Say You'll Stay
Prologue
Austin's POV
Goodbye brown eyes, Goodbye for now
Goodbye sunshine, Take care of yourself
-Avril Lavigne, Goodbye.
Why? I stare out the plane window, the New York skyline slowly disappearing from my view. It lasted for a year. Only one year and I was already leaving her alone. Well she told me to leave her alone, but still I never thought it would end like this. My head is leaning on the cold window, I'm remember all the times that she asked me to stay, to hear her tell me to leave was like a knife to my hurt. Words are like knifes, hard to forget.
The year was good while it lasted, I try to reason with my self as the flight attendant asks if I want a bag of peanuts. I shake my head in response. Peanuts weren't going to turn this plane around and help me fix the mess I made.
What mess did I make exactly? A lot of messes. I could go on and on about everything that happened in high school, Cassidy, cheating scandals and missing moms coming back, but none of that is the reason that I hopped on a red-eye for Miami. We had moved on, we were stronger and relied on each other. I guess even the strongest of couples break eventually. I never thought it was going to be us though.
We were starting our second year at MUNY when I brought up the idea of marriage. I told her that we already acted like we were married, why don't we just make it official? She, however, didn't see it that way. She thought I was being crazy, unrealistic and stupid. So I dropped it for a few weeks. Then brought it up again and again. Until she cracked under the pressure and agreed to marry me! Just kidding.
She said that maybe we had grown apart, maybe we were going in different directions. I only wanted to go in one direction and that was what ever direction she took. I'm not one that likes to obsess over girls, at least I wasn't before I met her. She made my world turn up side down.
She told me, in her delicate voice, that she couldn't pretend that we were going to last. What she was really saying was I'm scared. She's always been scared.
All of our arguments were about her being scared. And my habit of blowing up and saying the wrong thing.
I bang my head against the window, little strands of blonde hair sticking to the cold surface. I shifted in the uncomfortable seat, letting my eyes focus on the clouds. I wonder what it would be like to be a cloud. I mean all they have to do is float in the air and spit things out. Easy.
I wonder what it would be like to be someone who knew what they were doing with their life. Going to MUNY made the decision for me. I was studying music, but I left. So what am I going to do now?
Music had always been my escape. Sports were what I hid behind. Music kept me going, kept me sane. As I adjusted the pillow around my neck, I remember the music teacher from high school. I don't remember her name, but I remember that she was an important person in the story of me and the brunette.
The pilot states over the intercom that we will be landing in twenty minutes. That was a fast flight. I pull out my phone to see that I received a text from Dez.
Hey man. Ally called me, I hope you're okay. Do you want me to pick you up?
Ally. Reading her name made my eyes burn. Of course Ally would call Dez. She probably made me seem like the bad guy. Doesn't she have her own best friend to talk to, why does she have to steal mine.
I'm better than the last time. Can you pick me up in a half hour at the air port?
The last time. I remember that time clearly. Ally had misunderstood a situation that I shouldn't have even let happen. I said the stupidest things I have ever said in my life. Those words replay in my mind all the freaking time. Even when we were happy, cause we were happy, they would haunt me at night.
It's not my fault that you are an emotional person, it's yours! Seventeen year old Austin had said. You like to pretend that you're tough and can handle anything but you can't, you're a weak, scared, little girl! I could hear seventeen year old Ally's heart shatter at those words. Blame me all you want, but we both know that everything is not my fault.
Ally would say that she forgave me a million times after that night, but I could never believe her. How could she forgive me when I couldn't even forgive my self. My phone vibrates, bringing me back to the real world.
I think it's worse than the last time. I'll be there.
Dez is right. It is worse than the last time. The last time Ally and I were in the same state, going to the same high school. Now we're thousands of miles a part. I can't see her walking in the halls, or lock eyes in the cafeteria. All I can do is pray that she doesn't block me on Facebook or Instagram. I don't get to watch her deal with pain like I did last time. I have to watch from a distance. A distance that I created.
The plane starts to land, I look out the window one last time. Miami looks different and the same from the last time I was here. It was last Christmas, Ally and I were visiting our parents. I can clearly hear her the sound of her voice, telling me that she loved me.
"I'm in love with you Austin Monica Moon. I know that I've told you this before." I had tried to tell her that she didn't have to, but she said that she needed to. We were standing under the mistletoe at my parent's Christmas party. "No, you need to know how much you mean to me."
The flashback stops when the flight attendant tells me that the plane had landed. I look around, everyone else had already gotten off. I whisper an apology, standing up to grab my bag. Once I have everything, I walk out of the plane and into my new life.
Walking to the baggage claim, I watch the couple who are walking in front of me. She has brown hair, he has blonde. He's tall, she's short. I feel like I'm watching Ally and I, but that's not Ally and I because I'm here and Ally's all the way in New York. Thankfully I spot Dez before I lose my mind.
He stands by the baggage claim, hands in the pockets of his orange pants. His face is colored in with sympathy, with a hint of disappointment. Just like the last time. I grab a suitcase, Dez grabs another. Once we have all of them, I allow my self to look at him. I'm sure I look exhausted, I feel exhausted. "Thanks for coming to get me this late at night." It's two am and I'm feeling like I lost everything, but I know that I didn't lose Dez.
