End Up Here

Chapter One - part one

The grin was immediately wiped off of my face. Even Mom was glaring, blue eyes sharp and studying. "Um. Hi?" The awkward silence only grew more uncomfortable. Nobody offered any helpful information as to why I was being stared at in such a way. "Or hey?"

Ashton only shook his head as Calum and Michael stood up. Not meeting my eyes, they gave Mom a kind smile. "We'll be in the basement." Calum's voice was level and calm, but there was no mistaking the look in his gaze - it was obvious how angry he was, and I had no idea why.

Calum was through the doorway and down the stairs without waiting for a response, but at the top of the staircase Michael paused. Turning, he avoided looking at me. "You coming, Ashton?"

The drummer boy shrugged. "I'll be down in a moment," he muttered, standing up and stretching. With a nod of his head, Michael was gone. His walk casual but his eyes filled with emotion - was that sadness? Or anger? It was impossible to tell which - he made his way towards me. "Alana, have you checked your Twitter lately? Have you seen the trending hashtags?"

I shook my head. "N-no," I stammered. "W-why? What are people saying?" Fear crept into my voice, although I tried my hardest to hide it.

His voice was quiet, the opposite of what it usually was. "That..." He didn't meet my eyes, only stared at the ground, as the words came out. "That you're cheating on Luke." Holding out his cell phone - which was open on Twitter - he showed me the hashtags, things like "#sorryluke" or "#alanasacheater" or "#alanadoesntdeserveluke".

"What?" I handed him his phone back. "Why would they think that I'm cheating on Luke?" Ashton shrugged, and he had that look in his eye that he wanted to believe me but didn't. "Ashton!" His head raised at the sharpness in my voice. "I swear I'm not cheating on him - I don't know why anybody would think that."

"Weeell..." He drew the word out in that annoying way I hated. "You've kinda been hanging out with James all day - people take pictures, Alana, that's the way life is."

I didn't know whether to laugh or scream, so I did nothing but stare straight ahead, into Ashton's eyes. My voice barely above a whisper, "I swear I'm not cheating on Luke."

"You should probably go tell Luke that,"- he pointed towards the window on the other side of the room, and as I looked out into the pouring rain, I realized that there was a drenched figure sitting on the swing outside - "not me."

---

I pulled the door shut behind me, quick as to not allow the torrential rain to enter the house uninvited. Stepping farther away from the house, I slowly began to make my way across the backyard, towards Luke. Although I couldn't see through the pouring water very well, I could feel his eyes on me. "Hey." It took only seconds for me to be right in front of him - the backyard wasn't very big.

"Where's James? I thought you were spending the day with him - you know, going to see a movie, maybe walk around the mall a bit? That's what you said when you left."

I ignored the bitterness in his voice as I responded. "He's in the basement with the boys doing who knows what. Probably playing X-Box or whatever, maybe talking about music - he can kinda play guitar, and he's really good at trumpet, so maybe they found a common interest. Or he might be talking to Calum about soccer. Those are my guesses." I tried to flash him a bright smile, but I could tell it wavered. "What have you been up to today? Did you and the boys do anything interesting?"

When he glanced up from the ground, his gaze was emotionless. "Don't, Alana, just don't." My smile faded. We both knew exactly what he meant. "I can't believe you would cheat on me," he mumbled.

Reaching out, I pushed his wet hair back, out of his eyes. "That's because I wouldn't," I replied. Kneeling down so that I could look up into his face, I took his hand in mine. "You can't believe it because you know I wouldn't."

"But, Alana," he didn't look at me as the next words left his lips, "the problem is, I don't know that."

---

I didn't know whether to be angry or upset, so I decided on neither.

"Luke..." I sighed. I knew it was hopeless, but I also knew that if I didn't try I would never forgive myself. "James is just a friend - you know that."

He shook his head. "Alana, I saw the pictures. You two held hands, you hugged, and the two of you looked pretty flirtatious together. And nobody, not even the world's stupidest human, could mistake the look you had on your face when you opened the door and he walked through." He sounded tired, and he didn't even try to hide the dejected tone in his voice. "C'mon, Alana, you're better than this. Don't lie."

"Luke, I'm not!" I was louder than I wanted to be. Lowering my voice, I lifted his chin up with my finger, so that we were looking at each other. "We didn't hold hands in 'that' way; people recognized me as the girlfriend of the amazingly talented and super fabulous Luke Hemmings and they started to crowd, and as we were escaping the  people that were starting to gather I grabbed his hand so that I didn't lose him. Yeah we hugged, but friends hug, don't they? And although I doubt we were flirting, if we did seem flirty I'm sorry, but I don't like him anymore!"

His eyebrows raised. "'Anymore'?"

"You know he was my first boyfriend, of course I used to like him."

He didn't have an argument for that.

"Alana, I want to believe you, but... it just looked to real."

---

"You know what?" I stood up, dropping his hand. "Fine. Don't believe me. Believe whatever you want - just know that you're believing lies."

I turned around, but a hand gripping my wrist stopped me from leaving. "What? You're leaving? You're not supposed to leave, I'm supposed to leave!"

"Bye, Luke," I whispered softly.

He didn't let go of me. "Why do you sound sad? You're not the one being cheated on!"

"I've been through this before, I'm not going through it again," Using my left hand, I pried his fingers off of my right arm. "I thought you were different, but I guess I also thought you loved me."

I was gone before he had time to answer.

---

The rain poured down in front of me, but none of it touched me. I was to far away from the edge of the porch for it to be able to reach me.