Chapter 50

We told the boys that we were leaving them to go to Nando’s, but they came running out of their room to come with us, only to find out we were lying. They drank most of the alcohol and left us with 10 cans to share, so they’ve just gone to the shop to get more now. We’re praying they’ll get served. That alcohol was supposed to last us all night. I know they've hid some in their room because there's no way that they can down more than 10 cans in the space of half an hour.

They eventually come back with more alcohol than we imagined. They put down almost 40 cans and start ripping the box open. I quickly take one because I still feel like they’ll go quickly. Ben looks at me and bursts out laughing...

“I’ve never seen you move so fast in my life” he laughs and I just roll my eyes.

“I have!” Conor slurs, laughing after woods with Alex.

What the fuck does he mean by that? Everyone goes silent and looks around awkwardly. Well fucking done Conor, ruin the holiday before it even starts. I know exactly what he meant by it, making me storm out of the main room, leaving my can in there, and slamming my bedroom door shut when I get inside it.

He’s such a dick. He always takes things too far, drunk or not. Talking about our sex life in front of everyone is just disrespectful. I thought I could at least trust him with that.

“Why do you always have be such a twat!?” Jack shouts down the hall. I can’t hear what Conor’s saying but I can tell they’re in an argument. “No, you’re constantly upsetting her and messing her about for no reason. No wonder she cries so fucking much. It’s all because of you being a constant asshole”

Well said Jack.

Although I’m not crying at the moment. I’m just sat at the top of my bed, picking at the duvet. Seconds later, I hear Jack opening my door.

“Just ignore him Lucy” he sighs.

“He’s such a dick. He always ruins everyone’s fun” I shout.

“I know. Just don’t let him get to you” he hugs me tightly. “Are you coming back down? I think we’re playing games or some shit” he shrugs.

“Yeah ok” I nod.

“Don’t even look at him, ok?” he tells me and I just nod. We walk back down the stairs and into the living room, and I see the majority of people cooking something in the kitchen, and the rest of the group sat on the sofas in the places I left them.

“Sorry Lucy, I didn’t mean for that to happen” Ben sits next to me on the sofa.

“No it wasn’t your fault” I smile. “Never is”

“Good. And um, I’m sorry about everything else that’s happened recently, you know?” he explains and I just nod, giving him a false smile.

“It’s fine”

-

The boys went up in the attic and found Twister, Monopoly, Scrabble... A lot of board games but Twister was the main thing going on. There was at least 4 people playing at once and that’s maximum players right? And there was one person spinning the little arrow thing on the board for it but they all took turns with that.

Ben, Conor, Eleanor and Alex are competing in a Scrabble game, although I don’t know how they can concentrate with the music blasting and everyone talking/screaming. Me, Mike and Charlotte are just dancing. Mike told us he could break dance so he started showing us that but he ended up nearly breaking his back, so we took turns showing each other our best dance moves like 5 year olds but it was fun. We’re dancing to some rap song that Jack put on. We can’t exactly dance to it so we’re just shaking our bodies like we’re being electrocuted or something but it’s funny.

“I’m worn out” I let out a huge breath and sit on the stairs in front of where we’re dancing. A more slow song starts to play and Charlotte and Mike start waltzing around the room and I’m literally crying with laughter.

-

“I’ll spin this time” I offer to spin the spinner. I sit down on the sofa, awkwardly next to Conor and start to spin for Jack, Alex, El and Leila. This game’s been the highlight of the whole night. It doesn’t stop getting funny.

“We should put paint on it” someone shouts. I don’t even know who said it but everyone agrees with them. Liv runs upstairs and comes down a few minutes later with a box of paint. Everyone helps squirt the correct paint colour on the corresponding dot on the Twister mat.

“Right, go” Jack says when he’s in position. I laugh at their stupidity and start to spin the spinner.

“Right foot blue” I sigh. This paint is going to get everywhere and I know Liv will regret ruining the whole house in the morning.

As the game continues, everyone in the room is practically coated in multicoloured paints and I’m just laughing at their misfortunate’s while taking pictures of them and putting my favourite ones on Instagram.

“Lucy, Conor, come on!” Eleanor laughs, rolling around the paint. Yeah, me and Conor are the only clean ones here. Mainly because he’s half asleep.

