When Ellie opened the door, she said nothing but pulled me into a tight hug. I hugged her back and felt her squeeze me tighter.
She pulled back and said, "It's good to see you." She paused. "I would ask how you are but that's a stupid question."
I smiled slightly. She was right. "It's good to see you, too."
Ellie put her hand comfortingly on my shoulder. "Ana, I can't even imagine how you're feeling. But I'm so, so sorry. If there's anything you ever need, you know I'm here."
"Thank you. But I'm doing okay." Was I? I wasn't really sure.
She nodded and led me inside. "You want a drink? Some Pimms?"
I shut the door behind me as Ellie carried on through to the kitchen, already getting out glasses. "Pimms sounds good. So where's your mum and brother?" I asked, plonking myself on a stool.
"Mum took Blaine and his friend to some football match. She didn't want to go, obviously, but they're too young to go on their own." Ellie was deftly chopping up strawberries, a cucumber and oranges as she spoke before putting them into our two glasses. "She was all like, 'Don't throw any parties while I'm gone!' because she's having to stay the night in some hotel near the football stadium. She won't be back until, like, eleven in the morning tomorrow."
I raised an eyebrow. "It's not like you to listen to your mum."
Ellie and her mum didn't have the best relationship. Where Alice's family were harmonious and organised, Ellie's family were disagreeable and chaotic. Her dad wasn't around – I never fully knew the backstory to that, I only knew Ellie never met him – and her mum was often seeing new guys. Ellie never liked any of them and usually spent most of the holidays at Alice's house, or mine, but of course now we could only go to Alice's.
"Yeah, well, I don't feel like now is the best timing for a party. I would rather have a girl's night in, you know?" She smiled slightly at me, and I nodded. Her smile faded into a frown soon, though. "Dylan's having one in a couple of days, though. Ugh."
"I know. I bumped into him on my run earlier and he invited me." I made a face.
"What an ass. He's so inconsiderate." Ellie rolled her eyes and pushed the glass of Pimms over to me. I took it but didn't take a sip. I just examined the cup for a while.
"Maybe we should go," I said slowly, drumming my fingers on the side of the glass. Ellie glanced up, surprised.
"You want to?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I said no to him, but like, I don't know. Maybe we could go and just have a bit of fun. You, Alice and me. And maybe we'll see some of our other friends like Ryan or Sam. It'd be good to see everyone."
Ellie narrowed her eyes at me, thinking. "I mean, if that's what you want," she said slowly. "Ry and Sam would definitely love to see you. But – are you sure?"
"No," I said honestly. "But I kind of want to get out. You know?"
"Yeah," Ellie replied with a slight smile. "I do know." Her smile faded. "But, you need to be prepared. At the beginning of the night, when people are sober, they're going to stare and whisper. You need to be ready for that."
I nodded. "And if anyone comes up to me and does that whole, 'How are you doing?' thing, I've got my response ready.
She raised an eyebrow. "Which is...?"
"Piss off, I'm not drunk yet."
Ellie laughed. "It could be fun. But, try and stay away from Dylan. You know what he's like."
I nodded. "Yeah. Anyway." I took a long sip of my drink. "How have you been? What have you been doing?"
She shrugged. "This and that. Haven't stormed out of the house too much this past week. Mum hasn't been here that much, so it's been okay." Her expression turned bitter. "She's seeing some new guy at the moment, called Michael. Supposedly it's getting serious, but that's what she says about all of them."
"And you don't like him?" I guessed.
Ellie shrugged. "Haven't really spoken to him. I guess he seems okay, but they all do at first. He'll be gone soon enough." She took a big gulp of her drink. "But Ana. Never mind me. I know it's a stupid question, but...how are you really doing?"
I didn't answer for a while, staring down at the floor and biting my lip. "Um. Honestly?" Ellie nodded. I rubbed my face with a sigh. "I... I don't feel anything, Ellie. I'm just... numb. I can't accept it. I'm worried that if I think too much about it I'll have a breakdown. And I can't let that happen."
She watched me with a sympathetic, but not patronising, look on her face. "Have you..." She cleared her throat. "Have you thought about seeing someone?"
I stared. "Like a therapist?"
"Yeah."
I shook my head firmly. "No. I don't need to. Dylan tried this on me earlier, and I don't need a therapist, I'm fine–"
"Okay," Ellie interrupted me. "Okay."
I breathed out slowly, and muttered, "Sorry."
