It's complicated

Chapter 26

-Grace's POV-

After the first couple of songs, my muscles relax and my heart rate slows. The more we play, the more I relax and the better my parts sound. I look over to Ashton during one of my smaller parts, and he gives me a thumbs up. I wink at him and we finish the song.

"I'm kinda worried now. You guys might want Grace to play all the time." Ashton says, making the crowd go wild.

We start up again and the boys are getting more and more hyper during each song; jumping around and doing there in sync head turns. They taught me some of the choreography and I tried to do it some but I ended up just screwing it up.

The concert ended about 11 and I am dripping sweat. I don't know how Ashton does it.

We head to our dressing rooms and get changed. We meet back and then head to the VIP after party. Once we enter, everybody starts screaming and I grab Calum's hand. We all walk around and meet and talk to fans.

After awhile, I remember Crystal and Jessi. I haven't seen them, so I walk around the room, looking for them. There was alcohol set out, so half the people were already drunk, including the boys.

I keep looking and after a couple minutes, I spot Crystals mom. I wave and she smiles back, "Oh, Grace, thank goodness. This is a mess. Crystal and Jessi are both freaking out. Crystal couldn't find you and then Jessi went off and left her, so she's sitting in the corner, almost in tears."

"Oh my gosh. I am so sorry. I'll go find her." I leave her mom and go in the direction she said Crystal was in. I finally see her and start running. I see her sitting, curled up, leaning against the wall.

"Crystal? Are you okay? I'm so sorry." She looks up and pinches her eyes, looking really mad. I scrunch my eyebrows together, confused, "Wait are you mad at me? I didn't know it would be such a drunken party."

She doesn't say anything as she puts her head back into her lap. I sit down with her and wrap my arm around her.

After a couple minutes, she lifts her head and looks at me, "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you, it's just that, Jessi ditched me and the boys didn't even remember me they're so drunk. I just really feel awful."

I nod my head and hug her. We get up and I get my phone out to text Luke, considering he wouldn't remember if I told him, "Hey, I'm leaving the party and taking Crystal out. I'll probably be in the bus sleeping by the time you guys get back. Don't wake me up." I hit send and turn to Crystal.

"Okay, let's leave," I start the walk through the maze of drunken people, with Crystal right behind me, and finally get to the door. I open it up and see the guard who brought me my pizza.

"Oh, hello Ms. Hemmings. Do you need a ride somewhere?"

"Yes please, could you take me and my friend to Main Street." He nods and we follow him to a car. He gets in a limo and Crystal and I climb into the back, "I have a cousin who lives there. I'll text her and tell her we are coming. I'll give you the directions and you text you're mom. Tell her she can pick you up at anytime." Crystal nods and pulls out her phone. I text my cousin, Madison, and tell her we are coming. I give Crystal the address and her mom texts back seconds later, "Okay I'll be there at 12:30. Jessi told me she is going home with some guy. Her mom said it was fine so it's whatever I guess."

Wow, Jessi and Crystal seem like they have two opposite personalities. I shake it off and look at the time, it's 11:45 now, so Crystal won't be staying long. The guard pulls up to Main Street and asks us where we need to go.

"Umm, actually, we will walk. It's not far from here. Thanks so much, do you want any money?" I ask as I open the limo door.

"No, thank you." Crystal and I step out of the car and start walking. We don't say much and we get to the house about 5 minutes later.

Madison is waiting for us outside. When she sees me, she starts running to me. We used to be inseparable until she moved out of Sydney.

"Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you in forever!" Madison yells as we walk inside.

"I know, it's been awful. This is Crystal. She's a fan; I met her the other day at Taco Bell. The boys are at the after party, getting waisted. Crystals friend ditched her and I don't drink, so, here we are." Madison laughs at me as I finish my summation of the night.

"Well, did the concert at least go well? Did you shred it up out there?" Madison says and starts playing the air guitar.

Crystal and I laugh at her, "Well, I don't shred anything. I play acoustic during my set and drums for the boys while Ashton is out. But, yea, I did pretty good."

"Pretty good?," Crystal yells and looks at me, "You were amazing."

I blush and thank her. The three of us spend the night doing random things, talking about tour and basically nothing. After Crystals mom picked her up, I went ahead and left too. Madison drove me back to the bus and we got there a little after one. As I suspected, the boys weren't back yet.

I laid down on the couch and was watching tv when I fell asleep.

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I woke up way earlier than usual. I checked the clock on the wall and it said 6:30. I only got a little more than 5 hours of sleep, but I don't feel drained at all.

I get up and make myself a cup of coffee. I'm sitting on the couch when I see a girl tiptoe out of my bedroom. She is one of those girls that you can just tell is a slut and sleeps around. Wonder who she got last night.

She has her back facing away from me, so she doesn't see me, "Umm, who are you?" I ask and she jumps.

She looks up at me and smiles, "Oh, hey, Grace right? I'm Jessi."

Wait. Did I hear that right? "Jessi, as in Crystals friend?"

"Yeah, thanks for inviting us! I have to leave for work. Could you tell Calum sorry I was gone so soon? I told him last night I had to work, but he was probably too drunk to remember." She laughs, but my heart drops at the mention of Calum.

"Umm, sure." She starts to walk towards the door, but I stop her, "Wait, uh, Jessi, did you and Calum, you-know?" She blushes slightly and gives me a shy nod. Then, she leaves. Gone.

My first instinct isn't to feel sad, or angry, or even surprised. Nope, I don't feel any of that. I just feel lost. And as I sit there and twirl my promise ring around my finger, I can only think of 7 words.

A promise that will never be broken.
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Ahhh! I'm so bad at writing drama but I hope you guys liked it! Love you all💕