Confident • 5sos

Chapter 6

Word count: 790

*Lukes p.o.v*

"It was her, I swear to god!" I tell the boys, most of whom look at me skeptically.

"Are you sure? Why would she even be here after what? Two years?" Ashton questions.

"I don't know, I kind of recognised her so I talked to her, then she said her name was Courtney and everything just clicked." I exclaim, trying to convey my point.

"If anyone is going to recognise her, Luke is." Michael says, looking at me pointedly. He saw Courtney leave the room the night that we had sex, so he knows that we were close.

"What do you mean by that?" Calum asks, frowning. Ashton also looks confused.

"They were both in the same year group at school, so he would have seen her quite often." Michael lies smoothly, I nod at him, maybe too vigorously as Ashton looks at me as though he doesn't quite believe it, which is probably true. He's the best at pinpointing if someone is lying, and it's difficult to try and get by him, he doesn't ask any further about how I associated with Courtney before, though.

"Where did you see her?" Calum asks. I remember back to my location when I saw her.

"It was at the corner near the hospital." I say, causing Calum to nod thoughtfully.

"Did she come out of the hospital?" Ashton asks.

"I don't know, she might of done. Her eyes were kinda bloodshot." I answer, trying to pick up on every detail of my encounter.

"Crying?" Calum says at the same time Michael says "Drugs?" I think over both statements. She looked quite clean, and didn't have any other tell tale signs of being under the influence, so that was out of the question, but she wasn't showing any signs of having just cried either.

"I don't know." I answer truthfully. Ashton rubs his hands over his face thoughtfully, before speaking up.

"What are we gonna do if we get her?" He sighs frustratedly.

"Show that no one gets away from us easily." Calum says, laughing slightly.I bite my lip to stop myself from defending her, and just laugh along with him.

"Her dad is still alive, and we said that because of his mistakes, we'd get her. So that's what we'll do." Ashton says carefully, looking at all of us for agreement. We all nod obediently.

"Okay. Calum; get on the computer, look through the recent hospital files to see if she signed in using her name, she could be hurt, or look for any descriptions that match hers." He tells Calum, who nods and goes into his bag under the table, pulls out his laptop, and immediately starts typing quickly, I don't get a chance to see what he's typing before Ashton says my name.

"Luke?"

"Mmhm?" I hum, waiting for him to give me my instruction.

"Get some sleep." He says simply, and I feel my mouth fall slack.

"Huh?" I say, I can't have heard him right. Sleep?

"Yeah, you look as though you haven't had a good nights sleep in weeks." He shakes his head, concern lacing through his face and etching over his facial expression. I look away embarrassed, it is true, I've had about 7 hours sleep a week for about 3 months now, that's if I'm lucky. I don't get how trying to sleep now is going to help, because I lay down, and then my mind buzzes and I just can't sleep and then I focus so much on trying to sleep, that it doesn't happen.

"I guess, wake me up if anything happens." I say, Ashton nods and i reluctantly head over to my quarter of our apartment.

In my room I don't have much luck sleeping, I just feel so worried that something is going to happen while I sleep that I just can't. I go into the bathroom and rub my eyes. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and am repulsed by my reflexion, Ashton was right to send me to bed, I look exactly how I feel, tired and agitated.

I open my medicine cabinet, and shuffle through the medicines in there until I find the one I need; Benadryl. I drink it straight from the bottle, probably having way too much, and instantly feel drowsy. I slam the bottle down on the side and stumble towards my bed. I collapse onto it, not even bothering to go under the covers, and fall into an unnatural sleep. Considering the time is about half 9, my sleeping schedule may be able to sort itself out, but I'm going to need at least 40 more hours sleep to not feel so exhausted all the time.