unedited xx

No one ever liked Mondays. Week after week, Mondays present a fresh new set of challenges and busy work. Essentially, they felt like the epitome of terrible things that could be presented to a teenager.

However, this Monday in particular started off especially horrible.

Ally held a permanent scowl on her face as she dragged her lifeless body down the empty hallways of Marino High. She had arrived to school 29 minutes late due to her mysteriously unplugged alarm clock and her unbelievably chatty father who could not handle the thoughtless task of talking and driving at the same time. Seeing how she was so late, she barely had any time to brush her ratty hair or even wash her face.

So basically, she was a hot mess.

Dressed in sweats.

Ally angrily muttered a few curses as she dialed her locker combination and opened the door. She threw her books into her messy locker and took a small glance into the small mirror that hung on her door, almost jumping at her own reflection. The look of utter exhaustion and dread never left her face as she carefully ran her fingers over her face. She groaned loudly and ran her fingers through the knots in her hair in attempt to smooth out and refine the ratty appearance.

I hate everything.

My life is such a mess.

Why me?

Angry and frustrated thoughts swirled around in her head for minutes. She mentally bashed her head into her locker for allowing her life to get to this stage of desperation and utter distress. Well as distressed as a high school teenager could be.

After letting out a small sigh, Ally made her way to the bathroom. She splashed a bit of water onto her face and dried her face. Looking at her phone, she still had 12 minutes until her first class was finished. She leaned against the bathroom wall and let out a noise of frustration in a lame attempt to scream and groan away this dreaded day.

However there was more to come.

Ally quietly made her way to the cafeteria to meet up with her best friend Trish. She spotted the curly haired girl at their usual table and made her way over.

"You look awful," Trish commented. Ally rolled her eyes and sat across from her. Trish had only been her best friend for a few years now. When they first met, Trish was in the same Biology class as her. A few days after, Trish verbally assaulted a boy that had been shamelessly flirting with Ally by her locker. After that, they had pretty much been inseparable.

"Yeah no shit Trish," Ally replied as she took out her sandwich. "I woke up half an hour late, barely ate breakfast, and had to listen to Mr. Kelli go on and on about his stupid bulldog." Ally took a swig of her water and glanced up at Trish, whose face was painted with sympathy.

"I mean that's why I told you not to take AP Literature but you refused to even listen to me," Trish retorted. Ally winced at the memory but merely shook her head.

Ally tossed her used napkins back into her empty paper bag. "Ok, well at this point, the only thing that can make this day the slightest bit better is going to that brand new CD store with my best friend," Ally said cheekily while taking a bite of her apple. Concentrating on her apple, she finally realized that her statement had been met with dreaded silence. Ally slowly lifted her gaze and looked at Trish, who had been nervously biting her lip and quickly tapping her right foot. Ally raised her left eyebrow at the sight. "Um what's that look for?"

Trish sent her best friend a weak smile and fiddled with her thumbs. "Well you know how we had plans to go the the opening of Spins?" She said, referring to the new CD store. Ally nodded her head and waved my hand signaling her to continue speaking. Trish let out a nervous breath. "And you also know that Jace and I haven't seen much of each other either right?"

Ally nodded intently, acknowledging the distance between Trish and her boyfriend. She knew that it was hard for her best friend to maintain her relationship and was secretly envious if she wa being honest. "Yeah, how's that going by the way?" She asked while taking a bite of her carrot.

Trish smiled gratefully. "Great actually," she replied, "It was kind of hard at first, but we're making it work."

A smile made its way to Ally's face. "That's great Trish." She began cleaning up her lunch when the realization dawned upon her. "Wait," she muttered accusingly, "Are you ditching me today to hang out with your boyfriend? Trish held an innocent face as she took a sip of her juice and avoided her best friend's gaze. "Unbelievable," Ally muttered.

"Oh come on, you know you'd barely even pay attention to me while we're looking at CDs," Trish retorted. Ally shrugged her shoulders, knowing in the back of her mind that Trish was probably right.

"I didn't realize you needed attention in a record shop," Ally murmured while picking at her water bottle. Trish gave her a knowing glare and Ally rolled her eyes. "Ok yeah I get it, you live off of attention," Ally said with a small smile.

Trish let out a small giggle and averted her attention back to Ally. "I'm sorry about this."

Ally playfully rolled her eyes and let out a loud sigh. "Yeah yeah it's fine, go hang out with your dumb boyfriend."

Trish let out a loud chuckle. "You know you should get a boyfriend." Ally snickered at her comment.

"Well with my tracking record, that's not gonna happen anytime soon," Ally replied. In high school, she had only had two boyfriends -both refused to learn the simple art of chivalry and manners.

