Ashton
Emily had a little over a month until her dance show and she spent most of this time either at rehearsals or rehearsing at home. I tried persuading her to take breaks and when she agreed we went out. But this was one of the frequent occasions where she refused to stop, because it was the day before the show.
"Ashton, I can't just not practise, I'm performing tomorrow," she argued, trying to usher me back out the practice room. "In 24 hours I'll be on the way to the theatre to get ready - I have to practise!"
"You've been dancing all day, Em!" I complained. "You were up at half seven this morning and non-stop until you went to rehearsals, then started practising again as soon as you got home from work. You didn't even have a proper dinner, you just grabbed some food from the cupboard and shut yourself in here."
"Because I have to practise!" she shouted and then went back to rehearsing.
"Don't make me rip those ballet shoes off your feet," I threatened.
"As if you're gonna do that," she brushed it off, carrying on practising without so much as a second thought. I just stood still, my arms folded across my chest, and stared at her for a few seconds then dove down towards her feet. I grabbed her by the angles and she squealed, trying to kick me off. I wouldn't let go though, so she resorted to climbing on my back and trying to pull her feet away from me.
"Ashton, let go!" she yelled but I wouldn't. I was now kneeling on the floor with her on my back, gripping onto her feet whilst simultaneously trying to untie the ribbons on her shoes. While I was trying she managed to pull one foot out my grip, which put me off just long enough for her to free her other foot. She tried climbing over my back but before she could get away I grabbed hold of her arms and stood up with them around my shoulders. I still wanted to get hold of her feet but she was keeping them behind me, so I had to hold her with one arm and reach round with the other. Eventually I did grab hold of one, then managed to pull her up and hold her over my shoulder by her legs after we struggled for some time.
"I really hate you right now," she huffed, hanging upside down like a bat.
"I know you do," I agreed as I started to make my way out the practice room and to the living room. "But I think you'd hate yourself more if you carried on practising and then couldn't do a good performance tomorrow because your feet hurt too much."
She remained silent, telling me she knew I was right, so I let her down on the sofa and she sat hugging her knees with a glum look. When I tried untying her shoes for her, though, she still covered them with her hands and wouldn't let me.
"Em, you know I'll do all that again, just let me take them off," I sighed.
"I will take them off," she promised, "just...not while you're here."
"Why? They're just shoes..."
"I know, but..." she mumbled quietly, looking down. I lifted her head with my hand and stared at her until she gave in and took them off.
"Emily, oh my gosh," I gasped when she took them off and patches of crimson red blood stained her tights.
"It's normal!" she defended.
"Maybe a little at first, but this sure isn't healthy! And you know it, otherwise you wouldn't have tried hiding it from me," I said sternly.
"I'm fine," she whispered. I put the shoes down on the floor and turned around so my back was facing her then pulled her arms over my shoulders and stood up. She wrapped her legs around my waist and asked, "Where are you going?"
"You're taking a bath and sitting down for the rest of the evening. I know I can't stop you practising tomorrow but there's no way I'm letting you do anymore tonight," I instructed.
"You know baths are a lot less fun on your own," she hinted and I smiled.
"I'm only having one too if you promise to relax later," I offered.
"Okay, but my feet don't even hurt," she claimed, but when she got in the bath a short while later I noticed her wince. I also noticed her visibly relax when she laid back, so I started stroking her hair and let her lie her head back on my shoulder.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"What for?" I asked gently.
"For looking out for me," she answered. Her eyes had been closed but she opened them to look up at me, seeming far calmer than earlier. "I know I don't show it at all, but I appreciate it."
"Of course you appreciate it, or you wouldn't do it back," I smiled down at her and she returned it. Afterwards she looked away again and after a few minutes we both climbed out and emptied the water. It was already quite late and I imagined Emily wouldn't want to be up too late, but when we went downstairs and she curled up on the sofa I went out to the kitchen, emerging a short while later with a plate of food.
"Here," I said, holding it out to her.
"Hm?" she sounded, looking away from the TV and up at me then at the plate.
"You need to eat something - proper food, not just chocolate and energy bars," I explained and for once she didn't object, just thanked me and took the plate. I took a seat next to her and put an arm around her, both of us completely ignoring the TV as we became lost in conversation with each other. The time passed without us even knowing while we were in our own world together and I hadn't even noticed it growing dark.
One thing I did notice, though, was that hours later when I woke up to the sound of a door closing, Emily was awake and walking back towards the bed from the en-suite.
