Chapter 45

I stand at the door frame watching my boyfriend cheat on me. He hasn’t even noticed I’m here. My throat is dry and my eyes are full of tears. The whole group are downstairs but Jack’s right behind me. Although I’ve not taken my eyes off Conor, I can feel his presence there. I continue to watch Conor on top of ‘Claire’ while he furiously kisses her. I can’t fucking take it.

“Move” I shout at Jack. He moves out of the way and I storm downstairs, crying.

“Fuck” I hear Conor mumble. “Lucy wait”

“Don’t even talk to me you absolute fucking asshole” I scream, and continue to walk out of this mansion that I never want to visit again.

“Luce please”

“Don’t fucking call me that!” I turn around and shout at him.

“Just let me explain!” he begs but doesn’t have any sympathy in his eyes.

“Explain what? That you’re bored of me so you go off with this slut? She’s more interesting than me and is probably more ‘fun’ than me... I get it. You know, that’s why you was texting her instead of paying the slightest bit of attention to me. I’d much rather you tell me that I’m boring instead of making me watch you practically fuck her you twat”

I take one last glance at my so called ‘best friend’s’ shocked faces and walk out of the house. The only person I like in that house is Eleanor.

I’m sure Eleanor can ask someone to help her find her way back to mine. She’ll have to, I’m not going back in for her.

“Lucy!” Jack comes running over to me.

“What!?” I scream.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes Jack, finding out my boyfriend’s cheating on me and finding out my so called fucking best friend knew about it. I’m fucking perfect thanks!”

“Stupid question, sorry”

“Just fuck off, nothing you can say can make me feel the slightest bit better. I never want to see you again and tell your asshole of a brother that too” I snap and start walking away.

“I was going to tell you Lucy! I’m so sorry” he cries.

“Where’s Eleanor?” I ignore what he just said to me.

“I-inside I guess”

“Can you get her?”

“Um, yeah sure” he runs back down his huge drive and a few seconds later, I see Eleanor coming out. “Call me if you need anything” Jack smiles weakly at me, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“I wouldn’t be expecting a call anytime soon if I were you, Jack” I walk away from their house with Eleanor by my side.

As soon as I leave their street, I walk really slowly back to... I don’t know where I’m going. I just keep walking until I find myself outside Ben’s house. I didn’t realise I was walking here but I need to know if he knew about all this.

Eleanor hasn’t said a word to me this whole journey, she’s probably in shock or doesn’t know how to react to this but I’m glad she’s quiet. I’ll only start crying again if she does talk to me about all this.

“Um, Lucy where are we?” she asks me.

I cough to clear my throat, “Ben’s house”

“Okay...”

I knock on his door and in no time he opens the door with a huge smile across his face, but that soon drops when he sees me at his door.

“Lucy, what’s wrong?” he asks me. He looks at Eleanor and then back to me.

“Did you know?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“Conor’s cheating on me” I say really quickly before I start crying again.

“Oh my God. Come in” he opens the door wider and I slowly walk in. He opens his arms for me and I don’t hesitate to fall in them and let all my tears out on him.

“Um, can I use your loo?” Eleanor asks, obviously trying to give us space.

“Y-yeah sure, it’s erm, upstairs. Second door on the left” he nods and she walks upstairs. “Who’s he cheating on you with?” he asks after a few seconds of silence.

“C-Claire” I stutter.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know. But everyone knows about it. Even Jack knew and he didn’t tell me” I cry.

“What the fuck?”

“Did you know?”

“Of course I didn’t Lucy! You know I’d tell you if I did!” he assures me.

“I thought my other friends would but they didn’t”

“Yeah, well I’m not like that” he sighs.

“I know”

“How did you find out?” he asks. My tears have finally gone and I’m managing not to stutter every word I say.

