Because You Shine Brighter, Than Anyone Does

“This food is fucking awesome,” Elsie mumbled with a mouthful of chocolate cake shoved in her gob. I just laughed at her.

“Could yeh at least finish eatin’ before yeh start talkin’, I don’t wanna see what’s in yeh gob,” I’m glad my accent never really left, because I loved my accent. Elsie poked her tongue at me and swallowed her cake.

“So what are we gonna do tomorrow, for your birthday?” she asked. To be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I’m sure she could pick something fun to do.
“Why don’t we go to a club, we haven’t been clubbing in yonks and I wanna see what kind of guys you have here,” of course, typical Elsie although it wouldn’t be hard for her to pick up, she is gorgeous.
She has long curly/wavy dark brown hair that hangs halfway down her back; she’s really tall, about 5’8”. Nice legs, they go on forever. Her eyes are a deep chocolate brown and she has a smile that puts any guy under a trance. She has the perfect body that any model would die for.
Me; I have long blonde hair with blue tips, I’m not tall or short; I stand at about 5’7”. I have naturally big boobs, DD’s. My eyes are a bright green with a blue speck in each and I have curves in all the right places. I’m not fat at all, but I like my curves.
“Em, you in there?” she tapped my head so I slapped her hand away.

“Shu’ up, I was thinkin’,” she snorted at that and I shot her a glare. “Yeah, clubbin’ sounds good,” Elsie squealed and I shook my head. Elsie was always ridiculously over-joyed when we were going to go clubbing.
“’M gonna ‘ave a shower then go teh bed. Don’ stay up too late okay,” Elsie rolled her eyes at me and went back to watching the TV.

“Yes mum, night,” I flicked the finger at her and walked into the bathroom.

The warm water felt nice on my skin, relaxing my muscles from the big day and flight we had.
I always got nervous when flying, especially over water. I wasn’t afraid of flying but I couldn’t help but think of what might happen if something failed or went wrong. I stood under the water for another five minutes after washing my hair, then got out. I walked over to the room I was staying in, chucked on a white tank top and black knickers, put my hair into a bun and climbed under the blankets. I was really hoping that I wouldn’t run into the guys, or Sj tomorrow night, that would be awkward. And tomorrow night being a Friday night, I’m sure the guys are out, enjoying the start of the weekend, so there is a very high chance that we could run into them, for my benefit, and Sj’s, I hope we don’t.
I closed my eyes and fell into a peaceful sleep quickly.

Matty’s P.O.V

Oli, Tom, Vegan, Curtis, Lee and myself were all at Vegan’s house having a veg night; drinking, playing video games and getting high. This is the only night we’ve had without the bitch in heels being with us so we are using it to its full advantage. The bitch in heels is none other than Sj. Why Oli is with her after he’s caught her so many times cheating beats me.

A couple of days ago we celebrated Oli’s 20th birthday. There was only one thing in the world Oli wanted, and unfortunately we couldn’t get a hold of her; she had moved away five years ago. No one has been the same since she left. I don’t know what it was about her, she was like our sun and when she left everything became dark and unhappy.
Oli left the room to take a piss, so I paused the game and turned to everyone.

“Guess whose birfday it is tomorrow?” I said to everyone. Vegan and Curtis stopped rolling the joint and faced me. I heard Tom sigh from beside me. He had the hardest time trying to deal with Emily leaving. It was like, when she left, a part of Tom left to and he hasn’t gotten it back since.

“It’s Emileh’s, it’s ‘er 18th innit?” Vegan always had the best memory. I nodded and a sad silence filled the room. Oli walked back into the room and sat back down next to me so we could finish playing the game. He noticed the looks on everyone’s faces and the silence and his face fell. I looked into his eyes and the longing and hurt behind them almost brought me to tears. We all hated seeing it in Oli’s eyes.

“It’s ‘er birthday tomorrow, innit?” I nodded. I was never able to lie to Oli, not even when we were younger, he was my best mate.
“I wish she were ‘ere so we could par’eh for ‘er 18th,” everyone smiled again, at least he was speaking positively.

“I think we should go ou’ tomorrow nigh’ an’ par’eh for ‘er, she would want us teh,” Curtis said.

“We’re talkin’ like she’s fuckin’ dead. Stop it, alrigh’. We’ll see ‘er again, she’s prob’leh closer than we fink,” Tom snapped then stormed out of the house. See what I mean, Tom was never one to snap at anyone, when Emily left, it left a big gaping hole in both the Sykes brothers hearts; Tom because she was his best mate, and Oli because he liked her a lot. He never told anyone, except me, how he felt about her. I don’t think he wanted to admit it to himself. He blames himself for Emily leaving. He said to me one night, drunk off his face, that three weeks before Emily left, at the party, he was having sex with Sj and Emily walked in. He’s hated himself every day after that weekend. That was also the weekend that he and the skank officially got together. I don’t know why Oli’s with her; he knows what she’s like. Now they’ve been together for five years on and off.
Everyone was just sitting there with shocked expressions on their faces. No one has seen him go off like that in a long time. Last time he snapped like that was when he found out Oli was with Sj.

“What’s ‘is problem?” Oli asked.

“She was ‘is best mate, ‘e has a righ’ teh be upset Olleh,” Oli scoffed and turned back to the TV.

