The Ghost of You [COMPLETED]

Drunk

"Shh!" Brad chuckled as he quickly shut the flat door behind the two of you, watching you stumble into the coat rack. "Jesus, come here!" He tried to grab your hand, missing, and stumbling a little himself, bumping sideways into the door.

"You're cute." You mused, flapping your hands at the coat sleeves trying to entangle themselves in you as you pushed yourself off the wall.

"You're drunk." He pointed out, awkwardly taking his coat off, while trying to kick his shoes off at the same time, accidentally chucking one in your direction which you had to bat away.

"You're more drunk!" You laughed as you threw your scarf at him, then flung your arms around his neck and smiled at him.

"We're both drunk."

"And do you know what is amaaaazing to do drunk?" You asked, leaning a little closer to him, watching his teeth catch his bottom lip as he looked down at you.

"What's that princess?" He whispered, his mouth getting nearer and nearer to-

"Ice cream." You squealed, running away from him and into the kitchen.

"Oi you little-" He yelled as he ran after you, the laughter echoing through the room. He found you bent over and already rummaging through his freezer drawers for the ice cream. He grabbed your waist, pulling you back, out of the drawer, and you both went flying back to the floor.

Laughing, he rolled over, until he was on top of you, leaning on one hand as he used the other to brush the hair out of your eyes. Then he bumped his nose with yours, smiling when you scrunched your nose after.

"I love you." He whispered, messily kissing you after he spoke. "Tell me you love me."

"Hmmmmm, not sure I do."

"Oh yeah?"

"Stop it, STOP! Bradley!" You giggled as he moved to nuzzle his nose into your neck for a few seconds, tickling you before moving back up to your face.

"Say it."

"Nope."

"Say iiiiiit!"

"Okay! OKAY! Fiiiine!" You laughed. "I love you Mr Simpson." You grinned, grabbing his face a little too harshly and pulling his lips down to meet yours.

Brad shot up in bed, breathing heavily as he refocused on the room he was in. He closed his eyes. He rubbed his hands over his face, wiping the sudden sweat away. He was in his bedroom. Not in your flat. It wasn't six years ago.

Another fucking dream.

Ever since he saw you two weeks ago, he'd dreamt of you four times. All different dreams, all different points of your relationship. All different reminders of what had happened between the two of you. He didn't like the ones like tonight, the nice ones. The good memories. It made his heart ache. It made him question what he was doing.

It made him feel guilty.

Especially now that he was back home.

"Another one?" Came a whisper from beside him.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry." Brad replied as a hand slid over his forearm, tugging him to lay back down. When he did, he inhaled deeply as his girlfriend moved to rest her head on his chest. He let her rest on him, but he still felt strange.

"Maybe you should talk to someone about them." She yawned.

"It's fine Maggie," He replied without any genuineness in his voice. "Just bad dreams." She cuddled into him, and he tried his best to ignore the heavy feeling in his chest, as though there was a weight inside him, dragging him down, trying to drag him back into his past.

It was like he'd been thrown right back to the time after you left. Like he couldn't focus on anything except you, like he was angry.

Like he was still in love with you.

He woke up again the next morning, thankfully without another dream of you, but sleeping no easier, and dragged himself down to the kitchen to make coffee. Maggie was still asleep, so he sat at the dining table, his head in his hands as he inhaled the steam rising from the cup in front of him. His eyes were sore from exhaustion as he rubbed his temples, trying to sort through everything in his brain.

Birmingham was a big place. Just because you had moved back here, doesn't mean that he was going to bump into you all the time. It doesn't mean that anything's changed. You had your own job, he had the band. Your lives probably wouldn't cross all that often, even by chance.

It's been just over three years since he last saw you. Just under three since he spoke to you. With these dreams, with his brain trying to make him remember you, he was starting to realise that you and him never had that final conversation. The one where you officially broke up. You just argued, until one day...

Before seeing you at the party, he wasn't even sure what the last thing he said to you was. In a drunken rage a couple years ago, he'd deleted all your conversations. A few months after that is when he decided to block you. He wondered if you knew he'd done that. He wondered if at some point, you did the same to him.

He wondered if you were struggling as much as he was right now. He had worked so hard, so fucking hard on moving on from you. Focusing on the band, on his music, his friends, his family. Anything that distracted him from you, until he started to realise every now and then that it had been days since he thought about you last. He kept going, until eventually, weeks would go by without you entering his mind. Then he started trying to date. Over the years, he had a couple of relationships here and there, but no one ever stuck until Maggie.

His girlfriend was also a singer, and they'd aligned their recent tours up so that they finished roughly at the same time. He liked that she knew about the lifestyle. He never had to explain the long hours, jetting off to God knows where for press tours, interviews, gigs. She got it. She was gorgeous, and he liked how patient she always seemed whenever he was hesitant about taking the next step, about moving too fast. That's why she was the longest relationship he'd been in since you. Seven months, and he was just starting to get to the point where he thought he could stick it out, shrug off this hold you'd had on him for the best part of five years.

Then seeing you made it all come crashing down.

When Maggie finally got back, coming straight over to his a week after the party, he knew he wasn't as enthusiastic as she was about being reunited. But he was determined that this dip, this slump he was in because of you, would be short lived. He was determined not to fall back into how he was just after you left the first time.

After a couple of hours of staring at the table, and a couple of coffees, he was making some breakfast while Maggie was in the shower.

As he flipped the omelettes, he heard his phone buzz from his pocket. He grabbed it, and glanced at the name on the screen.

His spatula clattered to the pan as he read your name.

He swore, picking it back up and putting it down on the counter, then looked back at the phone. Your name patiently waiting for him to pick up.

He looked to the door, hearing the water still running from Maggie's shower, debating whether to answer.

He tapped the green icon.