.Chapter 2.

This chapter is dedicated to LaurenJ22 because she's one of my favourite authors :)

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"You are the last person I expected to see," were the first words which left my mouth.

"Really?" Bradon cocked an eyebrow, the stupid smirk never leaving his face. "Are you surprised?"

Why are you talking to a jerk? Don't lower your standards, Chris . . .

"Am I surprised that a famous singer can be a world class jerk? Nope, I'm not," I gave him a fake smile.

"So at least you acknowledged that I'm famous."

"Who said I was talking about you," I said rolled my eyes. "And do I mean anything to you?" I asked suddenly.

"No," he answered, his face unsure and cautious.

"Then stop bothering me," I hissed, and stalked off, leaving him rooted on the spot.

I really was having a bad day, wasn't I?

---

I looked down at the framed picture in my hand, gently sliding my hand across the glass.

It was a picture of me and Julian.

We had taken this picture on a beach, asking a stranger to click some photos of us, as memories.

We were standing at a spot where the sea waves barely covered our ankles. We both were laughing at something, when the stranger took that picture out of the blue: it became one of the best photos from our collection.

Julian was facing the camera, with him not wearing a t-shirt, and sunglasses on his face. He had dark navy blue trunks on, and in one of his hands was a mocktail glass; his arm was draped around my bare waist.

I was wearing a baby blue sarong and a black bikini top. My face was half buried in his chest-so I wasn't facing the camera-and my body latched to his side, his arm bringing me closer towards him.

I was shorter than him by a head; and my face was scrunched up while laughing, with my palm rolled in a fist, placed over his naked chest. My other arm was snaked behind his back. My hair was flying gracefully in the picture due to the wind.

We looked like a cute happy teenage couple.

I gazed at the captured moment with a small, sad smile. We really did look good together.

Thinking thus, I got up quietly and placed the photo frame, face down, back on the night stand. But I wasn't really sure if it still belonged there. I patted down my t-shirt and glanced at myself in the mirror.

I was wearing a white Nirvana crop top with high waist denim shorts. I had put on some kohl and mascara, and had given a smokey effect to my eyes.

My hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, paired up with a black fedora. In the end, I completed the look with combat boots.

I looked good. Like, really good.

I walked down the stairs and waited in the living room for Alicia. She came out of her room after five minutes, wearing a red dress which hung onto her hips and rested at mid-thigh; the way she had done up her hair was the highlight, giving her a classy look.

I nodded in approval after eyeing her outfit. She had her phone in her hand and said, "Dan and Seth are coming in two minutes. And you look hot, girl. You should go for this look more often."

"I know," I smirked and then reached out to flick my hair behind my shoulder, before realizing that I had tied up my hair.

She saw that and laughed. After a few minutes of chitchat, I unlocked my phone to look at the time. "How much more time are those idiots gonna-"

My sentence was cut in the middle by the sound of continuous honking.

"Dan," me and Al said in unison before shaking our heads in dramatic amusement. It was an old habit of his, and it's true what they say-Old habits die hard.

"God, how much time do you girls need to get dressed?" Seth, one of the jocks and also one of Dan's friends, groaned.

"Shut up, Seth. It's called being fashionably late," I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever," he said. "And by the way, are you familiar with the fact that Julian is going to be there at Jace's party?"

"So?" I said incredulously."He doesn't rule the world I live in. I can go wherever I want without being questioned, thank you."

"Sorry," he mumbled, casting a look sideways at Dan, who just shrugged.

Thank you, best friend . . .

The rest of the car ride was spent in silence, except for a brief exchange between the two boys.

Seth: Dude, I wanna get laid tonight.

Dan: Yeah, me too.

I scrunched my nose up in disgust.

Don't you always?

Getting bored to hell, I opened Cut The Rope app, and started playing the game on my phone. I glanced sideways at Al, seeing earphones plugged in her ear: she was waving her hands in the air, practising her dance moves.

I gave a small, gleeful smile.

Al was one of the lead dancers of the school dance team, and she was amazing. She had the body, which was also very flexible; she was agile, and had everything you need to become a dancer. Watching her flitting and flying during competitions made me really proud.

Proud mama moment!

Shaking my head at my foolishness, I continued entertaining myself with Om Nom, the cutie.

A few minutes later, as we came near the house, we could hear the music blaring loudly. It was a good thing that the neighbors' houses were a bit far. Otherwise, they would have called the cops on us.

