Confident • 5sos

Chapter 1

Word Count: 621

Courtney's p.o.v

Nothing changes much when you turn 21, from a physical perspective anyway. Of course now I can legally drink, which I could have done if I had stayed in London, and I can also buy a car and house without having a co-signer, yet I don't feel any different.

I am celebrating my 21st birthday with all my of friends, but I can't help but recall what happened this exact night, 3 years ago.

After I left the apartment building with Nick, I stayed with him for a few weeks, but I just felt too unsafe living in London, so I moved, all the way to New York. It wasn't that simple of course, I had to find my mother and beg her to pay for me to travel, which eventually she allowed. I haven't seen or called her for 6 months, mainly because I don't know what to say.

"Court, open this present I got you!" Zac exclaims. We're in my apartment which I share with a few of my friends.

"You didn't have to get me anything." I sigh, taking the poorly wrapped present from him, he just grins. Everyone watches expectantly while I unwrap it, inside is a black box, I look up at Zac, and he nods excitedly, urging me to open the box.

"Keys?" I question, I read the note attached.

Since your 21 we think you need your own car.
-Zac, Louise, Natalie, Noah and Natasha x

"No guys! You shouldn't have got me a car." I exclaim, but still hug each of them.

"It's the least we could do." Natasha says, attempting to tame her wild, dark, curly hair with her hand after I've hugged her.

"Let's go see it." Louise jumps up; grabs my hand and drags me outside.

I feel my eyes widen at the sight in front of me, a freaking Land Rover! It's black, which I'm glad for as I probably won't clean it often.

"You really shouldn't have." I say breathlessly, tearing up slightly at the lengths my friends would have gone to to get me my own car.

"I know we've only known you for about 2 years now, but time doesn't decide friendship." Noah smiles shyly. Noah and I have a mutual liking of each other (more than friends), but we aren't official or anything, mainly because I tell him I'm not ready for a relationship; which is true.

"I wondered why 'friend quotes' was one of the most recent searches on our computer." I laugh. Our whole apartment has one computer, (some of us have laptops as well, and we all have phones) which can get irritating but I don't mind too bad.

"You saw that." He blushes, even though it's difficult to tell when Noah blushes due to his very tan skin, he has mannerisms which I have caught on to. One of these mannerisms is pulling his sleeve to cover his hands.

"Let's party." Louise screeches, dragging out the y.

"There's 6 of us, this is more of a gathering." Zac hits her round the head and she rolls her eyes.

"Okay...let's order pizza and watch some Netflix." She giggles while Zac looks at her fondly, everyone else in our group can tell they love each other, yet they can't see it themselves. Skinny love; it's such a sad thing to see.

The next 3 hours we all have a binge session of watching the walking dead, since we've missed all of season 5 due to college stuff. I look at us all gathered on these sofas, all cuddled up, and realise how good my life is right now. I don't think anything could ruin this moment. Anything.