"Em? What's up?" I asked her. She turned her attention from the floor to me and then crawled onto the bed next to me.
"I just, uh, couldn't sleep. I'm sorry I woke you up," she said shakily.
"It's fine," I brushed it off. It was then I noticed her quivering slightly, and biting her lip like she always did when she was nervous. "Hey, hey, what's up?"
"Just nervous," she shrugged as I sat up and pulled her into a hug.
"You don't need to be, it's hours away and you're gonna be amazing anyway," I told her. I held her tightly for a while, stroking her hair as I knew she loved me doing that, and after a few minutes had an idea. "I'll make the hot chocolate if you bring the blankets?"
Instantly catching onto what I meant, Emily gave me an excited smile of agreement and sat up. I let go of her and I headed downstairs while she headed to the wardrobe to get out some blankets. It had become almost normal that, whenever she was anxious, one of us couldn't sleep or if we just wanted to stay up all night, we would make our own blanket fort and pass away the hours with hot chocolate, biscuits and whatever nonsense came into our minds at that hour of the morning. It was one of those things that you had to have the right attitude towards having a bit of fun and not acting your age every now and then. To us, it was the perfect fix.
I squinted at the kitchen lights at first but quickly adjusted and had the hot chocolates made in minutes, in which time Emily had brought down a bundle of blankets. Between us, we carried a few chairs into the office that lead into the practice room, as that was the warmest and cosiest room, and took our positions in there with our hot chocolates once we'd set up the blankets. We were well practised at it, so we were pretty efficient, if I said so myself.
"So, what topic's first up for discussion?" I asked, leaning back against the wall with my feet stretched out in front of me. Emily was sat just to the side of me, hunched over with her legs crossed.
"One of the kids told me earlier their pet worm died," she shrugged.
"Pet worm? Why did they have a pet worm?" I questioned.
"I think she just found it in the garden and decided to look after it in a box. I didn't have the heart to tell her that's probably what made it die," Emily explained casually and I giggled.
"At least she didn't try and stop a fish from drowning," I supposed.
"Did I tell you I actually tried doing that when I was younger?"
"What? No!"
"I was only about three, but we won one of those goldfish at a carnival and when we got it I tried taking it out of the bag because I thought it was drowning. It was pretty traumatising," Emily recounted. "Then my parents tried explaining to me that it wasn't drowning, but I didn't understand for years. Plus it died a week later anyway, so I blamed my parents for letting it drown."
"You just...you're...I learn something new about you everyday, Emily, and honestly I never know anymore whether or not to be surprised," I commented. "I never won a goldfish at a fair. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever even saw any. Where did it come from anyway? And why doesn't it happen these days, where did the tradition go?"
"Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from cotton eyed Joe?" Emily smirked and I pretended to throw the rest of my hot chocolate at her. I ended up actually spilling a bit on the floor and some of it went on her leg, making her moan at me as she wiped it off.
"Oops, sorry," I apologised but I couldn't do it seriously when we were both laughing.
"If that went on my white blanket I would have killed you," she threatened.
"As if you'd survive in jail!" I exclaimed.
"Who says I'd go to prison? That only happens if I get caught," she pointed out.
"So how would you get away?" I asked and a look of concentration came over her face.
"Let me think...well, first, I'd have to get rid of the body. I'd probably do that far away, somewhere we never went, so they couldn't track that to me, and of course I'd have to remove as much DNA as I could - take your teeth out, burn you, all that. But then if I went too far I'd have to make an excuse for me being gone a while, so maybe I'd say I went out looking for you when you didn't come home. Then I'd refuel a little bit to make it look like I hadn't driven far and pay for it with cash I already have, so it doesn't look suspicious or have any credit card records. Then all I have to do is clean up any evidence here - oh, and maybe I'd stop by the band house on the way to getting rid of you and pretend to be looking for you so I had an alibi. And, of course, avoid traffic cameras."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Emily, how much have you thought about this?!" I asked in slight terror with wide eyes.
"Not that much," she replied.
"Not that much? So you have thought about it before?"
"Yeah," she nodded and then looked confused. "Doesn't everyone?" I slowly shook my head and then once I'd recovered from the fear that my girlfriend was very much a potential killer we started laughing about it. It lead to us thinking up murder mysteries for the other to solve, which lead to us thinking up medical mysteries for the other to solve, which, unsurprisingly, lead to Emily lying on the floor pretending to be dead.
"What the heck is wrong with you? I can't work it out!" I cried, trying not to laugh at her expression.
