all mine | ft. michael clifford

thirty-five;

To all the people who believed in this story and in me. Thank you for appreciating my art. This was all for you.

I'd never understood the hype about having friends until I'd met my LA ones. I'd never really been interested in having 'bffs' or leading a glamorous social life. But now? Now, the thought of not seeing the people I'd grown to love regularly made life seem too dull to pursue. Now, the thought of not having them around was almost painful. Melissa, Olivia, Calum, Luke and Michael were my best friends. The best of best friends. They were a stronghold, a foundation, a waterproof canopy to stop the rain.

And there had been a lot of rain lately.

But they were here and they loved me. And my heart would always be theirs.

Then there was Veronica.

I wanted to love her. I wanted to find her friendship valuable and I wanted to enjoy having her around but she made things constantly difficult and in the end made herself ultimately undesirable. I was beginning to think that she had no real emotions and was just running madly off dumb-blonde stereotypes.

We were gathered together nearby a food table in one of the other funeral parlour rooms for a post-funeral morning tea where Ashton's friends and families could mingle and mourn together. The room was decorated beautifully and the tables had fine white cloths draping over them with spreads of food on top of them that looked too delicate and too expensive for me to even touch - let alone eat.

The interior of the place had been set out and catered for perfectly. Ashton would have loved it. He would have been so proud.

He deserved all of this and much more.

My eyes were dry now. I was almost certain that my body had run out of tears to cry. Maybe that was a good thing because in the end no matter how hard I cried, I still couldn't get all of the sadness out. There were still pieces of Ashton wedged into my heart in ways that I couldn't pull out. And that was the same with everybody.

Olivia was the only one out of us left with tears regularly escaping down her cheeks. She was messy and upset but even she smiled as we reminisced about her late boyfriend.

"I miss him," Mel said after Luke reminded everyone of the time that Ashton had been mobbed in an elevator and had come out half naked.

We all nodded, missing him being a universal feeling. Something that us and millions of other people were experiencing.

And then Veronica opened her mouth. "I mean, I miss him but I'm just thankful it wasn't Calum, you know what I mean? Like, I would hate to be Olivia right now, you poor thing. Like, phew."

We fell silent and stared at her. Olivia's mouth dropped open and I could feel anger bubbling in my veins like lava. It was nice to feel something other than sadness. Then again, wanting to watch Veronica melt into the ground didn't seem very nice.

Melissa looked like she might explode.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Veronica?" Luke demanded to know, voicing all of our thoughts.

Her eyebrows raised as if she couldn't believe he was talking to her like that. "Whoa, calm down - I was just being honest. I mean, I wasn't even close with Ashton, it's not my fault."

"Doesn't matter," Michael told her. "Are you really that fucking insensitive?"

And then she did something that made my fingers twitch in Michael's hand.

She smiled. "Everyone knows you're sexy when you're mad Michael but you need to chill as well, cutie."

My mind was completely blown. Did she actually have a brain somewhere there behind all of that makeup and fake giggling? Was there a heart trapped somewhere beneath her stupid, plastic ribcage? Emotions: did she have any?