Deal With It ✓

Bonus Chapter One

Song: A Little While // Yellow Days

Thank you to iamchill12 for suggesting this POV!

Dean– 18-years-old

Amber– 17-years-old

Dylan and Rose– 29-years-old

MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR INFO ON THE SEQUEL!

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DEAN

The mansion was silent.

It wasn't the relaxing kind of silent either, it was tense; it was suffocating.

I hated it here.

The only sound that can be heard was my phone's incessant buzzing. I knew who it was, and it was so hard to ignore it. I was perched on my bed, my elbows on my knees while my arms flopped between them. I took in my room– the light grey walls Amber helped me paint; my desk that drowned in balled-up papers that were stained with ink; the suit that was hung on a hook next to my mirror, ready for me to wear.

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration as my phone continued to flood with texts. I picked it up and stared at the lockscreen. Notifications from all of my social media platforms, all from the same person, covered my wallpaper– a picture of Amber and me at the beach a few days ago.

We went out with some of my friends. She was begging me to go into the sea with her so we could swim when all I wanted to do was lay down under the sun for a bit. At some point, after her nagging, I relented and let her drag me in. As soon as we stepped into the saltwater, she crouched down and splashed me with water, laughing at my surprised expression. Of course, I retaliated, and we were stuck in a war.

My friend snapped a picture of us, her in my arms just as I was about to throw her into the water. Her mouth was opened wide, mid-laugh, and I had a grin on my face. Fuck, did I love her. I pressed down on the lock button, watching as the picture, and all the notifications, faded into black.

I loved Amber more than I've ever loved anyone in my life. We met at one of the events dad dragged me to. He wanted me to meet his colleagues and I didn't, so as soon as he saw one of his 'friends', I slipped away to a corner nobody was paying attention to. Amber didn't want to be there either, only because she found them boring, so she escaped to the corner once she saw me scrolling through my phone, and started a conversation with me. It became a tradition– anytime we had to go to the dinners or galas, we'd retreat to a corner and spend the rest of the night together.

Amber was everything I aspired to be. She was ambitious; she was free-spirited; she didn't take anyone's shit. She brought out the me I wanted to be by showing me how to put myself first. She helped me become confident in my work, whether it was a script I was writing for a competition or a short movie I was filming for my portfolio. My parent's apathy and indifference towards my dreams eventually stopped affecting me as I prioritized myself.

I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for all her help.

I looked over my room a final time before I got up from my bed. I opened my nightstand's drawer and pulled out the large envelope that held my money– my monthly allowances that I've been collecting for three years now would be enough for me to pay for rent and necessities for a couple of years. Dad always gave me a lot of money every month since I had to take care of a lot of things he wasn't here to take care of.