leaned against the car.
"So you not gonna talk to him?" Nessa asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Well he was the one snapping the fuck back at me for no fucking reason so until he comes and apologises for his childish behaviour, I'm not going to speak to him." I shrugged.
"Men are the worst for admitting when they do petty things." Chelsea spoke up.
"So it could be a long wait." Nessa agreed.
"He doesn't usually do things like this though, whenever we've had a dispute in the past we always end up saying sorry within the hour but this one really annoyed me." I sighed. "Adam was only biting back with a joke and now he's acting like it was the most offensive thing he's ever had done to him."
"Sometimes things just hit a sore spot and clearly that was one of them." Nessa said quietly as Matty started to walk towards his car that was dangerously close to us. "I'm sure it'll blow over."
"Hmm, we'll see." I rolled my eyes. Matty glanced over at us but didn't say anything, he just went into the boot of the car and pulled out his backpack and our tent. "I would offer to help but he's got no chance now." I finally said as soon as he walked over to where George was.
"I think we're all in for a treat this weekend." Chelsea chuckled quietly.
"Yeah because your boyfriends have the maturity level of adults whereas mine can barely pass as a 6 year old." I rolled my eyes.
"You chose to date him." Nessa shot me a smirk.
"Nessa didn't you have a thing with him." I tilted my head to the side with a grin appearing across my face. Her smirk faded quickly.
"We all make mistakes Alyssa." She broke out into a laugh. "I'd rather not think about that one."
"What was he like back then?" I asked curiously, Nessa didn't really talk about it probably due to the fact that me and Matty split up just after it was revealed that they used to shag.
"You really want to get into this now?" She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Why not? You've never spoken about it before." I shrugged.
"Yeah probably because it's a bit weird to talk to your mate about how you used to shag her boyfriend, plus the fact you two only just got back together and it was kinda my fault you two ended up splitting up in the first place." She said.
"It wasn't your fault, granted it seems like that was a cause but it wasn't an issue in my head." I told her.
"So you really want to know?" She asked cautiously. I looked over at Matty as he threw some parts of the tent on the ground in frustration.
"Sure why not." I looked back at Nessa.
"He was very different back then, he was so hyper focused on getting drunk and high with his mates that most things didn't really seem to matter to him." She explained. "I came into his life at a point where it was all starting to implode on him, which I'm not proud of. I didn't know he had a girlfriend otherwise I'd never have slept with him that night."
"How did he react to cheating on her?" I asked nervously.
"He was a mess, not that it's any excuse but he was so drunk that night I don't think he truly knew what he was doing." I nodded along. "When he realised what happened I couldn't sit there and let that poor girl find out the hard way, so I told her."
"How did she react?" I frowned.
"Heartbroken of course but she left him, rightfully so. He did regret it a lot though and I tried to be there for him as much as I could be but I wasn't someone he wanted in that way. He didn't want the constant reminder of the mistake that he made." She sighed. "And it's a shame because I wanted to be his friend at the very least but it just didn't work out that way."
"Did you have feelings for him?" I asked.
"Not really, it was more of a friends with benefits type of thing for a bit but it didn't last long." She said. "I moved on pretty quickly when I realised that he was spiraling into a pit of depression and didn't want me involved in his life much. That mixed in with their growing fame, he didn't have time to stick around anymore."
"I think it's mad that you never met any of the other guys during that time." I chuckled.
"Yeah, other than Adam which was a 5 minute encounter that you can barely even count as meeting each other." She pointed out. "But at the end of the day, things worked out better than I ever imagined. I have a boyfriend that I love and a good group of friends."
"Mad to think you could've ended up with Matty instead." I smirked.
"I dread to think honestly, there was just nothing there except a few quick shags that weren't that good cause he was so smashed half the time." She laughed.
"I'm glad he's not really that bad anymore." I said quietly. The truth is I don't know if he's really any better, maybe on some level he is with how he treats the people around him but his intake of drugs and alcohol haven't really changed from what I've learned over the months.
"You've really changed him a lot, George talks about it loads." Nessa gave me a warm smile.
"Nah, don't do that." I gave her a warning look.
