We Could Have Fallen in Love

“Beer, Danny?” Jamie Rosen, an old friend of Dougie’s who had invited them over to his house for a small pre-Christmas party, offered him a can.

“Sure, thanks mate,” Danny accepted the beer. Opening in, he tapped it lightly to Jamie’s cup before taking a long sip. Or at least, pretending to. Getting drunk was not in Danny’s best interests at the moment. He was on a mission tonight. But, if he wanted it to succeed, he had to pretend to be normal. And if normal was getting wasted and acting like the daft idiot everyone assumed he was, that’s what he was going to act like.

Danny’s eyes scanned the room as he plotted. There were only twenty or so boys and girls, mingling together and drinking. It was a small crowd, mostly of McFly’s few close friends. The best thing was that SJ and Dougie were at least in the same room; the worst thing was that they both seemed to be avoiding each other like the bloody plague.

Danny gave a frustrated sigh. Why couldn’t they both see how much they needed to get back together? Without SJ, Dougie was snappy, angry, and sarcastic more than usual. And without Dougie, SJ was melancholic and moody. Danny remembered the brief period in the summer during their fling when they were both happy—Danny wanted that back. He wanted it back for them. Not to be cheesy, but Danny knew they belonged together. But they were both too stubborn to realize it.

Danny pretended to drink some more as he thought. He just wished there was some way he could just shove them together and make them sort out their problems.

A small smile appeared on his face as an idea came to him. He could pull this off. He just needed to get everyone sufficiently drunk.

“Okay, everyone, so here are the rules,” a seemingly drunk Danny announced to the group of people he had assembled in a circle on the living room floor. “So, everyone goes in turn, and you say, ‘Never have I ever…’ and you say something you’ve never done. For everyone else, if you’ve done whatever it is, you have to take a drink.” He pointed to the bottles of various alcoholic beverages and the red plastic cups lined up on the coffee table.

SJ gave a soft sigh. She didn’t really want to get drunk. Not here, in front of these people she didn’t really know too well, and especially not in front of Jazzie. Jazzie had been keeping a distrustful eye on her ever since the day before, and SJ did not want to get drunk and say stupid things and give her more reason to suspect her.

She played with the hem of her gold fitted party dress as everyone voiced their agreement to Danny’s idea. She shot a glance at the curly-haired guitarist. He was up to something, she could tell. But she just didn’t know what it was.

SJ chanced a glance across the room to Dougie, who was sitting on the ground hugging his knees to his chest, looking almost like a little kid. He was wearing the usual dark jeans and plaid shirt, and the skin around his eyes, which were pretty in an almost feminine way, was touched by a hint of purple fatigue. SJ’s heart almost melted at this sight. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping well. Poor baby, she absentmindedly thought. She wished she could just…give him a hug or something.

SJ dragged her eyes away from Dougie as the game began. Danny started first, saying, “Never have I ever…er, skydived!” He waved his arms around ridiculously to emphasize his point. SJ rolled her eyes at his antics. But as she herself had never skydived either, she didn’t need to touch her cup.

The game went on. SJ reluctantly took several sips of her drink when she had to, but so far was doing okay. A very drunk blond girl sitting very nearly in Harry’s lap—the sight of Harry looking extremely awkward almost made SJ burst out laughing—declared, “Never have I ever smoked pot on the top of the Himalayan Mountains!”

The room was silent as everyone waited to see if anyone would take a drink. Then, everyone did a double take as one shy brunette carefully took a sip, looking embarrassed. SJ bit back her giggles. But her amusement faded as she saw whose turn was next. Dougie.

“Come on, Doug,” Danny urged him. “We don’t have all day.”

“I’m thinking,” Dougie responded. He tapped his fingers against his glass as he considered. “You know I’ve done pretty much everything.” He smirked. Several girls giggled knowingly. SJ found herself wanting to throw them dirty looks, but managed to restrain herself.

“Hmmm…well…” Dougie drawled. He looked up and met SJ’s eyes. A slow, cold smile appeared on his face as she held his gaze. For some reason, SJ felt drawn to his crystal-clear azure blue eyes. Until she heard what he said next. “Never have I ever…acted like a slut by lying and cheating my way to pretending to have broken up with my boyfriend just so I could fuck with some other person.”

SJ immediately dropped her gaze. She felt frozen. Of course, Dougie was talking about her. But no one else seemed to know what he was talking about, and their buzzing grew louder as SJ ducked her head down.

“Er, Dougie, I certainly hope you’ve never had a boyfriend,” Danny joked, trying to save the awkward situation.

But Dougie didn’t seem to take any notice of the clear warning in Danny’s voice, and instead went for the kill. “Why haven’t you taken a drink, SJ?” he continued in a low voice, though his words carried clearly through the room. “Haven’t you done it before? With me?”

SJ felt as though he had slapped her in the face. She couldn’t breathe for a moment. Ignoring her was something SJ could handle. But publicly humiliating her in front of all his friends? No. That was just not okay. She felt herself shaking with anger. “Pardon me,” she said with as much grace as she could muster, and walked off out of the room, ignoring everyone’s stares. Behind her, she could hear Tom rebuking Dougie—but it was too late.

Hot tears spilling down her cheeks, SJ escaped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She impulsively grabbed the soft white towel from its rack and screamed into it. The towel muffled any noise, but at least it let her anger out. She wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t upset—she was just mad. What gave Dougie the right to say that?? And in front of all those people? And to think just moments before she had been feeling sorry for him. Dougie had refused to hear her side of the story. So what gave him the right to keep fucking judging her?

SJ felt dizzy and sick. She took deep breaths to try and control her fury. But then she realized that she was feeling a different kind of sick. Vomit was crawling up her throat, and she couldn’t push it down. SJ was forced to lean over the toilet and vomit.

She sat on the floor for a couple of seconds, panting. That was the first time she had thrown up without sticking her finger down her throat and prompting it. It had just happened automatically. She hadn’t forced it.

“SJ.” There was a knock on the door. “It’s me, Harry. Are you alright?”

SJ clambered up. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she called back shakily. She rummaged silently under the sink and luckily found a pack of toothbrushes. Wrenching one out of the pack, she applied toothpaste and brushed her teeth hastily.

Harry paused. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” SJ replied as she spat out toothpaste along with the sour taste in her mouth. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

And when she did return back to the party, she was determined to show Dougie that she didn’t give a damn about what he thought about her.