Left on the Sidelines // Nash Overstreet

Chapter 40: So Long Live the Fast Times

-Ryan-

"You rang?" Danielle cheerfully answered her phone.

"I think we should hang out today," I told her, "We rarely ever get to spend time together just the two of us and with the girls still at the studio, I thought now would be a good opportunity."

"I'm down." I could just see her shrugging, making me chuckle quietly. "Just give me like, 5 minutes and I'll be right over."

"Alright," I smiled, "I'll see you in a bit."

A few minutes later, Danielle strolled into my apartment wearing her pajama shorts and one of Nash's old shirts.

"Looking real classy there," I laughed as she plopped down on the couch beside me.

"You didn't expect me to get dressed up for you, did you?" she smirking, pushing my shoulder.

"Well, you didn't know what we were gonna do," I teased, "I could have been planning to take you out for coffee or something."

"But you weren't because it's 7pm," she smiled, "So what's up?"

"Nothing, I just feel like we don't spend a lot of one-on-one time together."

"Which is translated to I did something wrong, but you're nice enough to not call me out on it in front of everyone."

"You didn't do anything wrong," I shook my head then mumbled, "And Nash said I shouldn't have, so..."

"Nash said you shouldn't have what?" she asked, confused.

I sighed, "When we were on Taylor's tour and Jordan showed up – after I pulled Nash off of him, I mean – he accidentally said that Jordan almost hit you... Again."

Her eyes widened slightly, "Oh."

"And then when your show was on, you were talking about it taking a long time to understand that you shouldn't be afraid to be in the same room as someone you love and I just want to know what happened with him." I finally finished rambling.

Danielle sighed, knowing that, although I wasn't pushing her to tell me, I was going to ask her about it periodically until she did.

"When I met him sophomore year, he was a really great guy. He made me feel like a princess, you know?" she said, "But something changed when he realized he was talented. He started bringing me down a lot more and calling me names, but he never once hit me. He was always telling me I was lucky to have him because no one else wanted me and that I should have felt honored that he would even look at me." She rolled her eyes. "The first time it got physical was a couple weeks after he'd gotten signed and he'd been so busy with working on his music that I'd offered to go buy groceries for him. When I got to his house, he grabbed my wrist and pushed me against the wall because I 'bought the wrong kind of paper towels'," she made air quotes, laughing bitterly at the memory. "He apologized immediately after – telling me he didn't know what came over him and that he really did love me – so I forgave him and we moved on. Nothing happened until a few months later. I don't remember much of what happened that night, but I do know that he accused me of cheating on him because that's what he kept yelling before I got knocked out. I ended up in the hospital for three weeks because I'd lost so much blood. When I woke up, the doctor told me that I was lucky to be alive because 'that fall down those stairs really messed me up'. I still can't understand how people believed him. His place didn't even have stairs," she choked, taking a breath to calm herself down. "That was it for me – I couldn't take it anymore. I decided that as soon as I was all healed, I was going to leave him, but luckily, I didn't have to do much for it to happen. About a week before I got better, he got news that he was going on tour with some really popular band and told me that he didn't need me anymore and ended the relationship. A part of me was heartbroken because even with all that had happened, he did have his good days where he was an amazing boyfriend and I was going to miss that, honestly, but I knew it was for the best. Not long after that, I moved back to Tennessee and now here we are almost a year later," she laughed quietly, not really knowing how to end her story.