"I'm dead, so a, I can't tell you and b, you're too late!" she answered. "You fail medical school."
"Okay, no, I'm not letting you be dead," I objected and then knelt over her and leaned down, wasting no time in putting my lips to hers and kissed her for a few seconds before pulling away again.
"What was that?"
"Kiss of life, of course," I winked and then kissed her again, this time for longer.
"Fine, I'm alive," she gave in, sitting up and facing me. "You still haven't diagnosed me, though."
"Hmm...I reckon, you were so turned on that unless I'd satisfied your sexual desire, you would have died," I predicted and Emily rolled her eyes.
"Yes, of course that was it," she said sarcastically. "No! I'm allergic to paper and someone force fed me a notebook under torture."
"I didn't think I'd say this, but mine makes WAY more sense than that!"
"No it doesn't! You can't die from that, you could totally die from eating paper."
"But why on earth would you be force fed paper?"
"If someone is twisted enough to torture someone I see no reason why they don't have the mindset to feed someone paper," Emily defended and I just dropped the topic in amusement. We both then yawned at the exact same time, making us laugh, but then we descended into silence as tiredness kicked in. I held an arm out to her and she crawled under it.
"Maybe we should go back to bed now," I suggested quietly and she nodded. Neither of us moved for a couple more minutes but after I almost nodded off to sleep, I let go of Emily and crawled out from our blanket tent. We didn't bother tidying away and just headed straight upstairs, where I saw the time was almost 5am. There wouldn't be much time to sleep but it didn't need to be said that it didn't matter to us.
Despite the lack of sleep, Emily was still up early ready to go to rehearsals and work so I was left alone for most of the day. But for once, I didn't go out, or invite the band round, or work by myself, because if there was one thing I'd noticed over the past year it was that whenever Emily was nervous or worried about something, she tidied. If she was anxious then you could almost guarantee that within hours the house would be spotless with not a single thing out of place. It was one giveaway sign that she was stressing or panicking. Today, though, I knew she wouldn't have time to do so - whether she'd find a different distraction or just panic more that things weren't tidy I wasn't sure, but I decided not to leave it to chance to find out. I grabbed a feather duster and cloth and then, starting in the kitchen, made my way around the whole house. I left a few things out of place or a little bit dusty, just in case she got home and wanted to do something, but otherwise I spent the whole day perfecting every item in the house (although I wasn't overly sure if I'd done it all right, seeing as it was admittedly the first time in those twelve months I had done it).
When she first got back she didn't notice anything, but when she walked into the bedroom where the bed was perfectly made, the blankets on top of the wardrobe were folded precisely and everything on the bedside tables was positioned neatly, she paused after a few seconds then turned slowly to face me.
"Something's different...what have you done?" she asked curiously.
"I tidied up," I answered simply, then elaborated. "You always make sure everything's tidy when you're anxious and I know that you are, so I thought I'd save you the trouble and make sure it was already done for you. I thought maybe it would help?"
"You're so sweet," she said quietly, smiling from ear to ear. "Thank you."
"It's okay," I replied, wrapping my arms around her as she hugged me. When she pulled away, though, I noticed her twiddling her fingers and chuckled. "There are a few wonky photo frames downstairs, the bottles in the shower haven't been touched and I left one kitchen cupboard for you to organise."
"Thanks," she said and then tightly hugged me again before speeding downstairs to sort it all. Considering how long everything else had taken me to do, she finished surprisingly quickly and was sat bouncing her knee and chewing on her lip within half an hour. But as much as I tried calming her down, we didn't have much time, as only ten minutes later she was running around upstairs making sure she was ready to leave. This Emily was even more of a challenge to calm down but I somehow managed it and eventually got her in the car in one piece and sitting still.
We parked a little way from the theatre and then walked through the park to get to it, Emily gripping my hand the whole time. The park was pretty busy, considering schools were finished for the day and most people had probably finished work too, and a couple of fans came over to us, but on the whole we made it through quickly and in no time at all the famous, and somewhat daunting, building was rising up in front of us. I looked up at it because, even having been here before, it was slightly breathtaking, but I kept walking which is more than I can say for Emily. She stopped dead in her tracks, causing a yank on my hand, and I looked at her to see fear and excitement glinting in her eyes. I let go of her hand and cupped her cheek instead to make her look at me, then smiled encouragingly at her.