She let a small smile creep on her face. "No, Ana. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I merely nodded.
"Let's do something," she announced, clapping her hands once. "Let's go shopping and buy new clothes. Splash out a bit. Yeah?"
I smiled. "Yeah."
***
"I think we did well," Ellie said as we sat down at a table in a coffee shop, now holding a number of bags. "Red is definitely your colour."
"I always thought it washed me out a bit," I commented, but could admit that the dress I'd bought made me look good.
"It does not. You can pull off any colour. Should we let the guys know we're going?"
"Probably," I replied. I hesitated, and then said, "Why don't we ask if they want to meet now? It'd be nice to talk to them without everyone around."
"Agreed." Ellie whipped out her phone. "Give me a sec." She held her phone to her ear, waiting. "Hey, Ry! Are you and Sam doing anything at the moment? No? Fab, come to the shopping centre. Ana and I are in the coffee shop. See you in a bit." She hung up and smiled. "They're on their way. They're really excited to see you."
I nodded, drumming my fingers on the table. "Let's get coffee. I'll pay. What do you want?"
"Ana–" Ellie began in exasperation, but I interrupted her.
"I probably owe you a coffee, anyway. You can just buy me one next time. Now tell me what you want," I ordered, and she rolled her eyes.
"Fine, fine. White chocolate mocha with cream, please. They've just added it to the menu and it's so good."
I made a face. "If you say so." I went to stand in the queue and had just decided on a cinnamon latte when a pair of arms wrapped themselves around me from behind and picked me up in the process. I let out an involuntary yelp and, when I had been put down, turned to see Ryan standing there with a grin on his face, and Sam a bit behind him.
"Ana! We've missed you," Ryan exclaimed, giving me another hug.
"Hey," I said, giving Sam a hug after Ryan had stepped back. "How are you guys?"
"Yeah, we're doing good," Sam answered. "How have you been? Been shopping for some sexy outfits for Thursday?"
Ryan swatted him but I just smiled slightly. "You bet." I paused, and then voiced a concern of mine to them. "You think it's a good idea? For me to go to this party?"
The boys looked at each other and both shrugged. Ryan said, "Honestly Ana, I think it's completely up to you. Are you having doubts?"
"I don't know," I mumbled. "It was a sort of spur of the moment thing, me deciding to go. Honestly, I kind of need to get out. I love Alice's parents to bits, but they do keep looking at me like I'm about to have a mental breakdown or something."
"Which you're not," Sam confirmed as we moved forward in the queue. "I get you, though. But I think it'll be fun. Oh, it's your turn to order."
I glanced up and saw the barista waiting for me to place my order. "Oh, right. Yeah. Um, one white chocolate mocha, with cream, and one cinnamon latte, please," I said, and the barista nodded. I turned back to Ry and Sam. "Do you guys want anything? I'm buying."
"Ooh," Ryan said thoughtfully. "That chocolate cake looked really good. But are you sure?"
I waved my hand in dismissal. "Of course. A slice of the chocolate cake, yeah? And Sam?"
"Do they do slutty brownies?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows. I rolled my eyes and flicked him.
"Pretty sure they don't. You want anything else?"
"Nah."
I placed Ryan's order, and then we went to stand to wait for our orders.
"So," Sam started. "How is it? Living with Alice?"
"It's good. I actually like it a lot," I said honestly. "They don't treat me like a guest, they just treat me like one of the family. We all just do our own thing – Alice is dancing today so I came to see Ellie."
"And us," Sam added. "We're very important too."
"Of course."
Our drinks and food were ready, so we collected them and went to sit down with Ellie. She gave the guys a quick hug hello before we all sat down and started chatting again.
"How're things with Joseph? Is he still being annoying?" Ellie asked me, taking a sip of her coffee.
Sam immediately turned to me. "Is that Alice's brother? The one who's just moved back in?"
"Uh, yeah," I replied, squirming slightly. "I barely remember him from when were, like, ten."
"Oh yeah, I forget you've known Alice your whole life. Why is he annoying?" Ryan questioned curiously.
I shrugged. "He's just a bit rude, you know? But it's fine. I barely know him, so I guess I can't really make judgements about him."
"Wow," Sam said, impressed. "Since when were you this mature?"
"Funny," I stated dryly.
"She's leaving out the part where he's ridiculously hot," Ellie chipped in with a grin.
"You've never even met him," I said in exasperation.