“She were all out best mate, ‘e needs teh get over it. I don’t fink she’s comin’ back, now let’s stop talkin’ about ‘er and get trashed,” and just like that the mask was back on. Everyone nodded and we sculled back our drinks. We need to get Emily back, or this is just gonna get worse.

Elsie’s P.O.V

25th of November, my best friends 18th birthday, thank the lord.

I woke up early and snuck into Emily’s room. She was fast asleep, no blankets covering her and hair a mess. I giggled to myself at the sight of her and took a step back. I ran and jumped onto the bed. I heard a faint groan so I started jumping up and down right next to her. She mumbled something under her breath, sat up and glared at me.

“El, yeh bitch, yeh know I ‘ate bein’ woken up, it better be for a good fuckin’ reason,” I rolled my eyes. She is such a cranky bitch in the mornings.

“You can be so daft sometimes. It’s your fucking birthday you hoe bag. So get the fuck up, put some clothes on and stop being a cranky bitch,” I walked out of her room and into the lounge room. Man this place is fucking awesome, I wish I could afford something like this every night, I would be in heaven. It’s good to have a friend like Emily. I know that sounds bad but really isn’t. I don’t like Emily just because she has money, I liked her before she even told me that she had money, it’s just a bonus and I know for a fact that she would say the same thing if our positions were reversed. I saw her phone sitting on the coffee table and so I grabbed it. I made sure she was nowhere to be seen and started looking through her contacts. I was looking for a particular name but couldn’t find it so I kept going. I found another name though Matty – Sheff, this had to be one of her friends from here.
Emily told me all about her group of friends from when she lived here, they sounded like awesome guys. She told me all the shit they used to do. She told me about one day when they loosened the lid on the salt and when Les, or was it Lee, went to put salt on his food, the salt went everywhere. She told me everything about her life, including her mum.
I quickly copied the number to my phone and then placed them back on the table just as she walked into the lounge room.

“Why did yeh get meh up so earleh?” she asked. She looked gorgeous, even though she didn’t think so and didn’t try to. She was wearing a pair of tight skinny leg jeans, a blue tank top that was under a black waist leather jacket and a pair of blue canvas shoes. Her hair was straight but messy, her fringe was pinned back and a pair of sunnies were a top her head. Make-up wise; she had a little bit of eyeliner on that was smudged and some clear lip gloss on.

“’Cause I want you to take me to the diner you used to go to when you lived here,” I saw a slight smile come to her face and I knew she was thinking about ‘her’ boys and what they used to do there. You could see that she missed them like crazy.

“Okay, come on,” she grabbed my hand and quickly pulled me up. I grabbed our phones and she pulled me to the door. She was excited now. I hadn’t seen her excited since, forever.
“It’s not well no’iced but ‘as the best coffeh and pancakes,” at the mention of pancakes I quickly put my jacket and shoes on and we were out the door. Sheffield was much, much colder than Australia.
We walked out of the hotel and onto the street. She called a taxi and we were on our way to the diner. I looked out the window and saw people walking down the street with their partners and kids and friends, and I wasn’t jealous, because the only person I needed right now was sitting next to me. I turned to Emily and hugged her tightly.

“Your my best friend Emmy,” she hugged me back and we laughed.
We arrived at the diner a couple of minutes later and I was shocked, this place was pretty much empty. There was a group of guys sitting in the far corner of the diner, laughing amongst themselves and joking around like fools. We walked through the door and it dinged, the guy at the counter looked over to us and his almost popped out of his head when he saw us. I guess the poor guy doesn’t see girls that often. I smelt the aroma of coffee, vanilla and pancakes; I was in fucking heaven.
We walked over to the counter and smiled at the boy. He looked bored as shit.

“What can I get yeh?” he asked, he sounded like he was 14 or something.

“I’ll get a large mocha thanks,” Emily said. He wrote it on his pad then turned to me.

“And I’ll have a vanilla cappuccino thanks,” I wasn’t in the mood for pancakes at the moment. The guy wrote my order in the pad and then rang it up on the till. Emily gave him her credit card and he swiped it. She put in her pin and then pocketed her card.

“It’ll be about a ten minute wait,” Emily and I both nodded then walked outside so she could have a smoke. She smokes camels; I don’t know why she smokes at all really. As Emily was preoccupied with her smoke I averted my gaze to the group of guys in the booth. They were all looking at Emily and I and one was pointing and talking to the others.

“Em, do they look familiar?” I asked. Emily turned around and looked at the guys. I was watching their reaction and they all looked surprised. She gasped and I saw her smoke fall from her fingers. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head and I think she was on the verge of hyperventilating, which is not good.

“No, it can’t be. What the fuck are they doin’ ‘ere?” she muttered.

“Em, what’s going on?” I asked.

“It’s them El,” I looked at her like she was crazy.

“It’s who...Oh fuck, you mean them, as in old friends them. Is that guy with them?” and she just nodded. I looked back to the guys and they were all getting up and walking this way.

“Fuck, run Elsie,” and she took off. I couldn’t do anything else except follow her. I didn’t know my way around Sheffield and I wasn’t just about to get myself lost so I bolted after her. Emily stopped a taxi and we got in. She quickly told the cabbie where to go and he sped off. I looked behind me to see they guys standing there looking like stunned mullets. That was close, too close.