show me yours | matty healy

chapter twenty-six

April 14th 2015

Tommie sheds her jacket as she enters the bar she's supposed to be meeting Caleb and his friends. She says goodbye to Phoebe, promising to meet her at her place when she's done to run over a few ideas the upcoming singer has.

When she looks up, phone now in her back pocket and jacket on her arm she sees a new figure besides Caleb. For a second she thinks it's his little sister but then realises the blonde is too tall.

She remembers she's here to meet Shane's new girlfriend and wonders if that's her, but a glance to their usual booth shows Shane with a girl on his lap as they get off.

She heads on over, sliding up beside Caleb who grins, kissing her cheek and then sliding an arm around her waist.

"Hey, babe, this is Emma, she's an old friend of mine from Georgia. Emma, this is Caroline."

Tommie raises a brow at the first name and stretches her hand out, "It's actually Tommie, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Carol, can I call you Carol?"

"No."

Caleb nudges her and she shrugs a little, "You're from Georgia?" Emma nods, "You just moved out here?"

"No, no, just visiting. And I bumped into Caleb here, thought we haven't seen each other in a while and decided to catch up."

She lifts her head in a nod, "I'm gonna get some drinks and catch up with Mitchell, you two want anything?"

"We're good, we just got some. I'll come find you when it's time to go yeah?"

She nods, "Six, right? Promised Phoebe I'd help her out tonight, so I'll go there whenever we're done, no rush."

He nods and kisses her cheek, "You're too good to that girl."

She shrugs, "She's my only friend outside of the band."

"Maybe you and I can be friends." Emma suggests and Tommie lifts her head with a tight lipped smile trying not to be rude.

She squeezes Caleb's hand and he smiles at her again, leaning down to peck her lips before she rounds the bar to where Mitchell is sitting at the bar in self-pity. "Hey."

"Hey." He says quietly, eyes glued to Emma's hair as she flips it over her shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Eh."

She follows his gaze across to Emma, "Old flame?"

"I wish, but no..."

"Crush?"

"Yeah..." He sighs, eyes watching her push her hair over her shoulder.

"Wanna talk about it?"

This is what she learns from Mitchell , she's here in LA to see some band she likes as a birthday gift from her best friend. She's just celebrating her thirty-first birthday, she's a few months older than Caleb.

And they dated.

Not just dated. They were highschool sweethearts who got engaged the moment they left school. Literally the moment, he proposed in the car park as they left on their last day of school.

Then he started the band, and her religious picture perfect American dream family didn't agree with it. They wanted her to get a stable job in their family business back home in Georgia and keep going to church.

So she broke up with him, and left him completely heartbroken.

Leaving Mitchell, who had been in love with her for years before that, to pick up the pieces of his broken heart.