Letters ➸ Michael Clifford

Death Ball

The couch in Ashton’s garage smelt like pizza and Lynx but I sat on it anyway. Ash and Cal were sitting on the rug that was on the ground and were playing video games. Luke was sitting next to me, my legs in his lap. “OH C’MON THAT DOESN’T COUNT!” Cal yelled.

“It does to! I shot you and you died!” Ash retorted.

“C’mon! Let’s play FIFA now!” Calum pouted.

“No, I don’t like FIFA…” Ash knew how much Calum liked soccer.

“Who doesn’t like FIFA?” Luke asked.

“Judges harder.” I butted in.

With a sigh, Ashton gave up and put the FIFA disc in.

“How are you doing, you know, after last night?” Cal asked me while the game loaded on the screen.

I swallowed hard, my heart thumped harder than ever. Did they tell Luke?

 “Fine.” I replied and tried my hardest to give a convincing smile.

“What happened last night?” Luke asked.

“Lil got-“ Ashton started.

“-into a fight with Hudson! Just verbal, nothing to worry about. Yeah, he came home for once with a bunch of mates and some alcohol. Then more people came and it was hell.” I finished, trying to sound as casual as I could.

“Dammit, I miss one day! Sorry I couldn’t be there to help shut it down. I had to go out for dinner.” Luke said with a sigh.

“Lucky Ash and I were walking past.” Calum smiled.

*    *    *    *

Monday mornings are always hell, but there are always those Mondays that are worse than others. Today was that sort of Monday: the day where you want to shoot everyone around you and sleep for 3 decades. But sadly, murder was illegal and I think it’s impossible to sleep for 30 years... unless you've been like in a coma or something.

I got dressed into my school uniform, yes the private school kind, and walked into the kitchen. The house was cleaner that I expected it to be; Hudson was nowhere to be seen.Typical. I poured some cereal and scrolled through my twitter feed. 

It wasn’t long after I brushed my teeth that there was a knock at the door. Putting my laptop into my school bag, I ran to open the door. Luke stood there, biting his pierced lip, his blonde hair tamed into a quiff with hair gel for school.

“Your ride awaits!” He smiled.

“Thank God! I didn’t want to walk!” I smiled and took the arm Luke was holding out for me.

“Hiya, Lil!” Ashton smiled from the drivers seat.

“HEYYYY!!” Calum said with a chuckle from the front seat.

I sat in the seat behind Cal while Luke sat behind Ashton. Ash’s car smelt just like his couch, pizza and lynx. But I guess that’s what all boys’ cars smell like… well atleast I think so. 

“Dammit! I have an Italian Test to do today.” Ashton muttered when we were almost at school.

“I have an economics test today as well… I guess we’ve had so much band practice we haven’t had time to study.” Calum pouted.

“You guys know that when I said ‘become an actual band’ I didn’t mean ‘have band practice everyday’, right?” I pointed out.

“We know, it’s just that we’ve been writing a bunch of songs and stuff…” Luke replied.