"Do what?" She asked.
"Don't make me go all soft with him now, I'm annoyed at him remember." I laughed.
"Your anger won't last for long, you know that." Chelsea said quietly.
"Until he says sorry, I'm sticking to my guns." I said firmly.
"Good, make him work for it." Nessa grinned at me. I looked over at Matty again and he was sitting on the ground looking pretty defeated. His ego wouldn't let him ask anyone for help also he was still putting on the brooding male act so he was deflecting everyone from his presence.
-
Matty
Everyone was pissing me off today, no matter how much I told myself to calm down I just couldn't. I was on edge with every fucking thing that happened. I didn't mean to take it out on Alyssa though but I was too far into my mood that it wouldn't matter now. She was clearly annoyed at me.
The fact that she was going to ditch the trip because of it though made me feel like such a shitty boyfriend. I shouldn't have gotten to the point where she didn't even want to come on the trip we planned just for her. The moment I realised how much I really fucked up though was when she went in George's car for the drive up. I was so excited for us to make the trip together, I even made a playlist of all our favourite songs but in the end I was stuck with Ross and Chelsea. It wasn't that bad but I'd of rather Alyssa with me too.
I looked over at her and the girls, they were by George's car and having a laugh. At least she was having a good time despite me being an idiot. "Do you need help?" George asked me. I looked up at him and shrugged.
"I don't think you can offer me the help I need." I said a little too bitterly.
"Enough with the self loathing mate, you're dragging the mood a bit." He rolled his eyes and picked up the poles by my legs. I looked up at him with a glare.
"What do you suggest then? Pretend that I'm not in a shitty mood?" I asked him.
"Well you're here with your girlfriend that you so desperately tried to get back for the past month and a half yet you went off on her today completely unprovoked." He said firmly, giving me a stern look. "Maybe start with fixing that issue then lighten up a bit, this is supposed to be a good weekend reliving some of our youth."
"I've already been too much of dick so far to suddenly jump back into being myself again." I said a little defeated.
"Matty you're always a dick, there is no change here." George shot back with a chuckle.
"You're not helping at all." I mumbled.
"I was offering to help with the tent, you're too far gone for my help personally." He laughed even harder.
"Thanks." I muttered under my breath. I noticed Alyssa glance over at me but she stopped smiling as soon as she saw me looking at her. It was like a sucker punch to the gut seeing her face turn blank as she stared at me. I really fucked up didn't I?
-
After an hour of trying to get our tents all set up and some music playing, we finally were able to sit down and get a fire pit going. Alyssa still hadn't talked to me and I was beginning to feel like the longer I left it, the more annoyed she would get. She was currently playing a game of snap with Adam, why I do not know. Who plays snap anymore?
I got up off the ground and walked over to them and sat down. They both shared a confused look at my sudden arrival. "Snap!" Adam said loudly, placing his card down on top of the pile.
"That's a queen you idiot." Alyssa shot back quickly, Adam looked at the cards again and groaned. "You're so shit at this." She giggled.
"I get too excited, fuck sake." Adam groaned.
"Can I play?" I asked, they both looked at me and then back at each other.
"Sure, I was gonna stop anyway since I'm just too good at the game." Adam said sarcastically and handed me his cards. I positioned myself so that I was sitting across from Alyssa. She played the next card and then so did I.
"Snap." She said in the monotone voice. I played another card and then she followed.
"Snap!" I said a little more enthusiastically than she did. This continued for a few more cards until I felt the tension was getting too much. "Are you going to talk to me?" I asked.
"Snap." She said. "I don't know, are you going to shout at me again?" She asked bitterly, picking up the cards.
"I didn't mean to." I said softly, placing a card down. She placed another down too.
"Well that's all nice and dandy but I don't think I did anything to deserve you having a hissy fit at me this morning." She shrugged, putting another card down.
"Snap." I said. "I know you didn't, I was just in a shit mood earlier."
"If this is your attempt to apologise to me then it's not working so far." She looked at me, narrowing her eyes.
"I'm trying." I whined, placing another card down on the ground.
"Not very well." She shrugged, mirroring my action. More cards were placed down.
