What The People Don't See

Hard To Say No

One pebble. Then another. And another. Eloise's window remained dark and closed, her Beatles curtains hung still. I'd managed to wake up more than half of her neighbours on the apartment block but somehow, she seemed to be still asleep.

"Come on, El, you dozy fucker" I hissed. One of her delightful neighbours was glaring at me through a thin break in his curtains. He held a phone to his ear and I cursed. He was probably calling the Feds. I scooped a stone the size of a golf ball from the ground and tossed it from hand to hand,feeling its rough and jagged edges in my palms. I could pay her back for the window, right? But just as I raised my arm over my head, the stone clenched in my fist, her window burst open. She looked left, then right and even up before she decided to make the more sensible choice of looking down. Once she spotted me, she looked absolutely livid.

"Bloody hell! I thought you were a vampire!" she scowled, pulling herself on to the ledge and dangling her legs out of the window. "I thought it'd be Danny scratching at my window, you know like Stephen King and all that..."

"Well sorry to disappoint you love" I said, rolling my eyes as she pulled out her pipe and held it between her front teeth. In the silence that followed, I considered telling her about Calum. The words nearly rolled right off my tongue before I bit down on it. Telling her would only have set her off on a rollercoaster of emotions. She'd probably cry, laugh, piss herself and stab Cal's eyes out all at the same time. And as fun as that would've been to witness, it'd only send us both of on a tangent of destruction. And then there was my plan. I had it all down to a T. I couldn't lose it now.

"Do you wanna play a game?" I asked, hoisting myself on to the low wall that blocked the apartments away from the main road.

El perked up at my offer, taking a deep drag on her pipe while nodding eagerly. She was always a sucker for a bit of fun and games.

"Truth or dare?" I said, crossing my fingers behind my back. Dare, dare, dare.

"Uh...truth."

Shit! I hadn't prepared any truths for her whatsoever. El was the queen of dares; she'd always argued that truth was for pussies. It didn't help that I practically knew everything there was to know about my closest friend; she was an open book. And if I didn't come up with something half decent, she'd get bored and end the game. Josh had even warned me over the phone that she could pick truth but I'd just brushed it off. There was no way she'd ever opt for truth. Until now.

"Uh okay. So, what do you really think of Pete?"

El's eyebrows furrowed as she crossed her arms over her chest, huffing in annoyance. She was on to me but it didn't really matter as long as she picked dare next time around.

"Stella! What is your deal? You know I don't like him like that! I've told you a million times now!"

I shrugged, trying to suppress the grin that was threatening to blow my cover. Feigning innocence was one of my better gifts but El could see right through it. I hopped up on to the balls of my feet and began pacing up and down the wall, waiting for the truth that I already knew.

"He's...he's nice, okay?" El stuttered, her eyes glaring with a warning. I chuckled and twisted myself around the lamp post, barely keeping my balance and dipping my ankle in a bush of thorns and nettles. I gave El the finger when she started laughing at me and once she caught her breath, she quickly decided to change the subject.

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to...to freak the lads out when we see them next!"

I rolled my eyes and began picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of my jumper. So we were still on the topic of the lads. "Define 'freak'".

"I don't know" El said, throwing her arms up in frustration. "Just throw stuff at them while they're playing or act like the biggest fan girl of the century! Oh my god yeah, they'd love that!"

I nodded my head and leaned against the street lamp, wrapping my arms around its cold surface. It was freezing and the longer I held my face against it, the more I seemed to wake up, blinking in the blue hazy light that blanketed the air. We were still for a moment, which scared me. The longer I was distracted, the less I'd have to think about Cal and the fact that I wasn't even that upset. To me, it was just something that had happened. It was almost even a convenience to what I was about to set in motion. A part of me wanted to thank Cal for fucking Thora Bennett.

I pushed myself away from the lamp and stood straighter so as to see El once again, doodling with the condensation on her window. Her dirty blonde hair was scraped back in a loose french braid (something I could never perfect) and her bottle blue eyes followed her fingers as they danced across the cracked glass. I knew enough about my best friend to understand why she ignored her feelings for Pete and opted for someone like Josh. She had escaped the popular regime, but her mindset was still tainted with the idea that she only deserved the best of the best, which she did of course. But our ideas of 'the best' were so diverse and she could still be blinded by the likes of rugby star Calum Bishop and fake, manipulative bastards aka Henry Wippord. Josh was from an entirely different universe to those wankers, I knew that much. But I was also aware of the bright light bulb that flickered in El's brilliant brain box : why would I bother with the bass player when I could have the lead guitarist, even if I'm not mad about him?

She was wrong about her problem being an emotional tidal wave; her fatal flaw was vanity. That's why I had to resort to a ridiculous game to knock some sense into her.

"Truth or dare?" I said, pulling my arms out of my sleeves and wrapping them around my stomach.

"Dare."

"I dare you to kiss Pete at the gig."

El almost choked on her pipe, dropping it so that it fell out of the window and landed by my feet. I let her catch her breath, picking up her still lit pipe and taking a drag. I spluttered. I never understood how she smoked these things yet despised cigarettes. She just didn't make sense.

"What do you think we are Stella? Seven year olds?! What, you gonna dare me to eat a fucking worm next or something?"

"Well I'm hardly going to dare you to fuck him, am I? He's not another Henry, not another fucktard from our school! He's...he's it El! He's the One!"

El laughed so hard I thought she might fall. Almost hoped she would.

"The One" she said, mockingly. "Wow...I always knew you were a hopeless romantic at heart!"

I kicked the gravel and squeezed my sides, trying to control myself, hoping to hold everything together. I threw the pipe at her instead and cringed at her raucous laughter as she just about managed to dodge it.

"Look, love, calm down, yeah? A dare's a dare, I'll do it. But only if you kiss Ross."

She wiggled her eyebrows as my heart fell to my feet. I'd guessed she'd pull this one on me, even Josh suggested that she might dare me back. But it was a risk worth taking and it wasn't like I really had a choice anyway. I gulped before sticking my thumb up at El and jumping off of the wall and on to the street.

The cathedral's bells rang in the distance and I began to run, realising that Mum and Dad would be up by now, and probably pissed at me too. As I pounded through the empty lane ways, Josh's voice ran through my ears on a loop, making me nauseous and stooped with guilt.

"You know, Ross, he likes you. Like proper likes you, Stel. I think any fool would've noticed it by now ha...If he found out you kissed him as a dare...I just don't like the idea of you messing with his head, love. But you seem to know what you're doing so I'll leave you to it."

At least somebody thought I knew what I was doing...

A/N Eugh this is becoming so cliché it's ridiculous! But I'll keep going with it anyway and see what happens! And oh my god, I'm so confused about the album release. Like is it coming out next week or August or even ever?! The wait is making me nervous haha! And Cab Fare Home...oh w o w :p