Smiling Politely

Lexi stepped out into the cold dark night, relieved to have dodged any of BMTH or their crew but a little disappointed at the same time, they were the main people in her life for a really long time. She looked up at their bus one last time and caught sight of a figure standing under the streetlight a couple of feet away from it, “Josh?” she asked tentatively.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

She frowned, “What?” she crossed the cobbled road and stood in front of him.

“Nicholls,” he spat.

“How do y-”

“I was waiting for you before work, to apologise for last night but instead I saw you with him,” he interrupted.

“Josh, he just wanted to talk. I didn’t give him a chance to do that when we broke up so I thought I owed it to him,” she tried to explain.

He just shook his head, “You didn’t get to talk enough when he went round to the flat the other day then?”

She opened her mouth to reply but he had her, there was no way of explaining or reasoning herself out of that one.

“I should’ve believed them when they told me what you were like. Guess I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, hope that you’d changed but I was proven wrong and I’m kind of disappointed. I really liked you Lexi.”

She frowned, “Wait, what the hell are you talking about? Who told you what?”

“That this is what you do, go from band dude to band dude. That you have a thing for drummers no matter who they play for but the bigger the better. I guess when Bring Me The Horizon are in town I get shoved aside. Has it been a slow couple of months and that’s why you kept me around or is it just our band are were the biggest that’ve come around til now? Fuck, we’re not even that big,” he threw his hands up in the air.

She was only half listening to what he was saying, she wanted to know who had fed him all this ridiculously false information and she wracked her brain to think who he had been in contact with that would say those things about her, “Who sold you all this bullshit?”

He paused for a second and ran a hand through his dark hair, “Those girls, from your college. What’re their names… the little one with the big tits and the fat one.”

“Nicole and Eva?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “Them.”

Lexi bit her bottom lip and shook her head, placing her hands on her hips, “So you believe the wannabe and her sidekick?”

Josh shrugged, “They’re your friends aren’t they?”

“Barely. Definitely not anymore. They are jealous little girls that manipulate people to get what they want. Which I’m guessing was you or one of the guys.”

“So I’m supposed to believe it’s all lies?” Josh scoffed.

“Yes,” Lexi cried, “The only part that’s true is that Matt and I had a relationship and yes I should have told you about it and yes I should have told you he was in town and that I’d seen him, okay?”

He folded his arms across his chest, “Do you still love him?”

“What?” he had caught her off guard.

“Do you still love him?”

She swallowed hard and shrugged, “What does it matter?”

“It matters a hell of a lot. If I was still in love with my ex wouldn’t you want to know?” he reasoned.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she looked down and scuffed the toe of her shoe against the damp pavement.

“You know it does Lex,” Josh sighed.

“No, it doesn’t,” she said defiantly, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her ripped jeans, “It doesn’t change a thing because he doesn’t love me, he can’t after what I did.”

“What did you do?”

She looked down at the ground again, “I just left him, told him I was coming home and didn’t go back.”

“And that’s what ended it?” Josh asked, now understanding that there was obviously a lot of things left unsaid between the former couple.

Lexi nodded, “You still think I’m some groupie whore?”

He almost laughed, “No, cause you don’t put out.”

Her jaw dropped and she looked up at his smiling face.

He held a hand up in defence, “In the most inoffensive way.”

“I know a girl with massive tits who’d shag you in a heartbeat,” she supplied.

Josh made a face, “I’d rather see to myself to be honest.”