006. YouTuber Preference: When I Was Your Man
When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down
'Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name
“Who is so interesting?” Across the packed breakfast dinner, Marcus teased Louise as she was and had been furiously texting more than anything else since they sat down.
The blond beauty guru didn’t even look up from her phone screen to answer, “[Y/N]. She just got back from Vancouver.”
“Hi [Y/N]!” Zoe leaned in close to Louise and called as if you and Louis had been FaceTiming instead of simply messaging one another back and forth.
Jack hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversations going on around him. He was talking back and forth with Louis mostly, talking fast and excitedly about an upcoming project that he had wanted to work on long ago. His attention was on Louise now. The sound of your name bringing his eyes up and over to her, his face contorted into an expression you could only give someone when they had just stabbed you in the chest. Suddenly, he wasn’t excited anymore. His mood changed quicker than the temper of a toddler. It only took someone mentioning you these days to send him into swirling depression.
He knew you were still close friends with the girls he had introduced you to while the boys seemed to side with him. The breakup had been tricky with a lot of public emotions when you both finally called it quits after trying to make it work for three months longer than either of you should have. Right now, you and Jack were in two different worlds. He was all about creating things and enjoying his youth while you were focused on trying to find your path. It was great that he had something he was good at and wanted to pursue, but you were still figuring out what you were passionate about and enjoyed, where your talents lied. He was often frustrated with you changing your mind and looking into different colleges and majors. Jack was a ‘just do it’ kind of guy while you were a thinker. He hadn’t been very supportive of you going up to Vancouver to work at a ski lodge and resort for the winter. He thought you should find something more local and something that would open doors or you could make worthwhile connections, so you put the idea to bed and continued searching. As soon as you and Jack were over though, you had a Skype interview and lined up a job at Cyprus Mountain and it had been the time of your life. In fact, you did meet people and you were planning to go on a huge snowboarding trip in Switzerland next month. One of them was a world class athlete and he wanted you to model for the website of his ski gear line. While you loved Jack and you knew Jack loved you, right now it just wasn’t right. If he had supported you and wanted to try long distance, you would have probably stayed and tried, but he didn’t. So anything he felt now about you was his own fault.
'Cause all you wanted to do was dance
But she's dancing with another man
Finn was not Jack. He didn’t just instantly feel comfortable in every social scenario. He was rarely the first to stand up to speak. He couldn’t make interesting and real conversation with everyone. It never really bothered you as it was just another trait that made up the guy you were so crazy about, but after two years of being together, it was a little bit annoying that it was still like pulling teeth to get him on the dance floor with you when you would go out. Generally, you would just join the crowd on your own or with a couple friends, leaving him to watch and preserve a small spot in the corner of the club somewhere.
Of course, that wasn’t why you two broke up. You were growing very unhappy in the relationship naturally. You two didn’t go out and explore anymore. It was all just hanging out, watching movies on the couch, eating take out, and napping together. While those activities were nice sometimes, they had their time and their place. You wanted a little more effort into the relationship, the way there used to be, but he stopped and when you brought it up with him, things would improve for a little bit, and then go back. Eventually, you weren’t interested anymore, you were just sort of going through the motions and you thought both you and Finn deserved better than that.
He was sad when you left him, all your things promptly removed from his bedroom, but he understood and wore a brave sad face as you returned your key to him and left. You tried to be his friend, but he asked you not to because it was difficult.
A year had passed now and you met Zach towards the end as he started to work at the burgers and cake restaurant your parents own and ran. He was tall like Finn and had an understated sweet smile like he did, but that was where the similarities ended. Zach was all about trying everything and anything once and it made for a lot of strange, but fun scenarios. There was a time where you wouldn’t have been as interested in doing wacky things, but after being taken for granted by Finn, and now a year of singledom, you were ready for just pure fun which Zach was happy to bring to you.
Your friends thought you should have asked Tanya (Burr) if it was alright for you to bring Zach to her birthday, but you didn’t think it was necessary. A lot of people brought their significant others or just a plus-one, why couldn’t you? It had been a year after all and you knew that Finn had been out meeting girls during that time. It wasn’t as if he had slept for 365 days.
