Don't Forget Me (George Shelley Fan Fiction)

Surprise...

On the morning of December 4th I received a text from Em:

Be ready for 6pm, my Dad’s picking you up, we’re going to my cousins party, no excuses so don’t bother. See you then!

I so badly wanted to text her back making up an excuse for why I couldn’t go, I’d become a social retreat but like she’d instructed me, I didn’t bother.

I was contemplating not making any effort for the party but eventually I realised that it could have been the thing to take my mind off George. So at 5:45 I had finished my makeup and was pulling on the black and white dress that I’d bought over a year before for a party I never ended up attending. I wasn’t brave enough to wear heels so I slipped on my black converse and spritzed on some perfume. I ended up sat on my bed running through all the things that could possibly go wrong that night, I’d started doing that a lot then, dwelling on what could go wrong most days, I don’t know why, it just seemed like everything that could go wrong had gone wrong for me in the past.

Em arrived 2 minutes early and the way my mum kissed me on the forehead and said “have a good night” with a smirk on her face made me question whether this was actually a party we were going to. A year earlier, the car journey there would have been a pre party for us, the build-up but it was just an awkward silence most of the way. I’d slipped into this depressive state ever since the events that weekend, they changed me and I couldn’t work out how or why loosing George had had such a huge impact the second time around, but I wasn’t myself anymore. I barely left the house other than to go to college, I rarely spoke to anyone, I blew things off, I spent consecutive hours in my room, I was a mess and it was all his fault, but deep down, I only had myself to blame.

Half an hour after leaving my house we were pulling up at the side of the road and Peter was waving us away and shouting “stay safe” out of his open car window. I had no idea where we were, but we definitely weren’t outside anyone’s house.

“Is this party in a building or on a fucking street corner?” I asked, gripping my elbows and shivering in the cold.

She laughed a short sharp laugh and looked away.

“Em?” I said grabbing her shoulder and turning her to face me. We still hadn’t moved from the spot her Dad dropped us off at.

“Well you see” she paused obviously trying to stall. A glare from me told her to continue “we aren’t really going to a party”.

“I KNEW IT!” I shouted a little too loud pointing a finger in her face.

“Let’s walk and talk” she said setting off in the direction her dad had drove “its bloody freezing”.

I followed her lead and prompted her to continue.

“So, your mum thought it would be a great surprise” she started rustling about in her bag, lifting her head up every so often to make sure she was still walking in a straight line. Eventually it appeared she’d found what she was looking for, but she kept her hand inside her bag, gripping onto whatever it was.

“Surprise it will be. Great? Probably not so much” she continued before pulling out two tickets and handing them to me.

I was curious as to what they could be for, but deep down I didn’t even have to look at them to know what was going to be written upon them. As I took a deep breath screams erupted from the end of the street and my inner suspicions were confirmed. I took one look at the tickets and wanted to throw up. I was about to rip them up but then I turned to Em and shouted furiously “WHY WOULD YOU LET HER BUY THESE?”

She held her hands up in defence, looking slightly afraid of me “I… I didn’t know until afterwards, she told me about a month ago. Remember that time I was at yours and you went for a shower? Well she told me then, she asked me not to tell you”.

I didn’t say anything. We’d stopped walking and I was staring her in the eyes.

“How was she supposed to know you hate him April?”

“HATE HIM? I DON’T HATE HIM! HE SHATTERED MY HEART EMILY! HE FUCKING CHEWED ME UP AND SPAT ME BACK OUT WHEN HE WAS DONE PLAYING HIS LITTLE GAME”.

I was furious. I hadn’t called Em by her full name since about a month after we first met. I’d lost it and I was taking it out on my best friend. The realisation of the mess I had become broke me and I burst into tears. Em pulled me into her and patted my back softly.

“I’m sorry, it’s not your fault” I sobbed.

“No babe you have every right to be angry” she replied stroking my hair.

A few minutes later she was wiping away the smudged mascara under my eyes and apologising for my mother’s doings.

“She wasn’t to know about what happened with you and George and who was I to tell her? When she told me about the tickets to their 2nd tour I was just as shocked as you, but I couldn’t come out and tell her what had happened between the two of you. She was so excited about the secrecy of it, she was convinced it would overjoy you. Originally I was planning to take the tickets from your mum and say we were going to the concert but have you stay at mine instead, but she ended up telling my parents and eventually everyone was in on this big secret. They’re not meet and greet tickets so you wouldn’t have to see him face to face but I mean, we could always just go sit in a café and pretend we went to the concert”.

I pushed her off me “No! I’ve got to face up to my fears, I want to be able to hear his name and not break down into a puddle of tears, getting through this will probably be a huge step forward, anyway like you said, I’m not going to see him face to face, he won’t even realise I’m there”.

Em nodded “Let’s do this” she said before giving me her bent arm to interlock mine with.

The next thing I knew I was walking towards the venue to watch the love of my life who had torn my heart out of my chest that very year, sing songs about fake love and heartbreak.

‘Bring on the torture’ I said as I walked through the doors.