Simply Just Everything. (ATL One-Shot)

“Hey Con, Lisa’s here again. Can you make it quick, we gotta head out?” I groaned, either she was highly un-intuitive, or she was choosing to ignore the hints I was throwing in her face.

“Don’t worry, Josh. What I’ve got to say won’t take more than a couple of minutes.” He walked out laughing; he knew where I stood with Lisa and was always telling me to just be blunt with her. I was finally going to take his advice.

“Hi Connie, I’m sorry this is short notice but I just needed to-

“Lisa, I’m gonna stop you right there. I know exactly what you ‘need to do’ and I’m not helping you, not anymore Lisa, it’s too damn painful! I can’t sit here time after time and listen to you bitch about your problems with Alex and be expected to even listen, never mind actually giving you advice. And before you act like I’m out of order, I tried to be your friend, I tried to forget my history and put it all aside for you; but it’s too hard Lisa and frankly, not worth it. So I’m sorry, as harsh as this is, we can’t be friends anymore because when I see you, I see him. As long as I’m friends with you, I can’t move on. You’ll just have to find someone else to vent at.”

She just stared at me, no emotion flickered across her face, and she was the mask of careful composure. And I couldn’t help the feeling that there was something brewing behind her seemingly depthless eyes. All I could do was stare back at her as the realisation hit me. This was really it. I was really cutting my ties. Finally, I was giving myself the chance to move on, promising myself a relatively happy future.

“You should go. I have to go out and I can’t leave you here. So...”

“Connie! Hurry the hell up would you!?” She flinched at the sound of Josh’s call that broke the uncomfortable quiet, and finally twisted around and just walked out the door. Leaving me stood in my bedroom utterly confused.

All I heard then was Josh telling her goodbye as the front door slammed. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that, it either went really well or horrifically and it was all about to blow up in my face. But I couldn’t think about this now, I had to go and support Josh; it was the least that I owed him. That’s why Lisa was here in the UK, she’d come with Alex and the rest of All Time Low to the Kerrang! Awards, they were up for ‘Best Live Band’ and Josh’s band was up for ‘Best British Band’. It was always a good night, whether you won or lost, the bands were usually too drunk to realise either way.

This is where my mind needed to be focused, on Josh and not Alex. I hadn’t been in the same room as him for about six months now, ever since I’d told him to get on with his life because I was holding him back. We’d tried to be friends again, but it’s never easy to get back to how things used to be, especially considering we both weren’t over the other. If one of us started dating someone else, the other got insanely jealous, it was just a mess. It was better to just cut all ties and attempt to move on, of course Alex wasn’t a fan but his friends agreed with me, and that’s all I’d needed. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility of us ever being friends again, if our lives took us back to each other, then sure, we’d try it again; but for now this was the best idea. And it really was, he’d moved on with Lisa and they seemed relatively happy, or at least that’s what I tried to fool myself after hearing countless stories from Lisa about the problems they were having. If he was happy, I could be too.

The air felt tangible with excitement, Josh had managed to lift my spirits on the way to his band mate Dan’s  house, where the band were meeting, so the night could potentially be alright, just as long as I didn’t bump into Alex...

However, the universe never did really care for my luck, so as the All Time Low boys approached us; I attempted to slip away, before someone caught my arm.