It was unbeknownst to you, as you were free of care, but on the second floor of the Camden club, Finn was nursing a beer slowly and watching the dance floor from the balcony, his eyes fixated on you as you happily danced with a group of your girlfriends, including the birthday girl. Zach was behind you, his smile matching yours, with one hand on your hip as you leaned into him. He spun you around occasionally, just for fun, each time evoking a little giggle to slip from your painted pink lips. It made Finn feel a bit sick which surprised him. He didn’t think he would be the way he was, seeing you moved on because he thought he had moved on too.
After a couple more drinks, he worked up the fake courage to go down onto the dance floor himself. He squeezed through flailing sweaty bodies and smiled as soon as he was close enough to see all the details of your face. You tried to be polite, lifting a hand to acknowledge him while you reached around and kept your boyfriend close to you.
“We should dance.” He spoke over the music, trying at least. You stared at him with very surprised eyes, thinking you would never hear those words come out of Finn Harries’ mouth.
“Go for it. I could use a break.” Zach laughed, backing up and slowly letting go of your waist. He kissed you quickly and started to walk away, ignoring that you and Finn were still staring at one another.
“Um…no.” You shook your head, hair that had been sticking to your face moving off. Behind you, you caught Zach’s hand and let him lead you off of the floor and over to the toilets. It was too little, too late and now you had moved on. Finn could have taken you out and made you feel special when you were his, but he didn’t, and now you weren’t his anymore.
Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now
Our song on the radio, but it just don't sound the same
If he read Cosmo magazine, he might have been informed that what he was doing was not helpful at all, but Caspar wasn't really interested in healing or getting over you so he didn't care.
When you two met, just a mere five months ago, you were a saucy barista and he was the boy vlogging with his friends and annoying you. He edited you out of the video since it sort of painted you to be a right bitch, but he was lying in bed now, watching it over and over again, feeling sorry for himself. In the background, he could hear the faint sounds of music and Shazammed it to find out it was "Come Back Home" by We Are The In Crowd. You had left him broken hearted in his bedroom last night, saying that you just weren't as interested as he was and you were so sorry, but he was still just lying in bed feeling sick to his stomach with stained red eyes. He watched the video over and over and the others that he had managed to capture you in while the song played on repeat. He wanted to get up, go to the coffee shop you worked at, tell you that he wanted to make things work, but he knew he couldn't force himself. You couldn't make someone feel something for you that they didn't. He just stayed in bed and decided that he would keep torturing himself with memories and pictures of you.
He stayed in bed for three days, only leaving to use the washroom and get something to eat from the cupboards downstairs. His hair was a greasy mess sticking to his face while his breath's scent matched the odor coming from his arm pits. Marcus and Joe had been texting him that morning, threatening to come over and take him out, but he just turned their attempts away. It wasn't until you texted him that you wanted to come pick up a movie that you left over there that he sprung out of bed to shower. This was his chance, he hoped.
My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways
Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life
"Obviously, you wouldn't understand!" Mazz's voice had grown in volume and irritation almost instantly as you asked him another rhetorical question. You didn't understand a lot of the things he did, but the influx of girls he was catering to was getting to be a little much. The conversation started simply by you asking if he stopped taking his shirt off for fan photos, even if they requested, but he looked at you like you were asking him to move mountains. So you asked how he would feel if you took off your top when taking photos with anyone, male or female, and he wrote it off with a smart ass joke, saying he wouldn't mind because he loved your boobs. "You don't know what it's like to have a bunch of people want something from you. They want me to give them what they want, okay?"
Before that, you hadn't been thinking about leaving Mazz at all. You two had been friends since before you hit puberty and dating since your final year of school. This was just a little tiff, but after he said something as douchey as that, you checked out. Those sort of comments at that kind of arrogant behavior was becoming too regular with him and you weren't going to sit idly by like it was okay.