I sigh, “He’s been texting someone constantly for the past two days and I found out it was this girl called Claire. Everyone in the group was talking about her when I walked over, so I asked who she was but they wouldn’t tell me. So I went to Conor’s house to find out. I already knew what was going on at this point but I didn’t want to believe it... Until I saw them both practically fucking in Conor’s room”

“I don’t even know what to say” he sighs. “Fucking bastard”

“Mhmm” I look up into his eyes and he smiles sympathetically down at me. Before I know it, I’m forcing myself onto his lips. He stumbles back in shock and pushes me away.

“L-Lucy what are you doing? I thought we were past this now” he snaps but before I can say anything, his doorbell thankfully rings.

“Hey babe” she says, kissing him. He has a girlfriend? I can’t see her clearly because I’m not near the door but my blood is boiling and I’m somewhat angry because he has a girlfriend that I don’t know about. She walks in the door and that’s when I see her. “Lucy? What are you doing here?”

“Eleanor?” I shout towards the stairs and I hear the bathroom door unlock. She starts to run down the stairs.

“Lucy, what's wrong?” Leila frowns. 

"Did you know?" I snap.

"About what?"

"Conor and Claire" I frown. She looks at Eleanor then back to me, gulping slightly.

"Lucy, I- we were going to tell you" she stutters.

"I fucking hate you" I grit my teeth together, storming out of the house.

"Lucy, wait a second!" Leila comes running out of the house to see me. I turn around and decide to give her a chance to explain, just so I can hear her excuse. "I only found out about it about two days ago. I swear I was going to tell you but I didn't know how. It was hard for me!"

I sigh, "Forget it"

"I'm sorry" she sighs but I just turn around and start to walk away.

“What happened with Ben?” Eleanor asks after a few minutes silence.

“He’s dating Leila” I sigh.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You don’t know what happened” I mumble.

“Well can you tell me?” she asks and I just sigh. “We’ll walk extra slow back to your house yeah?” I nod and tell her about me sleeping with Ben, up to me just trying to make a move on Ben and we’re still not home. We’ve just passed the shop. “I wish I moved here, it’s well exciting” she says after I finish my story.

“What? Having your life more fucked up every week? Yep, really exciting El”

“I didn’t mean it like that. Just, you’re always doing something”

“I’d much rather live back in Cheshire. Life wasn’t complicated then” I sigh.

“Well maybe it’s nice to have a bit of a challenge” she shrugs. It's horrible... “How about we have a movie night?” she gasps. “With sweets and popcorn and pillows”

I force a laugh, “Alright then. We’ll go back, get money and buy loads of stuff from the shop”

“Yeah, and we’ll have a massive heart to heart at midnight. Remember those days?” she nudges me and winks. I remember...

-

So we went a little bit mad on the shopping. Mum gave me £20... what can I say?

We spent every penny of it and got a lifetime of chocolate, sweets, popcorn, marshmallows, packs of Lucozade’s... We practically bought the shop. We bought the film ‘Shaun of the Dead’ because El thinks it’s hilarious and convinced me that it would cheer me up.

I get into bed – under the thousand layers of blankets we brought in my room – and lie on the massive pillows we set out so we could be ‘extra comfy’. Eleanor’s idea...

I did tell my Mum about Conor and Ben – I tell her everything now – which is why we got so much money to go to the shop. She was mad at Conor... Really mad but gave me some good advice.

‘If he loves you as much as he says he does, he’ll be running back to you within days, a week at the most. But make sure you fix yourself before you fix him’

That’s all I can remember really. She said much more stuff but I was too busy crying.

“Are you ready for the night of your life?” Eleanor asks me, a massive grin spread across her face.

“Watching a movie while eating junk food, mad night!” I say sarcastically. “Just put the film on El”

“Whatever” she rolls her eyes and puts the film on. The popcorn goes in no time and we’re down to the last few sweets when the film ends. “Eating and laughing does not mix” Eleanor groans.

“I know” I pout and she sighs before turning off the TV. The film didn't really cheer me up but made me forget my problems for about half an hour.