"I'm getting wasted tonight, bitches!" I yelled as we were just about to enter the house, and my friends cheered along with me.

"And laid," Dan whispered not so softly in his stupid friend's ear.

I ignored them, and mentally prepared myself for a wild night.

---

"Your attention please, ladies and gentleman." I hooted along with the crowd, as Jace took the mic from the DJ. I hadn't had much drinks as I was planning to, and was almost sober.

"Put your hands together for my very old friend who has come back after two years of hard military training, the guy for whom this party has been thrown-" everyone cheered again as Jace laughed into the mic. I was pretty sure, almost half of the crowd were too drunk to even care who his friend was. "-ALEC HERRINGTON!"

I rolled my eyes at the amount of noise the crowd was making. Somewhere in the crowded area (technically the whole area was crowded), I saw Courtney and Sara fanning themselves as Alec Herr-whatever went and hugged Jace.

God, get a room.

I need some air, I thought, suddenly hating the stuffy atmosphere. And a drink, maybe.

I made my way towards the kitchen and filled a red cup upto the brim with vodka. Pushing the sweaty people in the crowd, I finally managed to get out of the house, and into the garden. I roamed around the garden, seeing red cups and and a couple of small pools of vomit all over Jace's mom's garden. Poor boy, he's gonna need some help.

I walked towards a tree and took a sip of vodka, the drink burning my throat. I leaned against the tree and then slithered down on the ground with a sigh.

Was I happy with my life? I thought out of the blue.

I had everything a girl would willingly take my place for. Friends; popularity; a very loving (ahem ahem) now ex-boyfriend; one of America's richest persons as my father; living with my best friend in a large house in London. I mean, how many parents allow their children to live in a completely different continent, miles and miles away from home, at the age of sixteen?

Even though the reason is wrong and absurd . . .

I still find it hard to believe that I have been living away from home since two years now. Not that I miss my father much.

I looked up at the sky, gazing intensely at the very few stars which could be seen, and then suddenly an idea came to my mind.

I got up, gulped down the remaining of my vodka in one go-also cursing loudly at the horrible burning sensation in my throat-and looked around to see if anyone was watching me. There was no one around, but me. Most of the people were still inside.

I looked up at the tree that I was leaning against, and grinned wickedly. I lifted my leg up and placed my foot in a duct of the tree trunk, and catching hold of the lowest branch, even scratching myself in the process. Jerking my body upwards, I stood up straight on that branch. Then I lifted my other leg up, and almost lost my grip on the earlier branch.

"Woah!" I exclaimed as I steadied myself, shaken up.

"What are you doing?" I heard a masculine voice say.

"Trying to climb a tree," I said, trying to repeat the process again, placing my foot in a hollow duct.

"You'll fall down," he said. I turned around, almost losing my grip all over again, and said, "I need a drink. Will you get me a drink?"

"Actually, I can't go inside."

"Aww, come on," I whined like a brat. If I wanted to climb further up, I needed some motivation.

He sighed. "Although I really want to see you try climbing that tree in a half-drunken state, I can't go inside."

"Okay," I said meekly, knowing that a tiny bit of my crazed talk was because of the alcohol.

Then without warning, I jumped off the second branch and onto the ground, landing very, very unsteadily, almost falling flat on my face.

"Slow down there," he said, as he helped me up.

"Thank you sooo much," I drawled with a lazy and drunken grin on my face, which later turned into shock, as I saw who it was.

"You!" I exclaimed, sobering up at once.

"Yes, me," Bradon Evans said.

"What are you doing here?" But then thinking that I was sounding too rude, I brought a slight change in my attitude; after all, he had not done anything to me, except be a bit sarcastic when we had met. "I mean . . . you-you are a 'much sought after singer'." I paused after that, waving my hands in the air to emphasize my point.

"'Much sought after singer'?" he said in amusement. "Really?"

"Um, I mean, won't a mob come screamimg after you if you come here so casually, without security-" I started exaggerating.

"I get your point," he cut me off, "And I'm touched to see that you care about me-"

"I don't . . ."

"-but I'm here with my own, free will," he finished.

I looked at him with a blank expression, and then said, "Whatever. I don't-"

"Chris." A masculine voice cut me off.

Julian.

"Chris, I need to talk to you."

"Julian," I said, turning around in exasperation. "I really don't think this is the right time."

