Love & War | Brad Simpson ✔️

8. "What's a condom?"

Within moments of Tristan and I stepping off the train, I hear a girl, who sounds distinctly like our sister, shout out our names loudly. We look over in the direction of the noise and see Millie running over, her long blonde hair flowing out behind her in the breeze.

"Tris! Ella!"

She hurled herself at the two of us, wrapping one arm around me and the other around Tristan to pull us into a big hug.

"Hey, ssh!" Tristan chuckles, "I'm trying to be undercover" he adds, pointing to his sunglasses and the hood over his head. Millie giggles and Tristan grins as he pulls her into his arms and lifts her up off the ground, "have you missed me?" He asks.

"Yeah" she mumbles, nodding her head as her arms cling around his neck.

"Ah, well, I've missed you more" he tells her, making her smile. My mother approaches us at this moment, clearly not prepared to sprint to us like Millie did. She pulls me into a motherly hug.

"How are you doing?" She asks, pulling away.

"Good" I nod. It's nice to see her again.

"And are Tristan and Brad looking after you?" She questions.

"Tris is" I say, "who's Brad?"

"Funny" Tristan deadpans as he lowers Millie down to the ground again. I give him a sarcastic smile, just before Millie throws her arms around my waist. I hug her back tightly whilst my mum starts fussing over Tristan.

"And how've you been, Millie Moo?" I ask.

"Okay" she murmurs, "I've missed you"

"I've missed you too" I tell her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

My mum soon mentions that we need to get back so she can start cooking dinner and we all walk to the car park, except Millie, who gets a piggyback to the car from Tristan.

As soon as I step inside the house, it's quiet. Eerily quiet. And I'm just waiting for it to appear.

My mum disappears off into the kitchen whilst Millie starts interrogating Tristan about the interesting places he'd been and the exciting things he'd done with the band.

I make my way up the stairs and towards my room, taking my time as I prepare myself for whatever is behind my bedroom door. I reach it and take a deep breath, before very slowly opening it.

The first thing that hits me is the stink of sickly perfume mixed with a hint of fake tan. And then all I notice is pink. Lots of pink. Everywhere.

I'm vaguely aware of it sat on my bed, and I'm vaguely aware of one of it's snotty friends sat next to her, but I ignore them as I take in the pink.

So much pink.

"Why is everything fucking pink?" I ask incredulously. There's a fluffy pink rug on the floor that wasn't there before and pink curtains hung up that weren't there before and a pink duvet on my bed that wasn't there before.

"I can't believe you just walked in here without knocking" Brittany scoffs, before she turns to her friend, "she's so rude"

"It's my room!" I exclaim, "I don't need to knock to come in my own room"

"She's like this all the time, Tiffany" Brittany sighed, flicking her ratty hair, the sight of which I have not missed. Her friend Tiffany looks just as bad as her. Same fake hair, fake nails, fake everything. They even have that same pouty, smug expression slapped across their faces, except Tiffany's is slightly less ferret-y.