“Heart to heart?” she asks and I nod. I feel like I need to let out all my problems to her, seeing as she’s the only person I can trust. I trust her more than my Mum... “Ok, shoot”

I don’t even know what to say, I look at her and just burst out crying. Its midnight so I try to keep my cries on a low note.

“I’m sorry, are you alright?” she says, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I just nod into her shoulder and she pulls away to look at me.

“This is going to sound stupid-“

“No it doesn’t, just tell me” she smiles.

“I-I loved him, El. I said he loved me and he does this to me. All my friends have just left me, my best friend fucking knew and no one told me. I have no one, fucking no one” I cry.

“Lucy, it’ll be alright, I promise. You know how bad they all looked after you found out. And Jack said he was going to tell you about it but-“

“He wouldn’t have told me. I was at their house the other day and I could tell he knew but he didn’t fucking say a word”

“I’m on your side and everything but how do you think he would’ve felt when his brother is cheating on his best friend. It must’ve been pretty hard for him, don’t forget that” she sighs.

“I know but I’m just so mad at them all. I mean, I would’ve must rather Conor just tell me he didn’t love me than just cheat on me and make me find out the hard way” I say, getting angrier by the second.

“Who said he doesn’t love you anymore? I think we both know he still does. Remember what your Mum said about him coming running back to you? I completely agree with her there. Just promise me something?”

“Go on...”

“Promise me that when he comes back, keep him on his toes. Don’t just let him think he can walk over you. Keep him waiting so he wants you more and trust me, he’ll learn from his mistakes” she says and I just nod. “Promise?”

“I promise” I laugh and she smiles at me.

This is why she’s my best friend. She understands me so well and always knows what to say. She’s always there for me no matter what and I can trust her with my life.

It actually makes me think. Should I even be best friends with Jack? He let me down, best friends don’t do that. Eleanor wouldn’t at least. He’s a boy and we’ll never be able to have the same relationship as Eleanor and I do.

I need to sleep on all this. It’s seriously too much.

“Lucy, your phone just lit up” Eleanor nods at my phone on the nightstand. I look over at it and see another missed call from Jack. That’s 8 fucking missed calls now. I roll my eyes and ignore my phone. “Jack?”

“Yeah”

“Maybe you should answer it. At least he’s trying, I mean, nobody else is” she shrugs. She doesn’t know about the 11 missed calls from Conor, 3 from Ben, 1 from Lois and 2 from Leila.

“No, he can wait” I sigh. Eleanor grabs my phone from the nightstand and frowns at it.

“He’s sent you a text”

From - Jack: Please answer the phone Lucy. I miss you so much and I know I’ve been a complete asshole, I was dying to tell you about what was going on but I only knew about it the day you came over that time Conor was acting weird. At least meet me somewhere tomorrow and give me one more chance. I love you :(( x

“He wants me to meet him tomorrow” I sum up the text to Eleanor.

“Meet him! I’ll stay here while you sort things out. Or go early and come back when I wake up” she shrugs and I just sigh. “Please meet him”

“I don’t know”

“Lucy, he’s trying his hardest. You can tell how much you mean to him”

“Yeah” I nod.

“Does that mean you’ll meet him?” she gasps.

“I guess” I shrug and she squeals. I get out my phone and reply to the text.

To - Jack: meet me tomorrow at 9am?

From - Jack: yeah! Where?

To - Jack: Come to mine, my parents are working

Dad told me earlier that he has to go into work for the rest of the week and Mum said she’s just going back in for this one day because they need her.

From - Jack: Ok, see you then :)

I ignore the text to keep him keen and Eleanor starts shaking with excitement.

“Well come on, you have to be up bright and early for tomorrow. Get some sleep!” she smiles and lies down on her pillow.

“Night” I laugh, turning off my lamp and lying down.

“Night” she yawns and I instantly hear her snoring, left for me to think about everything that’s happened on my own.

‘If he loves you as much as he says he does, he’ll be running back to you within days, a week at the most. But make sure you fix yourself before you fix him’

Those words play over and over in my mind until I eventually bore myself to sleep.