"You can be scared," I told her. "Let yourself be scared. Because this is pretty big for you - for anyone. But don't let it take over you. You've got this and I bet you've practised more than any other person in the show, so for that reason you're going to be the best. And after tonight, you don't need to be scared. So just let yourself enjoy it too." She smiled back and then I leaned in and kissed her gently, just to let her know that even if she felt alone and scared in that moment, she would always have me. Then to make doubly sure she knew this, I took hold of her hand again and pulled her towards the doors.
The entrance was quiet, but once we were further inside the mayhem grew as if we were getting closer to the eye of a storm. Because, when we found Emily's dressing room, all the chaos we'd been through disappeared and it was completely calm and silent apart from the sounds of two workers in there. They welcomed us cheerily and introduced themselves but then quickly returned to their work. I wondered if every show was this hectic - it wasn't anything like our shows. I didn't usually go all the way to Emily's dressing room with her so it was new to me, but she didn't seem phased by it, even if she was more or less frightened out of her wits before. If anything, she seemed to relax more once she put her stuff down and took a seat in the chair by a dressing table.
"I've never had a dressing room to myself before," she revealed excitedly.
"Ah, so you won't mind me popping by then," someone said suddenly and I turned round to see Jack in the doorway.
"Hey!" Emily greeted him and he bounced in and hugged her.
"You ready?" he asked her.
"I guess," she nodded with a deep breath.
"Don't worry, you'll smash it. I gotta go for now, though, I just wanted to say hi," he said then held up a hand. "High five."
"See you in a bit," Emily said after high-fiving him and then he left just as quickly as he arrived.
"Maybe I should go too, I don't want to get in the way," I suggested and Emily instantly became quiet again.
"Yeah, I guess," she almost whispered with a forced smile.
"Well, no, I can probably stay a bit longer," I backtracked, leaning against the dressing table and putting an arm around her. She gave a genuine smile in appreciation and started talking in a once again relaxed way.
I did have to leave in the end and I knew it would be the last time I saw her before she went on stage, so I wished her luck and held her in a tight hug, making sure she was the one to pull back first so she could have as long as she needed. When she let go I wished her luck one last time then tried to find my way back out. I was meeting Michael, Luke, Calum, Charlotte and Jasmine first and we were going out for food before the show, but only a little over an hour later we were back at the Opera House and in our seats waiting for it to start. We managed to get in the front row and as the audience flooded in even I felt myself starting to get nervous, although it was mostly excitement. Just ten minutes before it was meant to start, though, a worker dressed in black ran up to us and bent down.
"Which one of you is Ashton?" he asked so I put my hand up and said it was me. "One of the dancers is asking for you, could you follow me please?"
"Sure," I agreed immediately and raced backstage after him. Straight away Jack was there and started leading me towards Emily's dressing room.
"She's really nervous. Really nervous," was all he said and then we reached Emily's room, where she was sat cross-legged in the chair hunched over with her head on her hands.
"Em, love, I'm here," I said gently as I crouched down in front of her.
"There's so many people, I've never performed in front of that many, I can't do it," she rushed.
"Ssh, yes you can, don't be ridiculous. You're the best dancer I know," I let her know then glanced at Jack. "No offence."
"None taken," he chuckled with his hands up.
"You know you can do this. And if nothing else, you can't panic and cry now because you'll ruin all your make-up," I said and she smiled a little.
"Okay. Thanks," she nodded. I leaned in to kiss her but she stopped me and said, "Can't ruin all my make-up." I laughed and hugged her instead.
"You look beautiful, by the way," I whispered in her ear.
"Thank you," she replied. "I love you."
"I love you too," I said and then we both pulled away. "Now go out there and be awesome. Show everyone how amazing you are."
"I'll try - I will," she said confidently and I started to leave when she grabbed my hand and stopped me. "Never mind, forget the makeup." She pulled me back and pecked my lips in a quick kiss. I smiled at her and kissed her one more time before making my way back to my seat. The others asked if everything was okay, to which I replied that it was now, then minutes later the lights dimmed. And as soon as Emily stepped out on stage and our eyes met for a brief second, I felt my heart lift with the curtains.
Idek about the title of this chapter, half of them all are gonna be normal and then the other half will be bizarre and those will be the times when I cba to properly think of one because I'm so bad at titling chapters XD
Again I'd kinda forgotten about this chapter but I liked it, so hope you did too!
Have a good week
- Becca xx
(ALSO HARRY FROM MCFLY TWEETED ME YESTERDAY SO YAY THAT WAS FUN)
(And what the heck is going on with 5sos)
(Okay bye)