"Yeah sure you're an independent women and all that stuff. And don't even count your old boyfriends cause they were all duds," Trish commented, referring to Ally's last boyfriend who fed her food from a food truck on their first date. "Not all guys are like that. They can actually be kinda nice sometimes." Ally shrugged and just continued to pick at her nails.

"I don't know Trish, we'll just think about that when it comes." Trish smiled at her comment and nodded approvingly.

"Good. So are we good about this whole ditching you thing?" Trish questioned. The first bell rang to signal that the lunch period was over. Ally let out a small nod towards Trish's direction.

"Yeah we're fine, but if I see a Britney Spears CD I'm not getting it for you," Ally smirked and began walking to her next class.

"Oh come on!"

The sound of bells chiming and the rustle of new CD cases filled the air as Ally walked into the small record store. Ally smiled at the sight of rows and rows of all different kinds of music. Buying CDs has always kind of been her thing. To her, having the physical copy of all the songs that the artist had worked so hard on was much more satisfying than putting them onto your phone.

She always believed she was born in the wrong generation.

She walked down the aisles of CDs, stopping to look at a few that caught her attention. The store was no bigger than Sonic Boom, but was a fairly big for a store that only sold records. It had a few CD and record players in the back and also a few tables here and there. Ally involuntarily smiled at the simplicity and the coziness of the entire ambiance.

Ally began looking through the masses of CDs and picked up an album by one of her favorite bands. She smirked and put it back down, remembering that she actually already owned the album. Ally had quite the collection back at her house. Her music styles ranged from pop to metal to hip hop; she was never afraid to try listening to a new band, or even a new genre.

Ally finished rummaging through a small amount of CDs and looked up. Her breath caught in her throat and she had almost jumped when she met a set of brown eyes staring back at her. After a few seconds, the stranger's eyes had crinkled in delight and Ally could tell that the stranger was smiling at her. Ally allowed her widened eyes to relax and gave the stranger a polite smile before scurrying off and minding her own business. She didn't think too much into it actually.

The person was probably just looking at something behind me.

It was probably nothing.

But wow, whoever it was has gorgeous eyes.

Thousands and thousands of thoughts were floating around in her head as she carried on looking for a specific album. While passing through a section of the store, her eyes caught onto a few Britney Spears albums. Ally rolled her eyes and snatched one before walking away.

Trish is damn lucky she's my best friend.

Ally finally managed to find the rock/metal section near the back and quickly scanned her eyes up and down the rows until she reached the section for the letter F.

F for False Impact.

False Impact was easily Ally's favorite band of all time. During her freshman year, she developed a deep interest in the band. She admired the sound and the intense passion that each member put forth to all of their albums. Whenever she mentioned to someone that she loved a rock band, he/she would give her a confused look with disbelief, as if they didn't believe it. What was so hard to believe?

…

Ok so her usual appearance of flowy tops and skinny jeans didn't really give off the "I love rock" impression, but she still had a soft spot in her heart for metal bands oddly enough.

Ally found the small collection of False Impact albums and used her right hand to rummage through them to find a specific album. She had just about all of the albums that they produced except for one, and that one would haunt her forever if she didn't manage to possess it in the next few months.

After a few minutes of looking through each row, Ally let out a small huff and crinkled her nose in frustration. It had to be there somewhere right? After a few more seconds of scanning the area, she became less and less optimistic about obtaining her album. Ally picked up her bag that she placed on the floor and began to drag herself to other areas of the store when her eye caught something.

Excitedly, she eyed the plastic on the CD cover to look at the name of the album. When she was sure that it was the album she was looking for, she let out a small squeal and grabbed the CD, only to have it pulled to her left by an unknown source.

Ally scrunched her eyebrows together and sharply turned to the source of her misfortune. She gasped as she immediately recognized the stranger's features.

Deep brown eyes.

Ally bit her bottom lip slightly, making the stranger's eyes dart to her lips. Her eyes then focused on the CD between their grasps as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Her gaze went back to the stranger's eyes and she felt her heartbeat increase erratically realizing that he was still staring at her. She took in a few of his features. Tall, blonde hair, brown eyes, sparkling smil-

Ok stop.

After a few more seconds, his mouth formed a small smirk. "Hi," he said with a wide smile. Ally's eyes widened slightly, surprised by his calm greeting.

"Hi," she returned, smiling back politely. The man's eyes crinkled as he smiled, just as he had done before. Remembering what was happening, Ally snapped out of her thoughts and tugged on the CD ever so slightly. "Well it was nice meeting you-"

"Austin," he interrupted. He smiled and watched her head pull back slightly in confusion.

"Excuse me?" Ally questioned. She just really wanted to pull the CD out of the man's grasp with all of her might and run away, but clearly that wasn't an option.

