matty healy, falling in love over night

first birthday

- 19th of september, rose's first birthday

i couldn't quite believe that a year ago rose was born, it didn't feel like we'd had this angel in our lives for a whole year. she'd grown so much and everyday she was making leaps and bounds in the way she just lived.

today was her first birthday and we were all going to group together and have a massive get together.

i hadn't seen gemma in about sixth months, she sent postcards from wherever she'd been, paris, india, greece, australia and canada just to name a few. we face timed a lot and she looked free. finally free. before, even in manchester, she had a look on her face where she wasn't content, she'd look so sad sometimes it killed me to see, i didn't see that anymore. she looked free and happy. she hadn't met anyone, she said she was happy single and i believed her, she hadn't had this freedom ever. when she was young she had matty telling her what to do and now she had nobody holding her back, not one person and i was thankful. she deserved this light in her life and i knew that travelling made her feel that way. free.

she was happy for me and matty and her and him had spoken a few times, only quick words but nevertheless we were all okay.

me and george had slipped back into being like brother and sister, he loved rose and helped babysit whenever he could. this meant me and matty had a lot of time together when we wanted.
when i saw him with rose he looked so happy and i couldn't help thinking how easily this could have been him and lia, maybe it should have been?
him and his girlfriend caroline were still together and they were truly doing okay.
we still cried over lia sometimes but it was a lot less now.

i couldn't believe i was now 20, matty was 21. it felt a lot older than saying i was 19. i felt more grownup. it was good. we had spent our birthday together just watching movies and going on long walks in london with rose. the boys were working on a third album. slowly. very slowly but they all had their own things going on, they didn't want to rush it.

adam and carly were still together, me and carly rarely spoke and only really smiled at one another. she knew all about gabby and matty and didn't even say sorry, i didn't need her in my life but i wished her well because i loved adam. he came round a lot to play games with rose, i swear even though she was only turning one he was already trying to make her a rockstar.

ross was still single and enjoying family life, he'd adopted a dog who took a liking to rose, whenever we went over to his house he would sit and sleep by rose will she did the same. like her own personal guard dog.

and as for me and matty, we were perfect. we were still living separately but he spent most of his time living in my flat. we washed up together, we cleaned sheets and took rose out for walks together.
we were finally the couple that we had pretended to be for years.

everybody was going to be here today, me, matty and the boys, carly and caroline, denise and tim, my mum, dad, kian and lewis, gemma.
we were all having this "party" in matty and george's flat. i was excited because i missed gemma so much but also terrified to see denise.

gemma had always told me that denise was never in her corner so this put my mind at ease. at least i wasn't the only one that denise hated.

my phone started to ring

*matty*

"heya" i sang down the phone

"you ready babe?" he asked, i loooked in the mirror. i was wearing a mini dress in the yellow clueless print with doc martins and my hair down with full makeup, fake eyelashes, eyeshadow, lipstick, the lot.

"yep"

"i'm outside in the car when you're definitely ready"

"coming!"