We Could Have Fallen in Love

The chattering and giggles of everyone around Dougie felt far away to him. The game had broken up after Dougie’s little announcement, for lack of better words, but Dougie felt like he couldn’t move from where he was sitting.

“That was a really douche move, Dougie,” he heard a quiet voice next to him say.

Dougie turned his head a quarter of an inch to see who it was. Harry. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“I’m serious.” He heard Harry give an impatient sigh. “Dougie, look at me!”

Dougie turned fully to face him. “Why did you do it?” Harry asked him.

Dougie paused. “I don’t know.” And it was true. Dougie wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that had made him say what he had said. Something had just come over him, something that made him blurt out his most terrible thoughts in front of a room full of people.

Harry’s expression was now hardening. Dougie knew the speech that was coming on. “Dougie, SJ is my cousin,” Harry began, repeating a frequently told lecture. “Now I don’t care if you hate her, you’ve fucked her, or you just want to shoot her brains out—” Dougie winced at these descriptive words, but Harry went on. “—but I don’t want to hear about it. I care about her a lot and I absolutely did not appreciate what you just said to her in front of all these people.” Now Dougie could hear an edge of anger creeping into Harry’s voice, but he controlled it. “You’d better apologize. And I don’t want this to happen again. I’m just saying, Dougie, watch out for what you say.”

Harry stood up and left with that ominous warning. Dougie barely reacted. Not because of Harry’s words—Dougie knew that if it came down to it, Harry would of course choose his cousin over his mate. Rather, his lack of reaction was because he was deep in thought. The look on SJ’s face when he had declared her a slut was imprinted in his brain, and he couldn’t shake off his feeling of guilt. He had acted like complete arse, and more than that, he had acted like an immature arse. If he wanted to say something to her, he should have said it face-to-face.

Dougie finally looked up from the spot in the carpet he had been staring at to see SJ just reemerging from the hall. Dougie couldn’t help but watch her as she made her way to the table with the drinks. She looked calm and collected, but Dougie could almost feel some inner fury radiating off her as she poured vodka into a red cup and mixed it with cranberry juice.

Dougie looked away quickly before he began concentrating on other things, such as how her gold dress hugged her body and brought out the gold flecks in her eyes, or how her auburn hair cascaded down her back in soft waves. Hastily, no sooner than these thoughts floated to his mind, he averted his gaze, but not before he realized Danny was watching him. Dougie made brief eye contact with Danny, who was narrowing his blue eyes at him, and again had to look away. Shit, what was going on? Dougie suddenly felt like everyone was against him.

“Oi, everyone!” Danny called out, standing up. He waited until the chattering quieted down before smirking. “So, I don’t reckon we’re done playing games. How bout we try another one?”

“Your games suck, Danny!” Dougie’s old friend Jamie Rosen shouted out drunkenly. Everyone tittered.

“No, this one’s fun, I promise,” Danny insisted. Was it just Dougie, or did Danny’s eyes just glint suspiciously? Against his will, Dougie inched closer to the circle, interested. Danny looked around for a moment before grabbing two identical crystal vases off the mantle.

“Mate, I was just kidding,” Jamie mumbled, bringing his arms over his face as though Danny was going to chuck the vases at him. “No need to get violent.”

Danny rolled his eyes and explained, “So, here’s the game. Everyone will write their name on a piece of paper. Girls will go in this one.” He gestured to the first vase. “And boys will go in this one.” He gestured to the second one. “I’ll pick one person from each. So, er…if you’re gay, I guess you’re out of luck here…Whoever gets picked has to go in that closet—” He pointed, and continued, “For seven minutes.”

A chorus of interested “ooohs” went around the room. Dougie perked up at the thought of getting some easy, random action.

“Yeah, Danny, I might I remember this game. I reckon I played it when I was like, twelve,” SJ scoffed, interrupting Dougie’s thoughts.

Laughter resonated around the room. Danny walked right up to SJ, who was still standing at the drinks table. “SJ, love, you can be the first to put your name down,” he told her brightly.