"You know that I would do anything for you." We walk to his car in silence. I wish that he would just ask me and get it over with already. "I'm guessing that you don't want to talk about what happened." Dez looks over at me while I put my suitcases in the trunk. "And I'm not going to force you to, but I think it's really over this time."
Was he right? Are things really over with for me and Ally? Have I lost her forever? Maybe it would be good for me, if I could finally let go and move on from the brunette who changed my life.
Ally's POV
Guess I really did it this time. I look out the window at the New York City skyline. My apartment is on the twentieth floor of the building so it's a pretty good view of the Empire State Building. Tonight I'm not looking at the view, tonight I'm looking into the clouds. Some where, in the white puffiness, he is in an airplane, going back to Miami.
I have no right to be sad, I was the one who told him to leave. He had given me no other choice. I sigh, walking back to my bedroom, not our bedroom, my bed room. The comforter is the same but everything else is different. His cologne isn't beside my perfume, nor are his socks in the top drawer.
I allow my fingers to run across the tall dresser, remembering how just yesterday it was cluttered with random crap of his. I pick up some dust and wipe it on my jeans.
What am I suppose to do now? Obviously I'm going to continue going to MUNY, he can't take that away from me. But what am I going to do after that? I have two and half years left then I'm, somehow, supposed to make a choice. I've never been good at making choices.
I walk over to the empty bed, allowing my self to sit on the edge, the edge of the right side, my side. His was the left, mine was the right. None of that matters any more. My heart feels like the bottom drawer, empty. That sounds like a lyric. These feelings I can't take no more, this emptiness in the bottom drawer. Oh Ally. You have a broken heart and you're coming up with lyrics. They do say that it's the best time to write a song. I just can't right now.
After getting my self off of the bed, I look at my phone to check the time. Midnight. I groan, tomorrow I have to be up early for a class and I know that I'm not going to be able to sleep. Just as I'm about to turn my phone off for the night, I get a text from Trish.
Hey. Dez called me, so did Austin. I hope you're okay. Call me, I love and miss you.
Austin. His name makes my heart cry. Of course Dez and Austin called Trish before I could. They always beat me to everything. Austin did grow close to Trish. I can't be mad because I did the same with Dez. What do we do know? Does he get Dez while I get Trish? Can we still all be friends, of course Austin and I can't. Here we go again, so many questions going through my mind.
I'm sorry I didn't call you first. I'm okay, better than the last time. I have an early class tomorrow, I promise to call after. Love and miss you to.
I'm not sure which time I'm talking about. The time that Austin told a whole restaurant that he felt bad for me or when I thought that he was with another girl. I'm mostly talking about the argument that occurred after the misunderstanding.
I think you're mad because you were about to allow your self to be vulnerable, you found the quickest out you could and you took it. Austin had said that night at the beach. His statement back then fits perfectly for now.
He was telling the truth, I was pushing him away. I found the quickest out I could, which was telling him to leave.
Austin kept bringing up marriage. I had told him, at the beginning of our relationship, that I didn't want to get married young. I would rather wait until I was at least 27, not 20. He just couldn't get it. I couldn't expect Austin to get it. He grew up with two happy parents.
Of course it wasn't just the whole marriage thing that made me tell him to leave. I'm looking out at the skyline again, the argument from a few hours ago replaying in my mind. I shake my head of the memory, brown hair coming out of the bun.
Instead of thinking about the yelling, I transfer back in time. To our first day in New York.
It was a Saturday, at three in the afternoon, when we arrived in the city. The cab ride had been silent, I stared at the tall buildings passing by, while Austin had his eyes on me. The cab had dropped us off at the campus. After we checked in, the exploring had begun. From the Empire State Building to the Statue of Liberty, we held hands and laughed the whole day.
Looking back know, it was the happiest we had ever been, experiencing something together.
I can't think about Austin any more. Walking away from the window, I grab my phone from my pocket. Two am. Two am is a popular time, you always see the people in movies making life revelations at two in the morning, breaking up or getting back together with the love of their life.
I hit the button to turn my phone off, dragging my feet to the bedroom. I find a way to make my self pull the blanket away, climbing in to the empty queen size bed.
Austin Moon will always be the boy who was my first everything, and they say you never forget your first. But maybe I have to, if I ever want to move on. The question that I have to ask my self is, do I really want to?
I tell my self yes and pull the blanket up to my neck. This is my new life and I'm going to try my best to enjoy it. We were never guaranteed to last any way.
Hi, I'm back with the sequel to Stay With Me! If you haven't read Stay With Me, I guess you don't have to read it if you don't want to, I recommend it though. There will be mentions of stuff that happened, just like there was in the prologue. Personally, I think my writing has gotten better. Stay With Me was my first story after all.
I've been waiting to post this for a little while, I mean Auslly got back together at the end of SWM, only for me to break them up in the prologue of the sequel. I get it if you hate me, but I wanted to pick a plot that would be interesting.
The rest of the story will be set four years after this. I will include flashbacks.
The direct quotes about their argument are from chapter 20.
I really hope that you liked this and please leave a review :)
I do not own Austin and Ally or anything else mentioned. The lyric that Ally came up with is from Remember When by Avril Lavigne. I do not own the song Goodbye by Avril Lavigne either.