Bully // l.h. // Book 1 of Bully Series

Epilogue

I paused in the middle of tugging my suitcase across the floor in order to listen to the voice over the intercom. The message repeated in a few different languages after the initial one in English, but it didn’t matter. The call wasn’t for my flight. I let out a sigh of relief and began my trek once more.

“Why did you insist on taking the largest one, Dae?” Ashton’s voice groaned before he appeared next to me, snatching the handle out of my grip and replacing it with the handle of the smaller suitcase he had previously been toting. I grunted.

“Because it’s all my stuff, Mr. Superstar. If you were in my position, you wouldn’t let anyone take the biggest suitcase either.” I retorted. Ashton rolled his eyes.

“I’m still Ashton to you, missy.” He scolded lightly. I giggled, lifting an eyebrow.

“Then how come you have a hat, sunglasses, and a hoodie on?” I quipped. Ash’s mouth opened, as if he had a retort, then closed when he realized that he didn’t. I let out a short laugh and shook my head, turning towards the baggage check station.

After the bags were checked, Ashton and I went over to a small couch and sat down. I suddenly felt nerves kick in. I was about to fly back to the United States, and it would be my first time back in the country of my birth since I moved to Australia almost two years ago. I’d finished my senior year of high school here, but my heart was set on being with my best friends in Michigan. I’d be joining Kendra at Northern Michigan University, though I would be a year behind her.

I was going to be studying Zoology, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Kendra had only recently declared her major; Communication Studies.

Wyatt, though not attending NMU, was nearby, at another college called Michigan Tech University. Apparently the two schools had a very intense rivalry, and Kendra and Wyatt bantered about it constantly.

The past year had been very uneventful for me. Megan, Taryn, and I, due to our connections to 5 Seconds of Summer, had quickly become popular at school and online. The boys had left two weeks to the day after Luke and I fought, and their previously small amount of fame skyrocketed. They had new songs—ones I still haven’t heard. In fact, ever since the fight, I have barely listened to any of their old songs. Hell, I don’t really even look anything about them up any more. The only news I get is from Twitter when I happen to catch a tweet, or Ashton. Out of all four boys, he’s the only one who keeps regular contact with me. Calum and Michael don’t have anything against me, but we had never been as close as Ashton and I. Though, they did hijack the Skype conversations between Ash and I every once in a while.

Luke, however, had not spoken to me once since the fight. I spent those two weeks before the tour going over everything I did wrong and trying to muster up the courage to make my way back to Luke’s house and apologize. But not everything was my fault in the termination of our relationship. It was actually Ashton who had pointed that out to me one night as he pried the ice cream tub from my hands. Luke had been in the wrong as well for keeping me in the dark—Ash had informed me that Luke told them I knew about the tour, and was upset, and that they shouldn’t talk about it near me. It was for that reason alone that I began to force myself to get over him. By the start of my senior year at school, I no longer cried about the breakup. Well, not very often, at least. I still got upset over it from time to time. Even now.

“You look really calm for a girl about to go back to her home country.” I turned at the sound of a new voice. My face lit up in a huge grin as my gaze landed on Calum. Just behind him was Michael, his hair now dyed an almost white blond. I let out a short squeal of happiness and leaped up from the couch to engulf Cal in a hug. After him, I hugged Michael.