Last Hope {a paramore fanfiction}

Chapter Thirty Seven

My phone started to ring, the number unrecognised.

"Hello? Who is this?" I said, putting down my bowl of cereal. "Hello, is this Bethan O'Connor?" a voice that I recognised quickly replied. "It is, may I ask who is ringing?" I said knowing already. "Miss O'Connor, this is Officer Rodriguez." "Oh, hello..." I said awkwardly. "Urm, before you say anything else, I'd like to say thank you for everything." "Ah, well it's all part of the job, but you're welcome," he replied. I knew that this exchange of politeness would soon be overshadowed with miserable news.

"I was calling to discuss some important things. We've had Mr Hanson in custody since the night of 16th February. He has had a no bail sentence for now as he is considered a dangerous criminal. It is not surprising that he has a very good lawyer, but with the multitude of charges stacked against him, it seems that it is unlikely for him to avoid jail. I'm about to read to you the charges that we have recognised and screened already; the sale of class A illegal drugs, the possession of class A illegal drugs, the sale of illegal and dangerous weaponry, the sale of stolen good, attempted murder and kidnapping." I couldn't believe I let this man lay his hands on my body.

"Now, I am contacting you for two reasons. We need you to stand as witness. This will include for almost definite questions on the kidnapping and the relationship that you had with Mr Hanson. Your word will help to cement the judges and jury's decision. Do you understand Miss O'Connor?" "Yes officer."

"The second part, is...are they any charges you wish to press against Mr Hanson." "Well, the kidnapping of course-" "I mean, in the sense of the personal relationship that you had?"

My heart stopped. It hurt to be reminded how obvious it must have been that Sam was hurting me if this man knew after such a short time, compared to neighbours. It seemed that all the Sam was being charged for would be enough to take him under. But he deserved to truly stand trial for all his crimes.

"Yes...domestic abuse and rape."

There was a pause.

"I've noted this and I shall add it to the list of charges. I want you to understand that you will further be asked on this matter." "I understand." "We also can have you answer any questions put forward to you on a live stream rather than for you to be in the court room as this may be traumatic for you. You will also be contacted by a lawyer of ours, who will need to ask you questions in private to help build a case." "Yes, I understand, but I wish to be present in the courtroom. But I don't want details of the case being made public. I don't want my name out in the world." Another pause. "Understood. There will be a phone call soon, from the lawyer and to confirm the court date." "Thank you again, officer." "Like, I said, all in the job Miss O'Connor," he said before hanging up.

I put the phone back down on the counter and took a deep breath. I wasn't going to cry. No more crying when I'm sad. Save crying for the happy times.

I needed to distract myself. I knew Taylor was rehearsing with the guys so I he wouldn't be able to rehearse. How did I distract myself I thought again. I grabbed my phone and laptop and delved into to the world of social media, remembering what Michael had said to me the other day when we met.

I looked at my twitter, seeing how over 200 people had favourited my tweet about cereal.

I want to drown in mini donut shaped oats and milk #5eva

It was so weird to think that after all these years, people still knew about me. It was odd seeing people tweet about you when you and your band had nothing new for them to get by on.

I decided to go onto Tumblr like Michael had suggested and see what people were saying. I'd seen Instagram pages where they posted old pictures but that was pretty much it. I wasn't ready to experience the world of Tumblr.

I searched "Please Clarify" and the stream of old pictures from tours, crappy photo shoots and Warped came up, sending a slight pang through my heart. I laughed as I saw the cheesiest of pictures of Frank, our drummer, with his sticks crossed over his chest, and a raised eyebrow. I saw a picture of me with straight hair from our first year of being an officially signed band. On Warped, no one else had curly hair, so I woke up early every morning to straighten it. But by the time I was offstage my hair a sweaty mass of frizz and regrets, the humidity reacting badly with hairspray.

I laughed, remembering all the things that happened when we were a band. The picture of Frank reminded me of the time we both were bored in the van at one of the stops on Warped tour, whilst Michael and Dan went to fix some amps that had been playing up on them. We'd watched all the DVDs and played 'I spy' for too long. "Well, I was gonna put some streaks in my hair," I said producing a bottle of vibrant blue hair dye. "Bethan, that hair colour will make you look sickly, it does not match your skin tone at all." "How would you know?!" I said. I saw how he blushed and stuttered. "I was so bored the other day, urrrr, I kind of started reading your magazines, and they had an article about it." "Hey, that's not a big deal, don't sweat it." There seemed to be a wave of relief on his face. "I guess you're right though," I said. "...how about I do it on you?"

And from then on the blue streak running through Frank's jet black curly hair just off his parting became his signature look.

I kept scrolling and noticed under pictures that people were hash tagging us individually. I couldn't help by click on my name, to be brought to a new search page under 'Bethan O'Connor.'

The first thing that came up was an edit of a picture of me and Hayley backstage on the Paramore tour that Please Clarify played, next to the one she uploaded to Instagram of us at the BBQ joint weeks ago. The caption read "some things never change'' even thought I noted a great improvement in makeup skills.

The further I scrolled the more I was thrown into this weird mash up of emotions, feeling so gloriously happy and so upset at the same time. A stream of images showed me head banging and smiling as I performed on stage, looking as if I couldn't be in a happier place than where I was.

Text posts and anonymous questions began to appear. An anonymous person asked a blog called 'paramoreclique' - what's your opinion on Bethan O'Connor?
She's hella talented but her and please clarify like disappeared off the face of the earth :/ i don't think she was well but she's on social media now and stuff and she's hanging out with paramore..maybe there will be a comeback? Idk I hope so

I scrolled furthermore to see people's text posts.
"Please stop playing with my emotions Please Clarify"
"My friends bumped into Michael and Bethan from Please Clarify today wth"
"Is Taylor dating that junkie from please clarify? Bethany or something? lol"

I closed the lid quickly. Maybe this
a good time. I mean, I knew people online weren't nice. I asked Hayley for some advice the other night after noticing this one Paramore account constantly tweeting me rude shit. She told me just to ignore it. I nodded and said thanks, realising it must be easy for her to ignore a few trolls when she has 3 million followers. 

I sighed and rolled over on my bed. I grabbed my phone and texted the only
person I wanted to see at that moment.