SJ rolled her eyes at him, but accepted the piece of paper he was offering and scribbled her name. Danny took it from her, grinning. Paper was then passed around the room until everyone had written their names down. When Danny had collected all the scraps of paper and put them in their respective vase, he settled himself at the head of the circle. “Alright, let’s get this game started!” he exclaimed, reaching to pick out the first names. But before he did so, he paused and turned back to face the group again, suddenly serious. “Before we started, you lot have to promise—if you get picked, you have to go through. You’re not allowed to back out,” he warned.

Dougie felt a little trepidation at these words as he murmured his assent along with everyone else, but shrugged it off as the game commenced. Only Danny would think of this shit, Dougie mused to himself, almost contemptuously. But he still laughed when Harry, red-faced, was chosen to enter the closet with the blonde bird that had been sitting on his lap earlier. Danny timed them for exactly seven minutes before bursting in obnoxiously. Dougie gave a loud wolf-whistle for his bandmate as Harry emerged from the closet, hastily buckling his belt, and grinned when the drummer blushed.

“Alright.” Danny sat back down again. He stuck his hand in one of the vases and shuffled around before pulling out a name. “Dougie.” Jamie gave Dougie a congratulatory slap on the back as Danny took out another name from the second vase and read it silently. His expression turned to one of mild shock.

“Who?” Dougie urged. He really hoped it was someone fit.

Danny cleared his throat. “SJ,” he read out loud.

For a second Dougie was sure he had misheard Danny. “What?” he snapped.

Danny half-shrugged. “That’s what it says.”

Dougie didn’t believe him for a second. He stood up, strode over to Danny, and grabbed the slip of paper out of his hand. But sure enough, it read SJ Judd in her artiste’s scrawl. He grabbed the other paper. Dougie was scribbled clearly in his own messy handwriting. “No,” he flat-out refused, avoiding looking at SJ as he ignored all the whispers and giggles.

“It’s not really your choice.” Danny sounded amused. “Rules are rules, mate. Now get your arse in there.” When Dougie didn’t move, Danny began pushing him in the direction of the ominous closet.

“Wait, don’t I get a say in this?” SJ demanded. From her tone of outrage Dougie assumed she was being manhandled in the same way he was.

“No, not really,” Danny answered her. With one final shove, Dougie tripped into the empty closet. A second later, SJ was pushed in by Tom and Harry. From their efforts, it seemed like she was putting up quite a fight. Dougie caught the expression on her beautiful face—she looked furious.

The last thing Dougie saw was Danny’s wide smirk. “Seven minutes,” he reminded them. “Enjoy.” He slammed the door shut, plunging them into complete and total darkness. Dougie heard the click of the lock.

“Are you fucking serious?” Dougie yelled, pounding on the door. There was no answer. Apparently, he was. Dougie cursed Danny again under his breath as his head hit some empty hangers. Dougie’s eyes widened automatically in an attempt to adjust to the dark, but he still couldn’t see anything. He reached a hand out cautiously to try and find the wall, but ended up touching SJ instead. “Sorry,” he mumbled, withdrawing his hand quickly as though he had touched fire.

“Don’t you dare try and pull any fucking moves on me, Poynter,” SJ snapped.

Dougie ignored her as his hand found a hard surface. He carefully slid down to the ground so he was sitting with his back against the wall. SJ remained standing, fidgeting beside him. Dougie brought his head to his hands and groaned quietly. A minute or so passed in complete silence, until Dougie couldn’t stand it anymore. He bit his nail nervously, before bringing forth the words that had just been waging an inner battle in his head. “I’m sorry.”

SJ seemed taken aback. But then again, he couldn’t see her face. “It’s not your fault,” she responded after a pause. “Danny totally set us up.”

“No, I mean…” Dougie’s throat was very dry now. He wished he didn’t have to say this. He was rubbish at apologizing. “I’m sorry about before…you know…”

SJ stopped fidgeting. The clinking of her bracelets was silenced, the slight whoosh her dress had been making when she shifted her weight from one leg to the other extinguished. For the longest minute she didn’t say anything. Then, finally, she asked him, “Why did you say it?” Her voice was quiet.

Harry had asked him the same thing, and Dougie hadn’t had an answer for him. But now, words automatically formed and spilled out of his mouth. “I wanted to hurt you the same way you hurt me.” His tone had a harsh edge to it that was unfamiliar to him, brought on by all those sleepless nights he had spent thinking about her.