Rolling your eyes, you slid right up off the hotel bed, took your purse, and left. The Marius you fell for was somewhere else now and you felt like, maybe, if he was to grow up you two could work, but until then you were over.
Now, Mazzi played that whole argument over and over in his head. He hadn't watched you leave because he was frustration, but now the sound of your sneakers squeaking against the hardwood floors haunted him. He called you the day after your tiff, wanting to know if you were alright and if you wanted to get lunch, but you didn't pick up. You two never spoke again. It was bad enough that he was heartbroken over it, but having his mother and grandmother on his ass about how he lost the best thing to happen to him was like poisonous icing all over a cake made of feces.
It had been two months and he picked up the phone to call you, but it went straight to voicemail. He rubbed his signature chin for a second before sighing and hanging up. He was still a little too proud, it seemed.
Mmm, too young, too dumb to realize
That I should've bought you flowers
"Must you two do that?" Alfie snarled.
In front of him as he was setting up a camera, Niomi and Marcus were holding hands while they waited, cutely talking among themselves. It hadn't even been 24 hours since you left, telling him you were going to go visit your father and when you came back, you didn't want to be with him, you didn't want to see him. Alfie woke up knowing he should have fixed a lot of the holes in your relationship that you pointed out to him, but he never tried. He just let it go in one ear and out the other without a care. They would fix themselves if you two were supposed to be, he figured, not realizing until you told him off that he had to actually work at a relationship.
"Don't snap at us cause [Y/N] left." Niomi was a sweetheart, but she was also your friend and had heard all the stories, let you come over upset with Alfie, and she wasn't just going to put up with being growled at like she was a piece of meat and Alfie was a wolf in the woods. He got what was coming to him, he had been warned.
"Whatever. I don't care about her." He lied, squinting his eyes and working out his frustrations with the camera.
"Wasn't that the problem?" Marcus asked, not to be rude, but just out of reflex simply. Alfie looked up at him with eyes that could kill. "Figure the damn camera out yourself." He hissed and took off, stomping downstairs and out the door. He stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jeans and started to walk. His anger softened instantly when the cold wind brushed up against his face. He was sorry. He missed you. He didn't know how to make things better.
I know I'm probably much too late
To try and apologize for my mistakes
But I just want you to know
Zoe had been torn since you two were great friends, but Joe was her brother. She wasn't impressed that he had cheated on you, but he was still her brother. Instead of bringing you over to her house, she always went over to see you since you screamed and cried your way out of her house a month ago after finding the padded black bra in Joe's bed that so obviously wasn't yours.
Zoe had been planning her a surprise birthday for Louise and wanted to have it at her house, but she felt conflicted since you and Joe weren't talking to one another. She thought if anyone needed to break the ice, it was Joe. He was the cheater, but she didn't think he would budge. Finally, when he was bugging her playfully, she just exploded on him and let him know how upset with him she was and how she felt like she couldn't bring you to the house anymore.
"Hi..." Joe's voice breathed out on the other end of the phone, whispering because he wasn't sure what to do and because it was two in the morning and his parents and Zoe were fast asleep.
You had debated not answering, but there was a part of you that was interested in what he could possibly have to say to you. Plus, it was two in the morning and you worried something could have happened to him or Zoe. "Are you there?" He checked since you didn't reply.
"I'm here." You whispered back, groggily.
"I'm sorry to wake you ... I just.... " He wasn't good at these things. He didn't have any experience.
"Is everything okay? Is anyone ill?"
"We're all fine." He quickly assured you. "Well, my dad threw out his back, but...nevermind." Joe cleared his throat quietly before grabbing at his hair, wanting to compose himself somehow. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." In montone, you replied.
"Oh good. Well...I just wanted you to know that I do feel like shit about what I did." The words came out on their own as he fought with the rock-like lump in his throat. "You didn't deserve it, you didn't do anything to warrant it, I'm just a total shithead."
"Thank you." It was a lot better than listening to his excuses and scrambled 'sorry's' back when you first found out. It sounded sincere and it was all you needed to hear.