"What do you want me to say Alyssa?" I snapped, she looked up at me and I could see the anger rise in her again. "Snap."
"Nothing." She mumbled, throwing the cards down on the ground and standing up. "Let me know when you figure out how to be a decent person sometimes."
I sat there staring at the cards in my hand. "Well I've fucked it once again, haven't I?" I mumbled to myself.
"Yeah mate, you have." Ross said as he walked by.
-
Alyssa
"Do you think it's a good idea to be that close to the fire while you're this drunk?" I asked George as he swayed next to the open flames. He looked at me and shot a goofy grin in my direction.
"It's all fine." He slurred drunkenly. "Besides if I fall in the fire, be funny."
"Yeah 3rd degree burns in the middle of nowhere is a laugh." I rolled my eyes at him.
"Right okay, I'll move away." He backed up but didn't see the log behind his feet and tripped. He landed on his back in a fit of laughter. "Yeah you're right, someone else take over fire duty for now. I'm way too drunk." He chuckled loudly.
"Nessa come and get your man before he injures himself." I called out towards her, she was sitting at the door of their tent talking to Chelsea.
"Fuck sake George." I heard her mumble, looking over at her boyfriend lying on the ground.
"I'm gonna take a breather." I laughed, standing up and walking away from the area. I walked down towards the lake and found a rock to sit on.
The sun had just about set at this point and I wasn't nearly drunk enough to face the rest of the evening. Matty spent a large chunk of the night sulking about and barely talking to anyone. I wanted things to get sorted as quickly as possible but the fact that he was still being moody towards me made it almost impossible for that to happen.
Mundane arguments happen in relationships, it shouldn't be a cause to worry about it this much though. My concern came in strong on this one because we really shouldn't be having an argument this fucking soon after reconciling our relationship, should we? I picked up a stone and threw it aggressively into the lake. The splash it made shocked me a little, even though I knew it was going to happen. It was a lot louder than I expected it to be.
"What did that rock ever do to you?" Matty asked, I shot round and saw him standing about ten feet behind me.
"I was picturing your face as I threw it." I mumbled quietly.
"Ouch." He said, sitting down next to me.
"Well you've really fucking annoyed me today Matty, what do you expect?" I looked at him with a glare. His features softened as he saw how unhappy I was with him.
"I'm sorry." He replied softly. "I shouldn't have been so moody with you earlier, I don't know why I took it out on you and it's no excuse but I am sorry for it."
"Took you long enough." I rolled my eyes.
"You know I find it hard to say sorry sometimes, admitting I'm a prick is difficult." He shot back with a small smile. "Even though it's most of my personality, in fact it's really all your fault for taking offence to anything I say or do because you know it's just how I am."
"You're really bad at apologising you know." I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Yeah I am, aren't I?" He looked away towards the lake. "I am sorry though, jokes aside."
"I don't understand why you targeted me. I literally didn't say anything to you." I mumbled.
"Cause I'm an idiot." He shrugged. "I don't know, I just woke up in a really foul mood today and I was a dick to you without thinking, then when I realised how far I went it was too late. You were already annoyed at me and I didn't want to further that annoyance."
"So you ignored me for a bit then continued to snap at me?" I shot back.
"I didn't say it was a good plan, I just didn't think of a better one." He chuckled softly.
"You're such an idiot sometimes." I laughed, he looked at me and a smile took over his features.
"But you still love me right?" He asked. I rolled my eyes and kissed him.
"I guess." I whispered against his lips.
"I'll take that." He said then kissed me again. He pulled back and smiled even more to me. "Can we go back to being okay? I've missed you today."
"I've been here all along, it's you that's been on another planet." I rolled my eyes at him.
"Yeah I know but this weekend is supposed to be about you, showing you how fun camping with us can be." He told me. "Plus I have that waterfall to show you tomorrow."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that." I furrowed my eyebrows together.
"We could always go skinny dipping in it." He said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows at me.
"You want me to get naked in front of the lads?" I asked him, he stopped wiggling his brows and frowned.
"Yeah we can do that another time, when they're not here." He took it back quickly, it was kinda funny in a way to watch him backtrack so quickly on that idea.