“Did you mean it?” SJ asked, even quieter than before.

Dougie thought. But the answer didn’t come to him. “I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.

His words floated in the silence, almost echoing. SJ exhaled softly, then slid down carefully to sit next to him. Dougie turned his head to look at her. In the dark, all he could see was a vague outline of her face. When she spoke, her voice was reserved, forcefully steady. “What happened to us, Dougie?”

Dougie was surprised by this question. “I dunno, you tell me,” he responded, a little snarkily.

“But I don’t know, Dougie,” she said, her voice muffled. Dougie squinted at her in the dark. Her head seemed to be buried in her hands.

“Well, let’s see,” Dougie said, mock-thoughtfully. “You lied to me, cheated on your bloke, and basically acted like a two-faced slag, to be honest.”

He felt SJ almost wince at these words. Good, he thought to himself with a kind of satisfaction. She deserves it. But then her next words really surprised him.

“I don’t know why you feel the need to keep punishing me when you never even gave me a chance to explain,” she said in a low and clear voice.

“Explain what?” Dougie replied angrily. “I reckon I got a pretty good picture, thanks.”

“Will you just listen to me for a second?” she hissed. She took a deep breath to control her outburst. “Yeah, I know I did all that stuff. I own up to it. But, Dougie, I’m really sorry. I never meant for any of it to happen, especially the way it did. I promise.” Her voice now wavered, as though she was close to tears.

Dougie suddenly felt a weird urge to put his arm around her and comfort her. He caught a whiff of the lingering honey miel scent that he used to love and almost felt himself weakening. But then he closed his eyes—though it didn’t make that much of a difference in the dark—and forced himself to focus. “Saying you’re sorry doesn’t change the fact that you did it,” he said stiffly.

SJ didn’t refute this nor defend herself. A silence fell over them, blanketing them from words. Dougie squinted at the door. He felt sure that seven minutes were almost up, if not already, but knowing Danny he probably would stick them in there for longer, just for a laugh. Bastard, Dougie cursed him in his head. He was about to get up and bang on the door when SJ spoke again in a whisper.

“I was falling in love with you.”

Dougie jerked his head back to look at her. All he could see was a blurred outline of her face. “Er—I’m sorry, what was that?” he said uncertainly, sure that he had misheard her.

“I was falling in love with you,” SJ repeated simply.

“Oh.” Dougie’s mind felt frozen.

“I fucked up badly, and I’m sorry,” she continued in a soft voice. “But if you don’t believe me…well, there’s really nothing I can do to change your mind.”

Dougie’s head was spinning. Did she really just say she had been falling in love with him? SJ, the bitch extraordinaire, who never showed any feeling except contempt to anything, actually confessing to something like this? It didn’t seem possible. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but before he could, the door burst open. and light flooded in, blinding him. Dougie brought his arm over his eyes to shield them from the sudden light flooding in. As his eyes adjusted, he saw Danny standing in front of them.

“Aw, dammit, they’re not doing anything fun!” Danny announced to someone behind him, sounding extremely disappointed.

“Wow, mate, warning much?” Dougie grumbled as he got to his feet. Beyond Danny’s shoulder, he could see the rest of the party breaking up as people began leaving.

“What do you need a warning for?” Danny sounded bemused. “I wanted to catch you two in action!”

“Shut up, dickhead,” Dougie told him irritably. Danny had just interrupted a moment—Dougie wasn’t sure what kind of moment it was, precisely, but Danny had definitely ruined it.

“Whoa, touchy,” Danny muttered. Dougie ignored him as he turned back around. SJ was still sitting on the floor.

“Here,” he mumbled, reaching out his hand for her.

SJ raised her gold-flecked green eyes to meet his azure blue ones before taking his hand. Dougie felt almost speechless for a second. There was so much in that one look, so much he couldn’t decipher. But then she looked down and muttered a quick, “Thanks,” as she pulled herself up. She straightened her gold dress, took a deep breath, then walked away without another word.

Danny’s eyes followed her, before turning back to look at Dougie. “What happened between you two?” he asked, astonished.

Dougie shrugged. Then he realized Danny was waiting for him to say something. “I have absolutely no fucking idea.”