Grimmy was hosting a sort of after party at his house following the boy's concert in celebration of their first real gig. What he described as "only a few close friends and fans" was actually more like everyone that lived in the greater surrounding area, cause fuck were there a lot of people at his house.
There was music pouring through the sound system in his living room, enough booze to stock his bar in its entirety, and scantily clad girls packed wall to wall. I left my space, squeezed between Matty and George, and excused myself to the restroom. Shutting the door behind me, I leaned with both hands on the vanity and took a couple deep breathes to calm my anxiety. I took a quick look in the mirror, fixing a few stray curls that were sticking out from frantically dancing about at the show, before opening the door and stepping back out into the chaos of the party.
Fuck, okay, this is fine.... just gotta find Matty and George.
They weren't were I left them, and I could not pick out Ross or Adam either. My feet carried me to the kitchen to pour myself a drink, as I continued to glance over faces until I saw one that I recognized.
"Nova!" George's voice boomed over the music, as I looked up to see him pushing through a crowd of people to get to me.
"Hey!" I said, or rather yelled, back at him. "Where's Matty?"
"No idea, I've lost him" George draped his arm over my shoulder, knowing how nervous last crowds like this tended to cause me to feel. "Come on, love, lets go find us someone else's weed to smoke."
His comment made me giggle, as I let him steer me through the party. We ended up in Grimmy's back yard, sitting on patio furniture amongst Grimmy, Harry, Ross, and Adam passing a joint around. I thought it odd that Matty wasn't in this group of friends, but didn't think much of it. He was celebrating their biggest show yet, so he was probably just off somewhere with fans.
After a bit of time, arguably too much marijuana, and enough booze to make my head spin when I tried to get up, I excused myself from the group to use the restroom and look for my messy haired friend.
I went to the bathroom first, and then searched through the maze of halls for Matty. I pushed past people I didn't know, listening carefully to try and pick out his soft sounding voice. I walked past a door and stopped when I heard his voice from inside. Stumbling over to the door, I placed my hand on the handle, before abruptly stopping when I heard something that sounded like.... shit that sounds like moaning. I leaned my ear up to the door.
"Oh, fuck yeah." That was definitely Matty's voice. Was he...
"Fu-- yeah baby, just like that." He moaned. I pulled my body away from the door. Matty was having sex with someone on the other side of that door. I backed away and turned around, walking fast-paced back through the hall ways.
He was having sex with some random girl at the party. My messy haired neighbor, who would just walk into my house at 4 am because he couldn't sleep. The boy who called me, before anybody else, even before George, to come and find him after a night of binge drug use. Matty, who held my hand because he was so nervous before his show, who I had developed such strong feelings for since moving to Manchester, was fucking some girl, with nothing but a wooden door between me and his skin being pressed against somebody else's. I felt so wrong. This all felt so wrong.
My vision started to blur as my eyes filled with tears. A boy shouldn't affect me like this. Especially a boy who I had never actually been with, or even properly kissed. We were just friends, and maybe that's all we would ever be, but fuck that didn't stop this from hurting any less. A dull ache behind my ribcage reminded me of how much my heart was currently breaking, as I come to a horrifying realization. I didn't just have a crush on my messy haired neighbor.... I think I am in love with the asshole.
Someone yelling out my name brought me out of my thoughts and back to reality as I looked up and my gaze met George's.
"Shit, Nova, what's wrong?" He asked as he grabbed my shoulders. My only reply was a sob. "Fuck, shh it's okay, what's going on?" He grabbed my head and pulled my face towards his chest, wrapping his large arms around my small frame.
I couldn't answer him. Tears fell from my eyes as I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and balled them up in my hands. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. This was awful. I let him guide me out of the hallway we were stopped in the middle of, and into a bedroom to get me away from the drunk crowds of people in Grimmy's home. He closed the door behind us and sat me down on the bed, sitting next to me and using his thumb to gently wipe the tears that were falling down my cheeks.