"Oh, but I've heard about him."
"What have you heard?" Ryan asked curiously, a smile on his face.
"Oh, just the usual. Hot. Heartbreaker. Difficult relationship with his family due to them not approving of his player ways..."
"Where do you even get this from?" I said, while Ryan and Sam sniggered. "Like, who even tells you all this stuff you seem to know?"
Ellie tapped her nose secretively. "I'm like the gossip girl of Newacre Town. Except I'm nice."
Sam snorted. "I would beg to differ."
"Shut up."
We laughed. Ellie and Sam had the kind of relationship where they were constantly winding each other up and pissing the other off. Ryan and I would often make fun of them and joke that they were an old married couple, which they basically were.
"So, this party..." Ryan started, shoving a large bit of cake in his mouth. "Do you think Alice will be okay with Dylan?"
I wasn't sure she would be. Ellie grimaced slightly and said, "Hopefully. But we'll have to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't pull an Alice."
Pulling an Alice referred to getting extremely drunk to avoid your problems. Alice was a huge lightweight, so she tended to do it a lot. She was also a bit of a sad drunk, which meant that she would then proceed to cry about said problems before passing out. The problem that usually led her to pulling an Alice often tended to be Dylan - even though he was an ass to her, she still didn't seem to be over him.
"We'll look after her," Sam said firmly. "I'm always looking for an excuse to hit him."
"No hitting," I said, giving him a look. Not that I didn't want to see Dylan get punched, but alcohol plus fighting was not a good combination.
"Fine, I'll use my words. Ugh." Sam made a face and I gave a small smile.
"And you'll be okay? With Dylan?" Ryan added.
"I'll be fine," I said nonchalantly. "I've already seen him since... everything. He was annoying, but nothing I can't handle."
"Are you sure?" Sam said doubtfully. "Because, you know, I can easily not use my words–"
"I used to do karate," Ellie contributed.
"When you were five," I said flatly. "I'll just avoid him, like I always do. And if he tries to talk to me, I'll just pour my drink on him. Or maybe I won't, because I'm not sure if he's worth the waste of alcohol."
"Truer words have never been spoken," Ellie remarked approvingly, and we clinked our coffee cups together.
"What happened when you saw him?" Ryan asked.
"It was fine. It was this morning. He just told me about the party and suggested a therapist for me."
Ryan and Sam exchanged looks while Ellie just sipped on her drink.
"And what's so bad about that?" Sam questioned tentatively. I glared at him.
"I don't need a therapist, Sam. Trust me, the way he said it was just really obnoxious. And he was all patronising, he did this annoying head tilting thing and said, 'how are you doing?' and just... ugh." I shuddered. "Not a fan of him."
"Agreed." Ellie nodded at me before giving death stares to the guys.
"Anyway, he is really not worth the breath I waste talking about him, so let's just not. He gets on my nerves." Changing the subject, I turned to Ryan and said, "So, Ry, it's your birthday in a couple of weeks. What are we doing for it?"
He shrugged and leant back in his chair, crossing his arms. "I don't know. I'm not very good at planning."
"But you've got to do something," Ellie said in exasperation, while Sam nodded wisely. "Beach party? It's so warm at the moment."
"Possibly, yeah." He stuck his lower lip at out Ellie. "Can you plan it for me? I'm too disorganised."
Ellie flicked him. "I hate being the most organised one in the group. After Alice, that is. I'll help you. It's gonna be an epic beach party."
"Skinny dipping?" Sam said suggestively with a wink at Ellie, who just rolled her eyes.
"I don't think so, Sammy boy. You're on your own there."
Sam just smirked and said, "We'll see."
We all finished our food and drinks and said our goodbyes before going different ways. I was headed back to Ellie's just to spend the rest of the day with her, and Alice was going to join us once her dance class was over. We would see Ryan and Sam at the party in a couple of days, as well as anyone else who was going, which would probably be quite a few people. Dylan was a dick, but he threw good parties since he was loaded – or at least, his parents were. They were hardly ever at home and didn't seem to care what he did with his time. Maybe that was why he was a bit messed up, but I didn't like dwelling on reasons for justifying his behaviour.
Instead, I had fun with Ellie at her house, and when Alice joined us, we just did all the things girlfriends do, and it felt normal again. At least for the moment.
Joseph played by Jeremy Irvine
but picture him from like a few years ago like from the film 'Now Is Good' because he's almost 30 now hahaha