VII.

I gulp and slowly start to move towards the house I have never wished to be in again.

"Come on." Amber smiles at me and enters it and I follow behind her.

Immediately when people see her, they cheer and pull her with them. I sigh and slowly look around to see if there is a particular person in this room.

Thankfully, he isn't.

Alcohol is, though and I quickly make my way towards it. I need to have at least something in my sistem if I want to survive tonight.

I grab a glass for shots, fill it and drink it. It tastes horrible, but I repeat the action.

I'm about to do the fourth shot, when a hand suddenly stops me.

"Whoa, slow there tiger. You do not want to intake that much alcohol in such a short amount of time, don't you know that?" the voice says and it sounds quite familiar so I turn towards it.

"Oh, hi Theo." I greet and burp. If Theo's here, does that mean that his dick of a tall, gorgeous friend is here, too? I kinda miss him.

Goddamn it, Sophie. Not gorgeous. Definetly not gorgeous. This is why you shouldn't drink, it makes you have inappropriate thoughts. And you most certainly do not miss him, are you dumb?

He chuckles. "What are you doing here?"

His face is a bit blurry, even if I only had three shots.

"Amber, my friend, brought me here." I reply and he nods, biting his lip.

I want to ask him where Axel is, but I don't want to sound pathetic and as if I have came here because of him.

"You want to go on a walk?" Theo suddenly asks me and my eyes widen.

"You wanna go on a walk with me?" I ask and he starts to laugh.

"Sure, why not? A bit of fresh air would feel good." he replies and I nod, agreeing with him.

"Okay, let's go." I say and he grabs my hand, pulling me through the crowd. I follow him closely behind, ducking my head a bit and soon we make it through the crowd and outside.

"It's really crowded in there. I didn't know Axel knew so many people." I comment.

Theo raises his brow at me. "You know that's Axel's house?" he asks me.

I nod, even though there is a small part of me persistently trying to tell me to keep these things to myself. I am too drunk to listen to it, so I ramble on. "Yeah, he brought me here on Sunday when he got his ass kicked and I had to help him walk." I chuckle.

"Wait what? What happened?" Theo asks with alarmed voice while pulling a pocket of cigarettes out of his pocket.

"Well I don't really know, I just walked past when I saw him laying on the ground and three guys kicking him. I'm a nice person, obviously, so I started running towards them and made them stop. One of them was really bad. I didn't know you smoked. Can I try?" I ask, already reaching for his now lit cigarette and putting it between my lips.

I try to inhale, but as soon as I do something horrible comes into my lungs and I start coughing.

Theo just stands there laughing at me and takes the cigarette from my hand. "You've never smoked before, have you? I coughed the first time too."

I furrow my brows. "That tastes horrible, why would you do that every day?"

He shrugs. "Because I'm addicted to it."

I lift my brow, smiling."Fair enough."

We walk for a while in silence after that. The air outside is chilly and I am a bit cold because I'm wearing that small dress. After a while Theo notices and asks:"Are you cold?"

I shrug."A bit. I'll live." I smile and he shakes his head.

"No there's no need for you to be cold. Here, have my jacket." he says, already taking it off.

"But then you'll be cold." I argue.

"Don't worry about me, love. I got thick skin." he grins and I blush.

"Okay." I say softly and put in his jacket. "This is very sweet of you."

"Sweet is my middle name." he replies and shrugged his shoulders.

"Such a gentleman." I stick out my tongue and poke his nose.

His eyes widen and he looks at me with a surprised look. "Alcohol is not good for you."

I laugh and make a grimace, making him laugh and shake his head at me. "So do you know who the guys who beat Axel up were?"

"No, not really, because it was so dark, but they were very mean and creepy and horrible and I didn't like them. One of them had very dark eyes though, I remember that." I reply and wrinkle my nose, reviving the memory.

Theo seems to be thinking about it for a second, but then he shakes his head and turns to me. "Come, let's go back. People will be wondering where we are."