He glanced at Bradon, who stared back at him defiantly. I looked at Julian's hands, and saw a bottle of vodka.

"Are you drunk?" I asked him.

"No. But I needed courage to come here," he said with a sad smile playing on his lips. "Am I . . . Am I i-interrupting something?" he asked faintly, pointing at me and Bradon.

"No!" I said quickly. Even though I had broken up with him, I didn't want him to think that I had moved on so fast. Standing there, looking at him needing alcohol to just talk to me, had created a small hole in my heart. I felt like a monster, even though it was quite the other way round. ''Of course not!"

"Aw princess, I'm actually hurt."

Did he have to interrupt?

I stole a glance at Julian whose face had visibly become pale. "Princess . . ." he mouthed, and then without warning, swung the beer bottle in his hand, taking a big sip, and gave me a forlorn look. As though he had lost hope. In me.

Seeing him like this made me want to run towards him and hold him. Whisper to him that all of this is just a bad dream for both of us. That it will be okay when we wake up. And when we wake up, we'll think of how scary all of this was, and yet how stupid of us to even think about these happenings.

"Julian, I-"

"Save it," he said coldly. I looked at him in surprise.

I'm the one who's supposed to be angry; I'm the one who's supposed to feel cheated on, I am the one who'd been cheated on, and here I was, trying to console the devil himself.

"Dude, just chill. We were having a verbal fight, even though I know you think otherwise," Bradon said, and I looked at him, stunned.

Why would he defend me, when I had been nothing but rude to him?

I felt Julian's eyes burning in my back, and I turned to face him. "Is he telling the truth?" he said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes," I said emphatically. "See, I was trying to climb a treem " I scowled at Bradon, who just gave me an arrogant smirk, "and I would have had a pretty bad fall, if it wasn't for him," I said, jerking my head in Bradon's direction.

"Are you okay?" Julian rushed to my side with concern.

"Ye-"

"No," Bradon cut me off, looking at my leg, and I shot him a dirty look. "She's hurt her leg."

"Uh-huh," Julian said slowly, glancing down, too. "Yeah, Chris. It's a huge gash. Let's take you inside."

"Okay." I started to walk, and then gasped. "Ow!" I bent down on my knee, and touched the cut gingerly. "It hurts like hell!"

I blew air over it, trying to ease the sudden pain I was feeling, but to no avail.

"Are you alright?" Bradon asked, crouching down beside me.

"I think so," I nodded. Suddenly, I was scooped up in someone's arms, and I lifted my head up, finding myself face to face with Julian. I opened my mouth to tell him to put me down, but he beat me to it.

"I know that I'm the last person whose arms you would want to be in, but you and I both know that you can't walk without hurting yourself," he said softly, our proximity sending shivers down my spine.

"Great, now I'm stuck as a fucking third wheel," we heard Bradon mutter from behind. I laughed, tightening my grip around Julian, as we tried to sneak into the house from the back. He stiffened, and looked at me. I felt my eyes widening, as it struck me about how close our faces had gotten.

After we found a bathroom in a vacant room of the large house, he placed me on the counter, and muttered that he would go and find some first aid.

"So," Bradon rounded up on me, after Julian had left. "What did pretty boy do?"

"Meaning?"

"I mean that . . . why are you giving him that cold treatment? I could slice the tension in the air with a blunt knife," he said in a Damon Salvatore-like body language, mimicking the action of cutting something with a knife.

I scowled. "What, you are like my BFF now?"

"Honey, I'm just sayin'," he said smoothly.

"Nothing. We had a great relationship, and he cheated on me."

"Cheated on you, how?" he said in a low voice.

"That's none of your business, nosey," I snapped.

"Touchy subject, I see," he smiled wryly. "Do you want him back?"

"What?" I said, distracted, thinking that I had heard him wrong.

"I said, do you want him back?" he asked again, with an unreadable expression.

"Yes," I said at first, without thinking.

Wait, what?

"No!" I exclaimed later, shocked at my earlier reply.

But then I actually gave a thought to it. Did I want Julian back?

"I don't know," I said finally, digging my face in my palms, and he patted my shoulder awkwardly. "God, this is so messed up," I said in muffled voice.

"I know. And I can help you."

"Help me with what?"

"I can help you to bring him back."

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Julian on the side bar>>> *fans herself vigorously*

Don't forget to Vomment lovelies!

-Crazy