You're So Pretty On the Outside

“Oliver Scott Sykes, get out of my room before I break your baby maker,” I growled when he kept jumping on my bed.

“Wake up, Angel Face,” he said happily.

I flipped over fully ready to follow through with my threat, but he ran out of the room before I had the chance to do anything.

“I should start locking my door more often.”

I groaned and pulled myself out of bed. After changing into some real clothes, I left my room rubbing my eyes.

“Success!” Oli cried from the kitchen.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Ouch, cranky.”

“I am not in the mood for your shit today, Sykes. Sarah, I’m going out tonight.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

“I know. You always do around this time.”

I smiled sadly at her.

“Is it… Is it okay if Oli goes with you? Everyone else is kind of busy tonight.”

I groaned and put my head on the table but muttered a “yes” anyway.

“When are you going to leave?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What time is it now?”

“It’s only about 1.”

“Are you serious? I’m going to the beach. Who’s coming with me?”

I laughed when everyone raised their hands.

“Can we stop at our hotel first? We don’t have any of our stuff here,” Curtis said.

“Yeah sure. We’ll leave in 20 minutes,” I said.

“Sounds good.”

Sarah and I went to our rooms to change and left the boys in the living room. I changed, put on waterproof eyeliner, and grabbed the rest of my stuff before heading into the kitchen to grab some snacks.

I filled my bag with random drinks and snacks before meeting up with everyone back in the living room. Everyone was ready to go, so Sarah and I got into my car while the guys got into their rental.

When we got to the hotel the guys took turns changing in the bathroom while we sat on a bed talking. Just as I was taking a drink of my water, Mattie came out of the bathroom in a Speedo. I shrieked and hid my face in a random pillow.

“You are not wearing that!”

It came out a little bit muffled because of the pillow.

“Why not? I think it makes me look sexy,” he joked.

I peeked out from behind the pillow to see him flexing his bicep.

“Trust me, it doesn’t. Now go change into something else!” I cried.

He rolled his eyes but went to change into some trunks anyway.

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*Oli’s POV*

I smiled as I watched her play in the water with Sarah. Lee ran up to me and plopped himself down in the sand.

“You’re like a lovesick puppy,” he commented goodheartedly.

I chuckled slightly.

“Not quite.”

“Right and I’m not British. You follow her around all of the time, you get Sarah to convince her to let you go places with her, and you stare at her constantly. I could go on, but that would take all day.”

“Maybe I am then. But what does it matter? She hates me so it’s not like this can go anywhere.”

“You could be right, but there’s nothing wrong with trying. What’s the worst that could happen?”

So I started listing off every possible reason stopping me from trying to make my relationship with Anna go farther.

“1. She could pretend to like me and then dump me in front of everyone. 2. She could make me trust her and then kill me in my sleep. 3. She leaves me and rips my heart out. Do you want me to continue?”

He just laughed and shook his head.

“She’ll warm up to you eventually. We’re going to be around for a while so she’ll see that you don’t really act the way people think you do.”

“I hope so,” I mumbled as I watched her.

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7 hours later

“So why don’t you want to celebrate your birthday? And why do you drink so much?” I asked.

Anna and I were on our way to a bar. Sarah had gotten her to let me come with her and babysit her basically.

“If you really want to know anything about me, you’ll wait to ask until I’m drunk,” she said pointedly.

“I don’t want to do that. I would practically be taking advantage of you.”

“Not if I’m giving you permission to do it.”

“Still….”

“Whatever. Here are my keys.”

A few hours later she was sitting on my lap half asleep.

“Can I ask you some questions?”

Angel looked up at me sleepily and smiled a little bit.

“Shoot.”

“First of all, how do you end up on my lap every time you drink?” I laughed.

She patted my chest and cuddled into me more.

“Because you make a good pillow.”

“That works. And why do you hate me so much?”

“Well, at first it was just because it seemed like you were a douche bag, but you’ve been nice to me.”

She nodded with her words and she was speaking pretty clearly.

“Why do you still hate me then?”

“It’s not that I hate you. I just hate the fact that I could actually get into a relationship with the real you.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

“I have commitment issues. I don’t cheat or anything, it’s just hard for me to maintain a good relationship.”

“How come? I think we’d be great together.”

“If you knew my story then you would understand.”

“Explain, please.”

“Well, it all started with my parents. You see, everyone thought that they were perfect together and they were for a while. Then my dad started cheating on my mom and when she found out, they got a divorce. On my 16th birthday, my mom decided to be a selfish bitch and kill herself. It makes me so mad and sad that she could do something like that. To me, suicide is one of the most selfish things that you can ever do,” she said softly. “That’s enough questions for tonight. Can we just go home now?”

“Sure, Love. I’ll drive you home then.”

“Thank you.”

She clutched onto my t-shirt and buried her face in it when I stood up with her in my arms. I adjusted Angel in my arms and carried her out to the car. She was asleep as soon as I placed her in the passenger seat.

I drove her home and placed her in her bedroom. On my way out to my car Sarah stopped me. She leaned against the doorframe of the front and looked at me.

“I know she told you what happened,” Sarah said seriously.

I nodded. “I agree with her. Suicide is one of the most selfish things that you can do. Sure, you end your own suffering, but you just cause everyone who loves you to suffer.”

“You could stay here for the night, you know.” She motioned her head towards the guest bedroom.

“That’s alright. I’ve got to bring the rental back to the hotel otherwise the guys will have no way to get here tomorrow. I’ll be back with them in the morning though.”

She nodded in understanding.

“We’ll see you tomorrow then. Oh, and Anna might try to avoid you tomorrow. She won’t remember what she told you, but she’ll know that she told you something.”

“Alright. Bye.”