Wasted Opportunities

Chapter 39

Michael's POV

I'm not going to lie, the next few days were tough. Emily and Luke seemed to snap straight from being so awkward that they couldn't even make eye contact with each other to being unable to go a minute without physical contact – they always had to be holding hands, or sitting close to each other on the sofa, and even in rehearsals he kept gravitating towards her between songs and brushing his hand over her shoulder. I always found my fingers tightening around the neck of my guitar when he did it, and I had to fight hard to breathe steadily and relax my muscles before ordering everyone to start the next song. I probably seemed really controlling and horrible, but in reality I was just trying to hide the pain. I couldn't decide whether I hated Luke or not. I hadn't really had an opportunity to talk to him about it, but I didn't want to hate him after the conversations we had had before, and it did seem unfair that neither of us should get Emily just because we both liked her. On the other hand, it was impossible for me not to feel jealous, angry, upset that she had chosen him over me. Furious that Maddy and Ashton had locked Luke in the cupboard with her instead of me. Would things have turned out differently if it had been us in the cupboard? Would it have been me kissing her, me who she got together with? The coincidence of it all was probably what hurt the most. I would never know what might have happened.

I lay slumped on the sofa, sort of taking part in Emily and Luke's conversation, but most of the time just staring out of the window of the tour bus into the darkness. It was raining outside. Every time it rained at night, I thought of the night that we kissed; I couldn't help it, the two things were connected in my brain forever. Emily was going on about this boy she used to like, and how she still had a piece of purple ribbon that he had given her once, and Luke was gazing at her like she was the only person on the planet. I didn't blame him, I'm sure I used to look at her like that sometimes, but it seemed so unfair to me that she was in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder when she got tired, their fingers constantly intertwined. Maddy was sitting on the end of the sofa, frowning at something on her phone.

“What's the matter?” I said, turning to her because I was unable to watch Luke play with Emily's hair for much longer.

“Just this thing I found on Twitter... it's probably nothing, but...” She showed me the screen, which was a tweet with a picture of Ashton and a girl. At first glance, it looked just like another fan picture, but Ashton's arm was around the girl's waist and their heads were tilted together comfortably, as if they knew each other. The caption read 'love you loads babe @Ashton5SOS x' and as I looked more closely, I saw that he had favourited it.

“I know what it looks like, but I'm sure she's just a fan,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Have you looked on her account?”

“Not yet,” said Maddy, biting her lip as she tapped on the username. It came up with the page of an attractive girl, probably in her late teens. She must have met Ashton quite recently, as it was one of the first things that came up. Another was a video, from the same date. Maddy tapped on it, and it began playing. I could hear the English accents of other girls in the background and see that it was outside – this must have been one of the times we met fans recently. The camera was focused on the girl from the Twitter account, so this must have been filmed by a friend. She walked up to Ashton and pulled him into a hug, and I could hear her saying “I love you so much,” but not in an emotional fan kind of way, in a close friend or girlfriend kind of way. When he pulled away, he held her at arm's length and looked her up and down.