“No way! I’ll never get it off” I laugh.

“We will, come on” she stands up from her place and walks over to me. Her face is blue, red and yellow with a few dots of green on it.

“Go away!”

“Nope, come on” she grabs my hand before I even have a chance to run away from her, and throws me on the floor with her.

“Fuck, you didn’t just do that” I gasp, standing up and checking my bum for paint. I turn back around to look at her and show her my bum and hand full of blue paint. “You ruined my pants!” I scream and jump on top of her, attacking her with the paint while she laugh hysterically.

“Your top’s ruined now” she laughs and I just laugh with her. I give up. I look up at Conor on the sofa and he’s just smirking behind his beer can at me straddling Eleanor. I climb off her a sit on the floor, huffing. “Stop sulking” she laughs.

“You’ve ruined my clothes!”

“Come on then” she stands up and I take her hand to pull me up. She drags me outside and runs towards the lake opposite the house.

“No way am I jumping in there!” I stop before she jumps.

“It’ll clean your clothes”

“I doubt it! If anything, it’ll make them worse” I cross my arms across my chest.

“It’s fun. Who gives a shit?” she shrugs before jumping into it. I gasp and turn around to see everyone running out. Her head comes out from under the water and she starts laughing. “It’s freezing” she shakes and I roll my eyes, although she probably can’t see me doing it because it’s pitch black out here.

I remember when Conor took me on a date and we did this, except there was actually a little bit of light when we did it, and I knew he was going to be there if anything bad happened. In this lake, I can’t see anything because it’s pitch black. The only source of light here is from the house and that’s not projecting very well over here.

Next thing I see is everyone jumping in one by one. Leila, Lois, Jack, Olivia, Mike, Charlotte and Ben. Alex and Conor come stumbling towards me.

“You coming in guys?” Alex asks.

“Definitely not” I laugh.

“Come on Lucy” he grabs my hand and drags me towards the water. Images of my sister flash through my mind and I start screaming.

“Get off me!” I shout but he thinks I’m joking and continues to drag me in. My heart is beating at least 10 times faster than its usual rate. I’m petrified. He starts laughing and picks me up. “Alex please don’t”

“Get the fuck off her” Conor grabs me from Alex’s grip and pushes Alex away from me. I instantly run behind Conor’s back and he puts his hand around me for protection.

“Mate I was only joking” he slurs.

“It isn’t fucking funny. She told you to get off her” Conor shouts and Alex backs away, before jumping into the water. “Are you ok?” he turns around to ask me and I just wrap my arms around his waist, embracing him.

“Thank you” I mumble.

“It’s fine” he smiles when I release from him. I was literally petrified before but I know Conor will protect me. “Do you want to come in with me?”

“No. I can’t see what’s in it and it’s pitch black”

“It’ll just be like last time. I’ll be there for you the whole time” he puts his hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t know” I sigh. I do want to go in because I know Conor will be there but I still have a tiny phobia of water, and with it being dark, I’m more scared than I would usually be.

“It’ll be fun” he shrugs. “Come on, hold my hand and we’ll jump together. And I pinky promise I’ll get you as soon as we land in the water” he holds out his pinky but I just laugh.

“Will it be deep?”

“Well Olivia’s tiny and I can still see her head so you’ll be fine” he shrugs, making me laugh. He puts his pinky closer to me and I roll my eyes before linking mine with his.

He holds my hand, sending sparks through my body. I know I shouldn’t be feeling like this but I can’t help my feelings right?

We walk towards the lake and stop a few inches before it.

“3... 2... 1!” he shouts and I hold my nose before jumping in. Panic shrieks through me but as soon as I hit the water, I feel Conor’s strong arms wrap around me. “I’ve got you” he laughs when my head pops out of the water.

I wrap my legs around his waist and wrap my arms around his neck. He holds me up by putting his hands under my thighs, making our faces inches apart. I let out a small giggle to kill the awkward silence we’re creating and he just smiles. A genuine smile that I haven’t seen in ages. The smile I love.

“Do you want to swim over there?” he asks, pointing to where the rest of the group have swum to.

“No, I-I want to stay here... W-with you” I say hesitantly, looking through the gap between our bodies at the water.

“Ok” he smiles. I climb off him and stand on the slippy floor at the bottom of the lake.