"I thought so." I grinned. I looked at the water in front of us and smiled, feeling better about the day already. At least he grew up and fucking apologised to me. I could see him staring at me from the corner of my eye.
"You're so unbelievably beautiful Alyssa." He whispered, glanced at him and smiled.
"Is this you trying to gain back some brownie points?" I chuckled.
"No, I'm just observing the art and commenting on it." He said with a cheesy grin. "And if it gets me back in your good books then that's just a bonus." He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in closer to his body. I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed happily.
"Sometimes you're alright Healy." I mumbled, closing my eyes.
"I'll take sometimes." He laughed.
-
"I think you've had a bit too much now." Nessa said to George quietly, he looked at her with a pout. "I heard about your last drunken escapade in California George and if I'm sharing a tent with you tonight then I really don't want to wake up to you spewing your guts out."
"She has a point to be fair." Ross spoke up. "It was a sight to be seen and I don't want to be your carer again this quickly."
"Nessa will look after me, won't you babe?" George looked at his girlfriend with a goofy looking grin spread across his face.
"Not if you keep drinking this much, that's on you." Nessa chuckled.
"Fine, I'll slow down." George said defeated. "But it's not my fault when the life of the party dies out."
"You're not the life of the party mate." Adam said with a loud laugh, we all looked at him and nodded.
"That is true, we all know that's Alyssa." Ross looked at me.
"3 shots of Sambuca and she's gone." Adam agreed.
"I'm not that bad?" I asked, the second the words left my mouth I realised just how drunk I'd gotten. I was slurring my words so badly that everyone looked at me confused as to what I was trying to say. "Maybe I am." I mumbled defeated.
"It's okay love, we love you nonetheless." Matty said kissing the side of my head.
"I think I should lie down." I frowned, my head was starting to spin a little from staring into the fire for so long. Matty stood up and held his hand out for me.
"Bed time." He looked down at me with a glazed look in his eyes. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to my feet, steadying me as I swayed a little.
"Goodnight!" I shouted a little too enthusiastically at everyone as Matty dragged me off towards our tent.
I stumbled inside it and fell to the ground, laughing. "You alright?" He asked me through his own laughs. I looked up at him and nodded, unable to say anything just yet because I was laughing too much. "How much did you drink tonight? I haven't seen you this drunk in a while."
"I don't know." I finally managed to say.
"You're gonna have a mental hangover tomorrow." He shot a grin at me, pulling off his jeans. I looked at up him and tried to focus on his face but everything was slightly blurry.
"Don't I know it." I groaned. "Can you pass my bag over?"
"Yeah." He picked it up and placed it next to my hands. I managed to open it slowly and pull out my pyjama shorts and a t-shirt. I struggled to pull off my jean shorts, Matty just watched me with an amused smirk on his face. "You having some trouble there?" He asked.
"Clearly." I groaned and gave up. He rolled his eyes and got down on the his knees near me and pulled them off my legs, he then grabbed my shorts off me and pull them up my legs. "Thanks." I grinned at him.
"Anything else you need help with?" He asked.
"I could think of a few." I smirked down at him, he broke out into a smile.
"Well if you said that before then I wouldn't have bothered putting your shorts on for you." He shot back.
"Matty, after the shit you pulled earlier..." I said. "I'm going to make you work for it." He laughed at my inability to say the simple sentence.
"Well with how drunk you are tonight, I think it's best we just cuddle instead." He said climbing up to where I was lying down. I looked at him with a loving smile, grateful for him thinking about me in such a nice way. Mostly for not being the type of guy who would take advantage of me being this drunk.
"I love you okay, like a lot." I said drunkenly. "Even if you're a dick sometimes and I want to scream at you for it."
"I love you too, now sit up and I'll help your with your shirt." He told me, I sat up and did as he asked. It warmed my drunken little heart that he was helping me out as much as he was. It was a simple gesture but one filled with so much love.
Once I was ready for going to sleep, we both climbed under the blankets and he pulled me into his arms. I put my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, it was slow and steady. A smile spread across my face, even in my drunken state I felt the full force of the love we shared.