"Nova, what happened?"
I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell George that I had just nearly walked in on his best friend rolling around naked in bed with somebody else. I couldn't explain to him why I felt so horrible without, in turn, telling him how I felt about Matty. However, I no longer saw the harm in him knowing. What was the point in keeping it a secret, when Matty clearly didn't feel the same way.
"Its Matty..." I said softly, finally after a long silence.
"What did he do to you? I'll kill him if he did anything to you." His concern made me smile, as well as the thought of him actually arguing with his best friend over hurting my feelings. Feelings that neither of them even knew I had.
"I guess he didn't really do anything to me... I just..." I took a breath before spitting out the rest before I lost the courage to actually come out and say it. "I heard him in a room having sex with someone."
"He was doing what? How is he the only person who has no fucking clue that you like him?" My breathing hitched as I realized what George had just said to me.
"Wait, what?"
"Oh come on, Nova, I've not gone dull. A blind man could see how into eachother you two are. If I didn't know you both, I would've thought you were together."
"Do you.... do you think he likes me too?"
"I know he likes you too, he's just too full of his own bullshit to notice that you feel the same way."
"Then whys he with another girl right now? Why'd he ditch me at this party to hook up with somebody else?"
"Because he's an idiot, Nova." George paused, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, offering me one as he lit his own. I thanked him as I took one. "That's how Matty is. He's so down on himself sometimes that he cant possibly imagine that anybody else thinks highly of him, because he can't see it in himself." He paused again, taking a long drag of his cig, and exhaling before continuing. "Then he hooks up with random girls that mean nothing to him because he thinks it'll make him feel better, but it never does. He wants something meaningful in his life, but he doesn't know how to properly achieve that. So he does what he knows, which is meaningless drunken hookups."
I deeply inhaled off the borrowed cigarette from George, while I mulled this all over in my mind. He thinks Matty feels the same way, but how can he be sure? Did Matty say something, or was this all just from observations? One thing I knew was that I definitely did not want to be at this party any longer.
"I'm gonna go back to 102, George. Thanks for listening to me whine." I started to get up off the bed, when I felt his giant hand grab my arm.
"I'll walk back with you, you're upset and it's a far walk."
"You really don't have to do that, George..."
"I want to. What are best friends for? Plus I'm over this party, its too crowded for my taste." He flashed me a smile before getting himself off the bed and walked towards the door. I followed after him, weaving through the crowd and letting him lead me towards the front door and out of Grimmy's house.
"I'll text him and tell him we're leaving." He said as we walked down the sidewalk.
We walked towards our apartments, talking of the show, how many people actually showed up to see them, and how excited he was to see what would come of The 1975 in the future. We smoked cigarettes, talked of rolling a joint when we got back to 102, but never mentioned Matty, which I appreciated on his part. The messy haired boy never crossed my mind again until we arrived back at my place, and I checked my phone and the few missed texts and calls I had from him.
3 missed calls
4 new texts
Where are you? I cant find you in this mess of people.
Nova?
George says you guys left, are you okay?
Please answer me, I'm worried....
I didn't reply, but instead just threw my phone on the table and sat cross-legged on my couch as George sat next to me, rolling a joint on my coffee table. I couldn't think about Matty anymore tonight, it was making my head hurt.
I hit the joint when George passed it to me, handing it back to him and getting up to open my laptop and play music. From the table, my phone vibrated, but went ignored as I chatted with the taller of my two neighbors, and tried to forget about how upset I was about Matty.
George left after a bit. I gave him a hug, before closing the door after him.
For a moment, my eyes laid on the lock to the front door of 102. The front door that I never locked. The front door that Matty would walk through in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep or needed to talk. I stared at the door, and for the first time since I moved in, my fingers grabbed the deadbolt and turned it, locking the door before I let my feet carry me to my bedroom to end this very long, tiring, and heart breaking evening.
