Living with the Boys [Complete]

12. Invitations

Let me know what you guys think! I am swamped with uni work so thank fuck this book is already finished and I can just update when I find the time.

Love you guys so much, once again tell me if you like the chapter and the book so far! Only 6 more chapters to go 

Hope's POV

As my birthday is coming up, in like a week and a half, I have no idea where I'm going to spend it or with whom. I know that because it is very close to Christmas that the guys would have already gone home and they live about an hour away from the university so I can't make them travel back down to spend the day with me.

Even though it has been a week since Martin went on his date, that massive argument that I have no idea what it was about, things have gone back to normal. The house is calm again, there is no mention of anything that might have gone down and Mike wasn't able to get anything out of Mark, as he insisted that everything was better than fine.

What has changed though, is that first date for Martin has turned into multiple and if I'm not mistaken it's with different people every time. I should feel hurt or jealous, but the main thing I feel is worried about him. This is not the guy that I got to know or fell in love with so the sudden change makes me wonder what's going on in his head.

It also made an impression on Mike as he said this was how Martin was before I moved in, way back in his first and second year when everyone goes a little bit over the top with the dating and relationships. He was only worried for a second though because of course Martin said that everything was fine and that he had spoken to me, it's nice to know that now I really do have people looking out for me and people who put my feelings first and sometimes above their own.

I really couldn't have picked a better house to live in.

Back on the birthday issue, I am finally turning 18 and even though I am probably a year younger or more than everyone in my classes, I feel a lot older in a lot of ways. I am confused as to what I want to do because on one hand I should spend it getting drunk and being out, but on the other I just want to stay in and make love all day and night long.

I wish that there wasn't such pressure on young people to be a certain way, I want to be able to look back on this birthday and say that it was one of the best I have ever had. I want to have many stories of the crazy things I have done at university, because everyone else seems to have them in bucket loads.

I also know that the more time I spend thinking about this, the more pathetic it is starting to become. There are much more important things that I could be doing or thinking about yet here I am worrying about how I want to spend my birthday. A younger me would have laughed if she knew that there would come a time when worrying about my birthday would be the most pressing issue.

I wish that I could go back and give her some advice, warn her about what is yet to come but then I realise a couple of things. Firstly, I am still so young and there are so many things that have yet happened to me so how could I possibly know that I have already passed the worst. Then there is the fact that I know everything I have been through has had a hidden positive in it, I didn't see it for years later but I'm glad stuff has happened to me because then I wouldn't think like this or have this inner strength of mine that I love.

This may also seem vain to think about how strong you are and so cliché to say that bad things happening are a lesson in disguise, but fighting to see the good in certain situations is not easy. Finally when you start to see things differently little by little, you surprise yourself at how far you have come and sometimes you have to remind yourself because change happens very slowly, so slowly that day to day you don't realise you have changed until months after.