just best mates - wroetoshaw (FINISHED)

13

the group stood in the lobby of the bustling duty-free of heathrow airport, waiting impatiently, with everybody buzzing with adrenaline for their flight to ibiza to be announced so they could be off. mads stood over her case, 'mr and mrs smith' blaring through her airpods as she tries to drown out her surroundings. not only because of her travel anxiety that was getting worse by the second, but also because of the sea of couples to her side. lux, tobi, ethan and mads were the only single members of the group and so ended up forming their own group to avoid becoming third wheels for this whole holiday.

katie clung to harry's side the whole time they were in the airport, marking her territory to the other girls. he tried his best to ignore the girl on his hip, and chat to his friends. not exactly in a rude way, just to try and be able to bare with her for the whole two weeks. as she ranted to the group about a bitchy customer she had to deal with at work, his eyes drift off towards mads, mentally kicking himself for not going over to talk to her.

stop harry. cold turkey.

the group made their way over to the airport spoons, hoping that downing cocktails would remove all their nerves about flying.

"you not eating, mads?" tobi asks, noticing the lack of food in front of her.

"i'm too nervous to eat, tobs." she lies. luckily, it seemed a good enough excuse that the conversation was briskly moved off of her, and onto the holidays antics.

harry gives the girl a sympathetic smile, not wanting to seem like too much more of an arsehole than he already did.

their flight is announced and the girls drag their guys by the hand to their gate, overexcited for their holiday to begin. well, the girls except mads who stopped to mentally compose herself for the flight, and all the anxiety that came along with it.

with it being the sidemen, they'd booked out first class to take them to ibiza. fancy seats and free alcohol were not what mads was used to when flying, she usually just had an uncomfortable window seat with no leg room with two complete strangers next to her, with both of them having at least one annoying trait that would piss her off the whole way. this time, however, her seat was next to simon and talia, as the seats were all in sets of 3. as the couple were talking, she started drafting song lyrics to entertain herself. her label were encouraging her to write another song, and she needed to start off somewhere.

'lately, i've been counting the minutes that i've got left'

"oo, could there be a potential second song?" t asks, seeing the girl scribble down lyrics. mads gives a shrug with a smirk, not wanting to give too much away.

"it's good to see you out. we've missed you, y'know."

"thanks t. just hard being out, because of certain incidents." she sighs.

"can't believe she's even here, to be honest. she invited herself." t whispers, as if they were back in secondary school and she had just heard some new gossip.

"she's harry's girlfriend, i guess it's justified?" she says, trying to be respectful towards the couple.

"you can see in his face. even he doesn't want her here."

this causes mads to turn around and look at the boy, his face strained as he tries to fall asleep and drown out his girlfriend's waffling. he looks mads dead in the eyes with a look that says 'help me', causing her to give him a smile, biting her lip to prevent herself from laughing.

~

the villas they were staying in were insane. managing to find two next to each other with enough rooms was a godsend. the first villa housed most of the couples, and then the second was chris and shannon, lux, tobi, ethan and mads. the two villas were pretty
much identical, with the same small kitchen and large communal seating area downstairs, and sea of rooms on the next two floors. they shared a garden, with an infinity pool connecting the two.

mads looked around her room for the next two weeks. with it's white walls and white bedding, it was nothing special.

getting into her new size 4 bikini she had to buy, she steps out. she wasn't just slim anymore, she was stick thin. she had very slight toning, but otherwise there was very little on her. her brunette hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and any makeup left over was wiped off. she was the skeleton of the girl she once was, in more ways than just one.

as soon as mads went to join the rest of the girls sunbathing by the pool, harry couldn't keep his eyes off of her. she looked broken and he could tell she wasn't healthy. he knew it was partly his fault that she was losing weight, and he hated himself for it.

they weren't going out on the first night, just to give them a chance to get over the early morning wake up for the flight. the sky was black and everyone was in bed, having fallen straight to sleep.

everyone but mads.

she couldn't sleep. everything was playing on her mind: be it how unhappy harry looked with katie, or the fact that he had chosen katie over their friendship, or the fact that she would have two spend two weeks living with them as a constant reminder of that.

"alright?" a voice says coming over to join her on the edge of the pool...