Play the game // l.r.h

Chapter 39 - Play the game

-Adi’s P.O.V-

It was bad enough that Luke had turned up in the first place, but now Jake wanted to talk to me. This day just kept getting better and better. Brilliant.

“Um… Yeah… Yeah sure” I said quietly as everybody stared at me in disbelief while I walked away with Jake.

“Listen, I wanted to say that I was sorry” Jake said when we got to the corner, “I was completely out of line and I shouldn’t have kissed you unless I knew you wanted me to”
“Thank you” I looked up at him, “That means a lot”
“It’s alright. I just don’t want things to be awkward between us. Especially not since we have to keep doing these shows together”
“You know what, you’re right. And I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier too, I was just really angry and you were the only person there so I just kind of let it all out on you.”
“It’s OK. But I don’t deny what I said. I stick by that.”
“What?”
“He’s an asshole and he treats you horribly”
“Not this again Jake, please” I felt tears sting in my eyes, I thought we’d just fixed everything, obviously not
“It’s true! You don’t see it but you need to realise that this guy, he’s not right for you”
“I know”
“And I ju- wait, what?”
“I said, I know”
“You know?”
“For crying out loud Jake! I know! I know he’s an asshole! I know he treats me horribly, and I know I need to stay away from him. Why did you think I was stood nowhere near him just now? Because I don’t want to talk to him. He screwed me over. I don’t need you to tell me that!”
“Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt”
“Why does everybody think they need to protect me?! I can handle myself!”
“Well clearly you can’t because you got attacked by his girlfriend the other day”

I stared at him in silence. What made him think that it would be a good idea to bring that up again? What an idiot.

I shook my head, feeling the tears spilling down my cheeks

“Bye Jake” I said and turned around, walking away.

I heard him sigh

“Adi. Adi, come on. Adi please wait” he said from behind me. I just kept walking back to Lori and rubbed my eyes, trying to dry my tears. This was all just too much too fast and it was too difficult.

“I’d like to go now please” I whispered to her.

I saw the look of shock on her face as she quickly came over and put an arm around me, walking me away from the group.

“What happened?” she asked, softly.
“He kept telling me how Luke was a bad person. But I know that. I know it all already and I don’t need to be reminded of it every second of every day. I especially don’t need to be reminded by him.”

Lori just held me closer to her chest but I didn’t want to be comforted this time. I was tired of being comforted. I was tired of being sad. I wanted to yell and scream and shout and get angry.

I pulled away from her and she frowned at me. Silently asking what I was doing. But instead of telling her, I just went for it.

I stormed straight over to Luke who had his back to me, grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to see a shocked look on his face.

Then, I went for it.

“Who the hell do you think you are?!” I yelled at him
“What?” he was still shocked
“I kissed you, and you kissed me back. I cared about you. I loved you Luke. And then what do you go and do? You go and sleep with her”

I watched as the girls closed their eyes in frustration at what I’d just said and the guys face palmed, pretty hard. But I knew what I’d done, and I’d done it on purpose.

“What the hell are you talking about?!”
“I’m talking about how, instead of going back to the hotel, you went to Emily’s”
“How did you know about that?” he frowned, reeling back from me and turning to look at the others, whose faces gave away that they knew too.

“You all knew?!” Luke gasped, “How did you-”
“We were there, you absolute dick.”
“What?!”
“They know. They all know about what she’s doing to you. I couldn’t take it anymore so I told the girls and the guys heard. Michael came up with a plan to take the pictures and get rid of them so she had nothing against you, so that you could break it off with her without fear of her ruining everything. But there was one thing we didn’t expect to see in that apartment. One thing we didn’t anticipate, one thing that wasn’t part of Michael’s plan, and it was you.”

Luke just stared at me. It felt good to get this all out but I could feel the tears running down my cheeks and that part didn’t feel good. I knew that I looked like a snivelling wreck but I was finally letting the truth out.

“We got the pictures. And we destroyed them all. I didn’t get out in time so I hid for about 10 minutes in that apartment”

Luke's eyes widened with my words.

“I heard everything Luke. All of it.” I shook my head and covered my mouth with my hand, as if I couldn’t believe what I was saying, as if I was going through it all, all over again.

“I went in there to save you and everything shattered before my eyes. I can’t do this anymore Luke! You’re treating the world like it’s a game. Like we can just reset after everything you’ve done. And it’s a game that I don’t want to play”

I took a step back, taking a breath after everything I had just said, but I didn’t expect what came next.

“And what about you?!” yelled Luke
“Me?!”
“I saw you. I saw you with him” he screamed and gestured toward Jake.

Everybody was already staring at us, now that he had done that, it was bad.

He saw us? How did he see us?

“I was out looking for you for 3 hours after you ran away and just when I was about to give up, I heard your voicemail”

What voicemail? I frowned.

“That damn voicemail from a month ago.”

And then I knew exactly what he was talking about.

The voicemail I’d left him when I was drunk, that night after I had the argument at the restaurant and Lori took me back to the hotel. I remembered everything I had said in the message and my world tumbled down.

“I kept looking for you and when I actually found you, you were having a make out session in the middle of the street with this guy!”
“You think I asked him to kiss me?! If maybe you had not jumped to conclusions, you would’ve seen that I ran away. Because I realised that I was in love with somebody else!”
“Oh?! And who would that be?!”
“You! You absolute dick! It was you!” I screamed.

We just stood in silence, everybody staring at us. All the YouTubers that were on tour with us, all of our friends, workers at the convention centre and-

“What?!” I heard a scream from the door.

Oh, shit.

*****************

A/N - THE TITLE. THIS IS WHEN YOU KNOW THAT IT'S OFFICIAL. WHEN THERE'S A TITLE THAT'S THE SAME AS THE BOOK.

Who's at the door? Adi is confident AND she just told Luke that she loves him.

dun dun DUN.

peace

-angrysos