Drop Dead | Sam Fender

Chapter Fifty Five

TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDERS

Aurora

I spent the next day as I had the previous seven. Laying in bed, wrapped tightly in my duvet. My dad had come up to check on me before he left for work but I just feigned being asleep. I knew he was worried for me. I had barely left my room in over a week now and he was still in the dark as to why. I hadn't told him I had ended things with Sam, worried that he would make the connection to his conversation earlier that week.

My phone was once again buzzing non-stop, only this time it was followed by knocking at my front door. Not that I had the energy or want to answer it, so I didn't, but that apparently didn't stop whoever was at the door.

"Rory Nightingale!" Harlow's voice echoed throughout the empty house as I heard her footsteps on the stairs, muffled slightly by the carpet. I let out a groan and rolled onto my back as she barged through my bedroom door with a million different feelings playing out on her face. "What the fuck, Rory?"

"I'm not in the mood, Harls," I mumbled as my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"Ya went missing for a week, I don't care if you're not in the mood!" she scolded me. I watched in my periphery as she folded her arms across her chest with a stern look on her face. "We're all worried about ya, ya've not been in school or answered you're phone or anything!"

"Me and Sam broke up," I told her quietly. There was a deep pit in the bottom of my stomach, a feeling that I couldn't quite distinguish. Was it pain? Or was it anger at being stood up after he begged me to call him back and meet him?

Harlow's arms dropped to her side and her shoulders in defeat as she stared at me with sympathetic eyes. "Oh, Rory," she muttered, slipping under the covers beside me and pulling me into her arms. It was like deja vu, my mind recalling the time Sam had broken up with me months earlier. "What happened?"

"We argued," I whispered, resting my head against her shoulder. "He's been ringing us all week, begging us to meet him."

"I hope ya told him to fuck reet off," she scoffed.

"He was s'pposed to meet us last night," I laughed quietly.

"What do you mean, supposed to?" she frowned.

"He never showed up," I sighed.

"I'm gan fuckin' chin him when I see him," she grumbled. "It's gan be alreet, pet."

Sam

I was such a fucking idiot. How the fuck did I forget about Rory? It was only when I woke up at just gone eleven with a raging hangover and twenty missed calls had I realised I had fucked up. My shift the night before had gone terribly. I was late, to begin with, then smashed a bunch of glasses trying to clear a table and split a pint of Guinness over Shannon, one of the barmaids and to top it off, I got a bollocking from the bar manager, John, warning me that if I didn't wise up, I was heading towards being sacked. So, I did what any other logical person would do and got drunk, completely forgetting about the girl probably freezing her arse off twenty minutes down the road.

Hearing Rory's wobbly voice through my phone the next morning sent a wave of guilt crashing into me. My heart sank as I heard her admitting that it was cold and dark, realising that the voicemail was sent just after ten o'clock that night, which meant she had been waiting for me for an hour and a half.

I had practically leapt out of bed, barely dressing myself before I hastily made my way to Rory's, ready to beg for her forgiveness. It felt like hours before the door swung open, although I was not met by Rory nor Jamie, but rather Harlow.

"Harl?" I frowned. "What're ya doing here?"

"What am I doing here? I think I should be asking you that, ya fuckin' dickhead," she growled, landing a heavy punch to my upper right arm.