Maybe It's Been You All Along - Alex Turner

56

  Each of the Monkeys travelled back over to the UK come Christmas time. They spent the majority of the time clustered nearby each other in High Green Sheffield where all the families were, all except Matt who found himself taking a surprise trip down to London. For what reason? He wouldn't tell anyone. Five days before Christmas he said to Alex that he'd have to cancel the plans they had that day as he was going to drive down to London for a few days. Matt felt a bit guilty ditching Alex, he didn't have much more than his parents to keep him company this year, but had bigger things on his mind.

The address he had was an apartment which made finding parking even harder so Matt decided to park somewhere cheap on the outskirts of the city and catch a taxi in. That way he wouldn't be getting lost trying to find the place he was looking for.

He arrived sometime in the early afternoon at a fairly small building. It wasn't much but he knew this was the best real estate one could get so close to the city for an affordable price. Taking the elevator to the sixth floor, Matt walked down the halls scouting for number "607".

  His eyes landed on a gold plate on one of the doors and he inhaled a deep breath before knocking. He didn't tell anyone where he was going because he was told to meet on anonymous terms; which made perfect sense. After a few long seconds the door handle turned and the door opened before him.

  "Hey," he smiled and the minute he said that, Rosanna tossed her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Matt sighed and held her tightly having missed her dearly. He was so relieved when he saw her face, she looked well and healthy. A stark contrast to Alex's self destructive, exhausted appearance.

  When Rosanna had called him and asked him to come meet her at her new apartment he was confused and a little worried that something was wrong. But she smiled when she saw him. Matt hadn't seen her smile in months. He hadn't seen her since the day he and the guys left LA to continue their tour.

  "It's so good to see you," she sighed and pulled back to look at him. She was beyond relieved to finally see him again, it felt like an eternity. "Come inside," she smiled and moved aside so Matt could walk in.

The place was small and compact but Rosanna has done a good job of making it look like a home. Matt didn't know why but he felt kind of sad when he looked around at her apartment. Maybe it was because he knew she'd been trying to create a new life for herself on her own here.

Matt and Rosanna sat down on her settee in front of the television, drinks in their hands as they caught up on everything that had happened in their lives over the last few months. They didn't bring Alex up once. Rosanna hadn't been doing much more than looking for bigger places to move and making friends in London. She told Matt that she hadn't met anyone anywhere near as entertaining as those like him in Sheffield. Matt told Rosanna that he'd been mainly focusing his time on planning he and Breana's wedding which they planned to happen sometime in the next year and how they'd have to coordinate with Jamie and Katie so their weddings didn't happen too closely together.

"I can't believe you guys are getting married," Rosanna smiled softly. "It makes me so happy," she said. It really did. Seeing her friends fall so deeply in love and get engaged made her so excited for them. She didn't even think about not having the same, she was just solely happy for her friends because seeing them smile made her happier than she could ever be.

"Believe me, I can't either," Matt chuckled and ran a hand over his hair. "It's still surreal."

As they spoke about past times and caught each other up on their lives, Matt finally brought himself to ask Rosanna if she was seeing anyone currently.

"There were photos of you with some fella," Matt explained, "like a month ago."

Rosanna laughed lightheartedly and shook her head, "I remember when that happened. I were surprised anyone gave a damn about me to be honest. But no, he was some guy I met up with from a recording company."