cuffed // willne

Going Home

Another day, another lecture. At this point I'm ready to just drop out – Russia's sounding really good right about now. Every day this week, I've woken up to texts mostly from Will just wanting a reply, wanting to know if I was okay. Sometimes the odd text from Gee or Talia would drop into my notifications and sometimes it would be Vik or Freya in my twitter DM's. The girls were planning a night in – pizza, prosecco, and pyjamas. But for now, my life consisted of running late to lectures, doing coursework and sleeping.

It had been a week since I last saw Will – when we kissed. Luke had tried everything in his power to distract me but any chance I got my mind was back onto feeling guilty about leaving Will how I did. So when I got the news that lectures were canceled for the week due to excessive flooding on campus, I had never been more ecstatic to pack my bags and hop on a train home. Arriving at New Street, I walked straight to the pickup point, where my sister sat in the driver's seat of her car, beaming up at me. As we drove through the centre of Birmingham to her house, I told her all about my hellish few weeks – the video with Will, the time in hospital and then the catharsis in my dorm room – and she sat, silently, taking it all in, processing the situation at hand.

It came to dinner time and Lauren still hadn't shared her opinion or offered any advice, the one thing she was exceptional at when it came to things like this. So it came as a shock when we sat down for dinner and she began to talk.

"Give him another chance."

"What? Are you craz-"

"Hear me out. He obviously wants you back, there's no doubt about it. You don't have to get back with him, but you can give him a trial period. If he wants you back that much, he'll put in the effort – only if you promise to do so too."

"You have a point."

"I know."

"No need to get cocky, Lauren," I remarked, smiling at our childish ways. As I tucked into tea, I began to think about what she'd said. She was right – in order to sort out whatever this mess was, I had to at least give him a chance. But I'd spent so long ignoring him, I'd probably missed my chance completely. But it was worth a shot, right?

"I'll do it when I get back to London. For now, I want to enjoy my week here with you. Has the Christmas Market started yet?" And then we fell into a conversation about our plans for the week, leaving the Will situation behind us for now.

------------

Being around family helped. It was an outlet, an escape from my current travails in London - and a healthy one that hadn't ended at the bottom of a bottle. Until tonight. When Lauren suggested we spend my final night at home hitting the town, reliving my 18th birthday. So, at 2 am when we stumbled out of one club and joined the queue for the next place, my sister didn't notice me pull out my phone and begin to type in Will's number. Looking up, I noticed my sister's boyfriend had finally arrived to join our celebrations, distracting her long enough to not notice me click dial and raise the phone to my ear.

"Maddie? You alright? It's 2 in the morning," the voice mumbled, barely audible through the loud chants of the crowd and the bass of music from inside the club. 

"WILLIAM. Wiiiiiiil. Willy. How are you?"

"Are you drunk?"

"Not at all, why?"

"Maddie, where are you? Who are you with?"

"I am with Laurennnnn and her boyfriend. They think they are celebrating me before I go home but I'm here to forget about being in love with you."

"I think it's time you went home Mads, you've had too much."

"You can't tell me what to do, you're not my boyfriend." And with that, I ended the call.