Stay With Me

“Jesus Christ, are you sure that bullet didn’t strike your head? You’re insane Max! I can’t do that!” I cried, he bit his lip tears welling up in his eyes, “Max, don’t you dare start crying. You can’t expect me to just drop everything because you suddenly decide you like me, when I last kissed you; you nearly had a heart attack”.

“That’s not the point Lauren! Josh raped you for fuck sake! He’s hit you on numerous occasions and cheated on you, why can’t you accept he’s not the right person for you?” Max groaned, I ripped my arm away from him and stood up.

“I know what Josh has done to me, we’ve spoken about it Max and trust me, he lives with it every day and I know he regrets it. But how dare you bring it up when it has nothing to do with you, you have no right to sit there and insult Josh and his actions when they haven’t affected you in the slightest” I growled, “I have nothing else to say to you Max! I can’t believe you would just say this to me! Your best friend is outside this fucking door, no wonder he was worried about leaving”.

“Oh shut up Lauren, I know you feel the same way about m-”

“DON’T EVEN SAY THAT MAX. I DON’T LOVE YOU” I sobbed, “I can’t love you Max, I can’t do this again”

“Can’t do what again? You think I’m alright sitting here and hearing all this! I just finally poured my heart out to you Lauren telling you that I was in love with you! I finally gathered up the courage to fucking tell you and you blow me down like I mean nothing!” He yelled his eyes holding hurt and confusion.

“It’s not my fault you fell for me Max!”

“YES IT IS! YOU’RE THE ONE THAT FUCKING KISSED ME, YOU’RE THE ONE THAT CUDDLES ME AND TELLS ME YOU LOVE ME!”

“HAVEN’T YOU EVER HAD A FRIEND BEFORE MAX?! YOU DO THAT! IT’S CALLED CARING!” I screamed balling my hand into a fist angrily. How dare he blame me for this, I hadn’t lead him along, I hadn’t given him false hope.

“NO IT’S CALLED MAKING SOMEONE FALL FOR YOU WITHOUT INTENTION OF TAKING YOUR RELATIONSHIP FURTHER!” He roared, I sunk back into the chair slightly at a loss for words. “YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN THE WRONG HERE” He howled.

I stood up and threw the chair backwards, “Maybe you’re right Max. Maybe I do feel the same way, but I’m going to be the better person and not act on my feelings as I’m marrying your best friend in 30 days whether you like it or not” I snarled stomping out the room and slamming the door closed. The guys stalked after me rushing so they were able to keep up with my long strides.

“What happened?” Dan questioned, I waved all the guys off and walked out the hospital doors deciding I wasn’t going to give Max the time of day until he apologised to me.

------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s been exactly 25 days since Max was shot and exactly 25 days since I’d spoken to him. I’m to get married in 5 days and I’m REALLY not happy about it, I have a bad vibe about the wedding and I’m sure it’s got something to do with Max or Chris. Josh and I have been getting closer but we still have our arguments when he asks what happened between myself and Max in the hospital room 18 days ago. Everything for the wedding has been sorted, invitations have been sent out and the dresses had been collected and hung up in some wardrobe somewhere.

I was currently lying in bed watching a DVD with Matt. I think it was A Series Of Unfortunate Events... but I’m not sure. Josh had to go to some meeting with his parents, Chris, Max and Dan over tour buses. Matt opted to stay with me which I thought was rather nice of him considering he could have fucked off and left me on my own. Matt kept shifting nervously next to me and kept glancing over at me, I knew he wanted to ask something but was too worried to do so. “Spit it out” I chuckled; Matt sighed and turned so he was lying on his hip and his gaze was directed at me.

“The night you started crying during the film...” I froze at the mention of that night; I knew what was coming next. It would be some question about my dad or Eleanor that I would rather not answer. “Before you went to sleep you looked up at me and said there was more then what you was telling me... what did you mean?” He asked.

I contemplated telling the truth or making up something, but sooner or later I would have to come clean and admit to everything. “I used to be a junkie” I admitted, my cheeks blushed red in shame. He gasped and gawked at me trying to comprehend what I had previously said.

“Are you being serious?”

“Deadly” I mumbled, I slowly pulled the jumper sleeves up and showed him the track marks all over my arms, “It started just after my dad died. It was about two years ago and I was thirteen, I was at a party and a friend offered me some weed and that basically started it off, I’d occasionally do weed and was naive. As you know, you can’t get addicted to weed so I thought I was invincible and started to do cocaine obviously forgetting that was a drug you could get addicted too. I started off doing it about once a week and it ended up being a daily routine, get up, shoot up, go to school, shoot up in the toilets, go home, shoot up again” I sighed.

“Jesus Christ” Matt mumbled, his fingers were curiously tracing the rash like scars on my arms.

“Soon I just turned to drugs completely, I was blowing money fast and soon I was being offered heroin and just accepted it. I was a junkie, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing” I muttered, I felt tears come to my eyes but quickly blinked them away, “El was becoming sick of it and managed to get me professional help, they were able to get me off the stuff so I’ve been clean about a year. She was so proud when she found out I was clean...” I chuckled at the thought, she’d been so happy she’d thrown me a party and brought about a thousand balloons and hand written ‘you’re awesome!’ on each of them.

“I’m too scared to try drugs... I know people that have tried them and they’ve said how great they are” Matt told me, I frowned and shook my head.

“Don’t ever try them, if I find out you’ve ever done drugs, your balls will be mine Barnes” I smiled, he chuckled and wrapped his arm around me. “I was also an alcoholic but I’m over that as well” I laughed, I felt him tense up beside me slightly.

“Don’t you ever get tempted to take drugs again though?” Matt asked, I shrugged and scratched my skin over the track marks.

“Not really. Thinking about the stuff I did while I was on them is enough to put me off them completely” I explained, he raised his eyebrows curiously.

“Stuff you did?” Matt enquired; my eyes widened realising I’d now have to explain things in more detail.

“Promise you won’t hate me and tell people?” I whispered, he nodded his head quickly and moved his hands around signalling me to carry on. “I got into a gang with Cody, it was his idea and I was as high as a kite so I agreed. I didn’t realise this gang consisted of killing people. I was the only female in the gang and therefore they put a lot of time and effort into training me to make sure when put in a fight, I was able to take the females on while they whooped the males’ arses”.

I bit my lip preparing myself for his reaction, “One night there was a fight, and my gang was losing badly. Cody had told me that if the gang was put in a life or death situation, we were to use the guns carried around in our t-shirts, well mine was in my bra, but that’s not the point... I pulled the gun out and shot some guy, I didn’t realise what I was doing. That was a diversion for my gang to pull their guns out and kill the rest of them” I sighed.

“You’ve killed people?” He gasped, I nodded my head with a sob, “Who knows?”

“My gang”

“Does Josh know...?” Matt asked, I looked at him and shook my head.

“Does Josh know what?” Josh questioned walking through the door with his beanie in his hand and his eyebrows raised.