CHOICES (Matty Healy fanfiction)

Chapter Four

I shut my eyes and rested my head against the wall whilst taking a swig from my beer.

"Here mate," I felt someone tap my leg. I opened my eyes to see Matt, the drummer from Arctic Monkeys, offering me the fifth spliff to be passed round that night.

"Cheers man," I yawned, placing it between my lips and toking.

In my peripheral vision I saw Rach sit down against the wall about a metre away from myself. I took another few tokes on the spliff before passing it in her direction.

"No...thanks." She muttered.

"You don't seem sure," I half laughed, reaching closer to her and urging her to take the zoot.

Instead, she glanced at her watch and then at Alex, who was sat on the sofa opposite strumming on his guitar and deep in conversation with Adam.

After I'd agreed to play for Alex and his band (we'd played 'milk' and they went mad for it) we had ended up at their apartment. It was dingy but bigger and better than ours. The makeshift party was pretty dismal, and I was pretty drunk and high and in all honesty, ready to go home. However, I wouldn't dare pull the boys away from their new friends.

"Al," Rach called.

He glanced up hazily, his eyelids heavy from the weed.

"I need to go," she said.

Alex dismissed her with a wave of his hand and returned to his conversation with Adam. Rach looked at her watch again and then turned her attention to Anna, who was sat on George's lap, a cig hanging from her lips.

"Anna we should go," Rach said, standing up and walking towards her friend.

"Nooooo, I wanna stay," Anna groaned, not looking at Rach.

"Anna we have to," she hissed, "Come on!"

Anna shook her head and turned back to George.

Rachel sighed, grabbed her leopard print fur coat and disappeared into the hallway of the apartment. I heard the front door shut and footsteps leaving the apartment.

I stood up and slowly wondered over to the window, placing a cig between my lips and fumbling in my pocket for a lighter. I looked down at the dark street and made out Rach's silhouette, staring at a poster that showed the bus timetable and emptying the contents of her coin purse into her hand.

"Fuck sake, I sighed. "George, where are the van keys?"

"On the sofa mate," he replied without looking at me.

I walked over to the sofa where Alex was sat and grabbed the keys to our van. He didn't acknowledge me at all.

'Prick' I thought.

I left the apartment and ran down the stairs and out the building, building up into a subtly jog. As I reached Rach, I put my hand on her arm.

She flinched and then turned to face me.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She scowled.

"What the fuck are you doing? Don't get the bus home from here at this time of night," I smiled at her.

"What else do you suggest?" She crosses her arms over her chest in a defensive manor.

"I'll drive you!" I jiggled my keys in front of her face and she snatched them from my hand.

"Fiiiiine," she walked towards the van, unlocked it and jumped into the passenger seat.