Disaster • Arctic Monkeys Fanfiction

[eight]

Alex's POV

The club was packed, my head was pounding, and there was a girl sitting on my lap that I had no memory of even speaking to.

And all I could think was, "fuck this".

Fuck the VIP balcony and the fake people that sat around us, smoking organic cigarettes and pretending to be important. Fuck all of it.

"Pass me a drink, mate," Matt said from the couch on my right. He was talking to me, but one of the groupies got one from the mini fridge before I could.

The girl in my lap wiggled, turning over her shoulder to smile at me. I think she was trying to seduce me.

But I wasn't in the mood for any of this. Clubs were made for dancing and jumping and enjoying music. Not lazing around on balconies like we were better than the lot below.

Where was the fun in this?

"You remember the clubs we used to go to back home?" I asked Matt.

He laughed, cracking open his beer. "I don't remember much of 'em. Blacked out almost every weekend."

I couldn't help but laugh with him, but then it trailed off into a sort of sad silence. We used to have so much fun back then. Now everything was just...

Dull.

The only time I felt anything anymore was when I was drunk or high. The people who really cared about me and the lads were scarce and hard to pick out in the crowd of fame-hungry attention seekers.

Tonight was a perfect example. We were in Denver (or so I think) at some club I didn't know the name of, and we were surrounded by a shit ton of people.

But never in my life had I felt more alone.

I put my hands on lap girl's waist and urged her off of me. She seemed to think my gesture was a positive one at first until I stood and moved passed her to the railing of the balcony.

I stared down at the party raging below us. Everyone was dancing so freely, so easily. Nobody worried about anything on the dance floor.

"Do you want to go down there?" I asked Matt abruptly, wanting something to do. Wanting something to feel.

"Are you mad?" he laughed. "It's only eleven. Nobody's drunk yet. They could recognize us down there. You remember what happened last time we tried to join the party when everyone was sober."

I remembered. We were practically tackled by a group of girls begging us to sign various parts of their bodies.

"Right," I said. It wasn't a good idea. Of course it wasn't.

I began to turn away, ready to sulk back to my seat and get drunk enough to make lap girl attractive, but something caught my eye before I could.

Long, disorderly brown hair flying wildly around a girl as she spun around on the dance floor. It reminded me of the girl at the radio station in Kansas.

It wasn't unusual to see someone or something that reminded me of her. I'd thought about her a few times since that brief morning we met. Which was really fucking weird, especially for me.

I mostly thought about the things I should of and shouldn't of said. How I should of kept my mouth shut when I thought she was shy and that I could somehow flirt my way into cutting the interview short.

I was such a prick sometimes.

But I also thought about her in random places at randoms times. I thought of her crazy hair and the way she brazenly called me out in front of all of their listeners.

But mostly I thought about what she said about me. Because, as much as it pissed me off to admit it, she was right.

Maybe the reason I thought of her was because that was the morning I realized just how tired I was of my life.

I was tired of the drunk nights and the faceless girls and the fucking club balconies that existed for absolutely no fucking reason.

But here I was once again, watching life happen below me while I was stuck up here with a bunch of people I didn't know.

I'd asked for this, though, hadn't I?

For the fame, for the money, for the girls, for all of it. I'd be an even bigger prick to ask for something my whole life, and then complain when I got it.

So I started to turn away, my eyes still lingering on the wild hair.

And that's when it happened.

All of a sudden she disappeared under the crowd, like a girl in a magic show. Then a nanosecond later she popped back up in the vacant spot she'd left, her mouth wide with laughter.

She'd fallen.

And then it hit me all at once--

It was her.

It It had to be her. Nobody else could fall so violently and pop back up so quickly.

What was she doing in Denver? Especially at a club like this?

I didn't waste another second to think about it. I turned away from the balcony and hurried toward the stairs.

"Alex!" Matt called after me. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to do what I should have done years ago," I said over my shoulder. "I'm going to join the party."

And I was going to find her. I was going to find disaster girl.