We come back about ten minutes later and I give him back his jacket. The party only seemed to have gotten more crowded. "Wow, there's so many people here." I say in awe and turn towards Theo. He nods and then brings his hand to my face.

I raise my brows:"What are you-?"

"There's a strand of hair on your face." he says and puts the hair behind my ear.

And then everything stops.

I feel him before I see him, or maybe I smell him, I don't know, but I know he is there, right behind me.

"So what, you're fucking him now?" he suddenly says, very harshly.

I whip towards him, about to tell him off but as soon as I see him, I can't get a single word of my mouth. His eye is completely purple and there are bruises and damaged skin all over his face and his arms. He's wearing a plaid back shirt and black tight jeans, but he still looks so hot.

I become angry with myself at that thought again. That alcohol really must've gotten deep in my sistem.

"I got nothing against it dude, you can keep fucking her as much as you want, I don't care." Axel bites at Theo. "I gotta admit that I thought you had higher standards, though."

I gulp and glare at him. Why does he hate me so much? What did I ever do to him? "Why the hell do you even care? It's not my fault that you've gotten so bored with your boring life that you need to get on people's nerves to make it slightly more interesting."

Theo glares at his so called friend and says at the same time:"What the fuck, dude?"

Axel decides to ignore his friend and narrows his eyes at me. "Will you stop trying to fucking put me down? Are you a fucking idiot or what to not know not to fuck with me? Oh, what am I asking. Of fucking course you are. You're the biggest fucking idiot I've ever met."

"Well you are the biggest asshole I have ever met." I spit at him and turn on my heels, running through the crowd away from him.

I run for about a minute before realizing there are tears on my face and that I dont't know where I'm going. I angrily wipe my tears away. Why am I crying because of him again?

I want to go home.

Gulping, I start searching for Amber but I can't find her anywhere; it's like she has disappeared. Devastated and feeling slightly depressed I make my way back to where the alcohol is and start drinking again.

I take one shot, two shots before just drinking from the bottle. That's a stupid thing to do and I know it, but I just don't care – I only want the pain to go away. And then a hand rips the bottle from me.

"Nooo..." I moan, reaching for it.

"You. You need to stop drinking right now. I don't want ambulance at my house." Axel says and I get mad.

Really mad.

"You." I growl and point a finger in his face. "First you take away my dignity and now alcohol? Fuck. You." I say and then spit at him.

I literally spit in his face.

He closes his eyes but opens his mouth in shock as my saliva drips down his face. Then he wipes it away with his hand and glares at me.

"Oh, you're dead."

Quickly, I turn on my heels, almost losing balance and am about to run through the crowd again but he harshly yanks my arm back towards him and starts pulling me upstairs. I open my mouth in pain and whine but he doesn't hear me.

Or maybe he simply doesn't care and has decided to ignore me. I have no idea how we make it up the stairs but when we do, he pushes me in his bedroom and closes the door behind him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I suddenly scream in his face. "You do not act like that towards women! Especially not me! I helped you when nobody else did and now you're acting like this?!"

"I never asked you to help me so stop saying that! I never needed your help! You were just being stupid by doing that and not doing anyone a favour!" he screams back, pushing me against the wall. He is livid, the vein in his neck poping out. His eyes seem to turn a darker shade and if I wasn't overwhelmed with my emotions at the moment, I would hiss at the pain from how much pressure he has put into the grip on my wrists.

I take a deep breath, forcing back the tears. "What is so wrong with me helping you?! Why are acting like this towards me?! What have I ever done to you?!" I scream back in his face which is only inches away.

He slams the wall above my head and looks straight into my eyes. And then he whispers the words I have never thought I would hear, especially not from his mouth.

"I'm acting like a complete dick because you are making me want to not hate you and I have a strong urge to hate everybody I meet.«

I stare at him in awe, wondering if I have heard him correctly or if alcohol had such effects on me, but deep down I know I have heard him correctly. He is still looking down at me, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, his mouth open, deep breaths coming out of it.

He really is here and he really has said that.

And then, just like that, I kiss him.