Anyone But Him

7

Alex's POV:

Fuck. I knew I could punch, but not that bloody hard. In the heat of the moment I'd completely forgotten about the numerous silver rings I wore on my left hand ,and consequently did way more damage than I intended to. 

Matt lay on his stomach before me, the flickering street lamp above us highlighting the bright red blood trickling from his freshly bruised nose. I'd broken his nose with my rings, and the sheer agony of it actually caused him to lose consciousness. 

As much as I wanted to run away from my guilt, he was my best friend- or so I thought. I couldn't leave him alone and unconscious at night in a foreign city.

 I truly did care for him and something inside me wished that becoming closer with Anastasia hadn't caused him to doubt our friendship, and although I acknowledged Matthew's concerns about his best friend, I didn't fully understand why he was so pissed about it. I begun to notice the tension blossoming between him and I on the day we all grabbed coffee together, and ever since then he begun to express his disapproval of our newfound friendship increasingly often. From telling me she was off limits, to fully punching me in the head, he made it very clear that he didn't want me getting closer to her.

*

"Alex, what the fuck? What've you done to him?" Nick and Jamie exclaimed in unison as they slammed the pub doors behind them. 

It had been a couple minutes since I'd knocked Matt out and I had been standing over his unconscious body in pure shock for a while now. I was becoming increasingly concerned about how long he'd been out for, and considered calling an ambulance, but either way he'd have to go to the hospital to get his bloody nose fixed.

I opened my mouth to explain, but all that escaped my lips was a squeaky, high pitched apology before I became a stuttering mess. Tears cascaded down my cheeks as the realisation of what I'd done hit me. In this moment, I couldn't care less about how Anastasia would react. All I needed to do was make sure my best friend was ok.

Through my sobs, I clarified the situation to the guys in order to determine what to do next. I know it seemed obvious, but I couldn't bring myself to call Stas and tell her. She'd find out about what I'd done to her best friend sooner or later, but I couldn't stand the thought of her hating me right now.

We quickly sat Matthew up, propping him up against the lamppost to provide more support. Nick ran back into the pub to retrieve a first aid kit, of some sorts, whilst Jamie phoned the ambulance. 

*

Luckily, Matt had gained consciousness shortly after we sat him up and, although extremely disorientated, managed to explain the situation better than the wailing mess that I was. Surprisingly, he tried to take full responsibility for what had unfolded that night but I physically couldn't let him. We came to the agreement that we were both in the wrong, and that we were going to lay off the violence in the future. I was so glad that he didn't hate my guts for causing such a mess and I was extremely lucky to have a group of friends who could forgive me.

It was now the morning of the day of our flight home and Matthew was huddled up in bed in a random hospital on the outskirts of Paris. They'd kept him overnight to ensure that he wasn't too heavily concussed and to keep an eye on him just in case there were some abnormalities in his behaviour.

 He had called Anastasia and notified her of last night nights events, trying to convince her that he was ok and that she didn't have to worry about dragging herself all the way to the hospital, but being the stubborn girl she was, she was adamant to check up on him. I didn't know how he explained what had happened or how she would view me now, but I wasn't too thrilled about her being here at the moment.

She stormed into the private hospital room we'd been huddled in all night, not even acknowledging my presence. I couldn't tell if it was because she'd decided to ignore me, or if she was so genuinely concerned about her best friend that nothing else mattered. I'd only just noticed a spark between us, but I worried that the deed I'd done had extinguished it in an instant.