“I’ll kill you if anything insecty touches me” I look around the water to check for water spiders, fish, leaches, snakes... Anything.

“Alright” he shrugs while smirking. “I’m really sorry about earlier. I was just being a dick”

“It’s fine” I shrug.

“It’s not” he sighs but I just ignore him. It’s not fine but I forgive him anyway I guess. He has just saved my life... kind of.

“I dare you to swim to the end” I point to the other side of the lake. He turns around and looks where I’m pointing for a few seconds.

“No way. I can barely see straight as it is” he laughs. He’s still drunk but has sobered up since he drank all that shit with Alex.

“You made me come in here!”

“So!?” he exclaims. “Tell you what, I’ll swim to the end if you come with me”

“Nope”

“Well I won’t swim to the end then” he says immaturely, crossing his arms across his chest. I don’t know why I even want him to swim to the end. It’s just something to do.

“Fine, I’ll come with you” I sigh.

“Seriously?” he snaps his head to look at me.

“Yeah” I shrug.

It takes us at least 20 minutes to get to the end because I keep feeling things in the water and I kept freaking out but the whole lake was pretty shallow so we both decided to just run through it. Try to anyway, it’s kind of hard to run in water.

“We have to get back now” I laugh.

“Run?”

“Race you” I start slow motion running through the water. I’m running as fast as I can actually but the water’s slowing me down.

“Lucy, come here!” he shouts but I keep running. “Help!” he shouts again but his voice gets muffled up by the water. I quickly turn around and see him sinking under the water.

Shit.

I quickly run over to him and pull him out of the water.

“Got you!” he laughs and starts to run ahead of me.

“Conor you absolute dickhead!” I scream, following him. I get to the other end of the lake after him and start panting, trying to catch my breath. “I hate you” I shake my head and he starts laughing.

“You’re just jealous because I won” he sticks his tongue out.

“Whatever” I roll my eyes. “Let’s get out, I’m numb”

He climbs out of the water and gives me a hand getting out. We follow the noise into the house and see everyone arguing over what song to play next, although it’s like 1am.

“I’m getting a shower” I tell Conor, trying to avoid all the shouting. He just nods and walks over to everyone around the docking station. I collect my pyjamas and everything I need for my shower and make my way to the bathroom.

After taking a steaming hot shower, I change into my pyjamas, towel dry my hair and put it in a messy bun, and collect my wet clothes to put in the washing machine.

I walk into the living room and see everyone having a pretty heated discussion about god knows what. After putting my clothes in the washing machine, I walk over to where everyone’s sitting. I see Conor pat a space next to him but I ignore him and sit in the space next to Eleanor. He was nice to me and everything but I still think I’m forgiving him too easily. We just need a bit of space.

After our huge chat, I decide to go up to my room. I’m not drinking anymore and my eyes are getting heavy from my lack of sleep. I get straight into bed and text my Mum for a bit before falling to sleep.

I get woken up by someone stumbling into the room, slamming the door shut.

“Could you make any more noise?” I moan.

“Sorry” he whispers. My head shoots up from the pillow and I look at who’s stood at the door. Why is Conor here and not Eleanor?

“What the fuck are you doing in here!?” I whisper loudly.

“Eleanor’s in mine” he moans, walking towards the bed.

“Why!?”

“Probably to fuck Alex” he shrugs.

“Well tell her to come back in so you can go in there”

“I’m not going back in there!” he gasps. “They we’re pretty far into everything just then”

“Well you’re not sleeping in here. Sleep on the sofa or something”

“Fuck no! I’m staying here” he collapses on the bed.

“Conor, just leave” I moan.

“Look, I can’t see straight and all I want to do is sleep. I’ll keep my hands to myself” he raises his hands up to his chest.

I sigh, “Fine”

He lets out a small chuckle before getting under the covers. His breathing gets heavier almost instantly meaning he’s asleep. It’s been ages since we’ve shared a bed and I’ve missed it so much. I sleep much easier when he’s with me but this time I can’t sleep at all. He doesn’t have his arm around my waist and our legs aren’t tangled up. I hate the distance there is between us.

I slowly shuffle towards him, putting my back up to his chest and pulling his arm around my waist. I wish I could sleep like this every night.