"My name's Austin."

Ally let out a sigh and nodded. "Ok Austin," she said, emphasizing his name slightly which made him smirk, "It was very nice meeting you, but I think that I'm going to just take my CD and be out of your way," she replied with another tug on the CD.

Austin held his smirk and the CD in his grasp. "Well you see, that may be an issue."

Ally raised her eyebrow. "And why is that?"

Austin shuffled his feet a little closer to Ally and brought his face a bit closer to hers. He had only stopped his face when he heard the satisfying gasp escape from her lips. "Because I want it too."

She blushed at their proximity and immediately pushed him away from her. Becoming a bit annoyed with his behavior, she put her left hand on her hip and gave him a small glare, resulting in a small chuckle from him. "Well can't you just find another copy? I'm sure there's another one around here somewhere." Of course she knew that wasn't true, but all she wanted right now was for this guy to get off of her case.

Austin clicked his tongue in his mouth. "No can do sweetheart," he said with a small smile directed towards her, "I know that's not true, considering that I've already been here for an hour looking for this." He gestured to the CD held between the two. "I was about to give up too, but then I heard you squeal or something and then I rushed over," he replied smoothly with a toothy smile. "So thanks by the way."

Ally glared at the boy in front of her. "Ok look buddy, I've had the worst day ever. I woke up like half an hour late and still had to go to school, had to listen to my crazy psychology teacher talk about dogs for 45 minutes," she began and held up the Britney Spears album that she was buying for Trish, "I have to buy this stupid album for my best friend who couldn't be here because she's spending time with her stupid boyfriend and made me feel bad that I don't have a boyfriend myself," she continued, refusing to look up at the boy. "And to top it off, I have you, trying to buy the one album missing from my False Impact collection and just putting the cherry on top to the worst day ever."

She finished and looked up at Austin's face which was surprisingly calm. He drew his lips into a thin line and raised his eyebrows. "That sounds like a rotten day," he said, slightly sympathetic. Ally let out a long breath and mentally kicked herself for spilling out all of her misfortunes to a complete stranger. To her surprise, he gave her a small her a small smile. "Ok," he said, pausing for her to tell him her name.

Ally gave him a tiny smile. "Ally."

He smiled. "Ok Miss Ally, I'll make you a deal. I'll let you take this album to finish your impressive False Impact collection on one condition." He watched as her smile widened and her eyes flashed with excitement. "Well since I will be sadly deprived of my hard-hitting music," he said, feigning hurt, "You have to invite me back to your place to listen to the album." He gave her a small smirk and held up his right pointer finger. "Just once."

Her eyes widened. What kind of deal was that? There was no way she was gonna let a stranger into her house just because he let her have a CD! Who was this guy anyways? She opened her mouth to argue but he held up his pointer finger again and pressed them against her lips, immediately silencing her.

"Of course I know that it'd be extremely awkward and insane to invite a mere stranger into your house," he said, watching her bob her head up and down in agreement. "So, I propose that you let me buy you a hot chocolate from that cafe over there," he said and pointed to the small dining area in the back, "and that we get to know each other a little better. I mean anyone who's a fan of False Impact is pretty cool in my book."

Ally couldn't help but to smile at that. She thought about the offer. It was odd, strange, and just completely abnormal.

But it was oddly compelling.

Why would he offer to get to know her? Why didn't he just offer to let her have the album and move on? Ok so that sounded a bit far-fetched but still. Ally furrowed her eyebrows together and stared at the man who had been causing her problems. "So why hot chocolate?" she questioned with a small smirk.

Austin chuckled at her question and shrugged. "Well you don't really seem like a coffee kind of girl," he admitted. He focused his attention back to the CD that was still between their grasp. "So um what do you say?" he asked, rubbing his right hand against the back of his neck. "I mean would get the album and maybe even a new friend," he added shyly, almost whispering the last part.

Ally almost giggled at his change in behavior. It was amazing how straightforward yet shy he could be at the same time. Thinking about his offer, what was the worst that could happen? Of course she could find out that he was totally crazy and bipolar and it'd be too late to back out of their little deal, or he could turn out to be an extreme stalker but that's probably the worst right? She looked back at Austin's pleading eyes and playfully rolled her eyes.

"Deal."

I'm really not sure what this is… It's kind of a mess created from little ideas I've had over the past few weeks. If there are any grammar issues please point them out to me.

I've lost inspiration. Writing is extremely time consuming and I'm not sure why I keep coming back to it but I just do. I also tell myself that I'm going to finish all of my books but that's probably not going to happen.

So this is a one-shot, maybe even two or three chapters at the most. Tell me to keep going. Encourage me because I probably can't encourage myself.

Thank you and stay safe.

-brokensmiles143