Rushing in a small town
I forgot to call you
I'm running low on know-how
with this beat I made for two
Austin tried to shove his way through the crowd of people. Maybe Ally hadn't noticed, maybe she totally forgot about what he'd promised her. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she wouldn't mind. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. These thoughts were flying through his head before he finally made it to the men's washroom where it was empty.
He flips his phone out of his pocket and listens to the phone ring four times before she picks up and she's less than impressed. Austin cringes as Ally curses him out for forgetting to call her. He had promised to call her back at four-thirty and it was now five-forty. He rakes his fingers through his hair as he listens to his best friend rant at him about his promise-keeping. She's never going to trust him again because he is not reliable!
Austin convinces her it was just a onetime thing, at least he thought she was convinced but he realized she wasn't because she started to list all of the times he'd broken his promises: that one time at the fair when he promised he wouldn't go on any rides without her but he had, when he promised to pick her up after her shift ended and he didn't, when he told her that he wouldn't start the Doctor Who series without her and he did, when he promised to buy her a soft drink at the carnival and he coincidentally didn't have enough money, when he promised to show up at her small gig downtown and instead he locked lips with some skinny blonde, and now he promised to call her at four-thirty exactly and now he's claimed to have forgotten.
He admits that he's not the best promise-keeper but he'll keep trying because she's his best friend. Ally tells him not to bother because there's no point if he's just gonna let her down again and again. He quickly mentions that he wrote a melody for his next song but it sucks and he needs her help, Ally tells him that she's not gonna show up for a songwriting session because she wants payback for all the times she's sat in the practice room and waited for him for endless hours until realizing he wouldn't show. Austin sighs and mutters an apology. He hears the smirk in her voice when she tells him that she's angry but he knows it's not legit because they've been best friends for a long time and the only way to make her happy with him again is to make her smile and he does just that when he hums the beat of the song to her and she tells him that's awful. He's silent before he tells her that he needs to hang up and he'll meet her for songwriting tomorrow. Despite her threat of not showing up, he knows she will.
'Cause I remember I like you
No matter what I found
She said, "it's nice to have your friends around"
We're watching a television with no sound
Austin can't get his feelings for Ally to sway even when her best friend is complaining about how Ally embarrassed her in front of her new boyfriend. Austin smirks instead but it fades when he hears something else: While he had been away last week, Ally got drunk. Ally? His Ally? No way because Ally is a good girl. Trish waves a finger at him and shakes her head and tells him not to underestimate Ally because she turned twenty one last week and she was officially legal.
Austin tries to ignore all the things he'd heard about Ally and he's slightly hurt that she paraded around with a boy named Elliott a few weeks ago while he had been in Michigan performing at a concert. He reminds himself that they're not together but it still bothers him that she's been hanging around with different men lately. It is so not like Ally. Ally was a straight A student, a daddy's girl, his songwriting who was afraid of spiders, and loved pickles. When had she suddenly become outgoing and loved parties? When did Ally like to drink? Because he heard that she had been doing it weekend after weekend while he was away. He calls Ally and confronts her about what he's heard and she confirms everything.
He doesn't talk to her for three days, giving her the silent treatment and not showing up for some songwriting sessions. He's so angry that Ally would change so drastically. That she was sneaking around with boys, some that were younger than her and a lot that were older than her. Ally was going to get hurt, why was she being so crazy? He had tried so hard to get Ally to loosen up that he must've loosened all the screws in her head. He's going to blame himself for this.
On the fourth day of ignoring his best friend, Austin realizes he can't do it anymore because he's suffocating from not talking to her. He remembers that it will never matter what crazy stuff she gets into, Austin will always be in love with her, whether she knows it or not.
Ally's sitting next to Austin on the couch when she mentions to him that she adores his friends. They're funny and outgoing, they bring her out of her shy shell that's she's recently started to shed. Austin raises his eye brows and says "Yeah?" but he's angry because they're the reason Ally has being twisting herself into something she's not. He decides that he'll never let them near her again but when she nods her head and her eyes are sparkling, he changes his mind because he's going to do his all to keep her happy.
For the first time ever, they have nothing to talk about. Not work, not music, not friends, not life. They're both silent and it's very awkward. Ally shifts uncomfortably under Austin's gaze but he still doesn't remove it. He's tuned out the TV until he can't hear it anymore, not even in the back of his mind. His heart is beating loudly. He lets his eyes trace over her: Her milky skin, those porcelain lips, chestnut hair that was tugged into waves from the braid she had been wearing the night before. She's just so perfect and it makes his bones ache because he wants to touch her so badly but he can't. He's only a friend.
It's just you and I tonight
Why don't you figure my heart out?
It's just you and I tonight
Why don't you figure my heart out?
Ally wasn't listening to Austin when he told her that the boy Gavin she was hanging out with was bad news. She complained that she didn't know why Austin cared, but Austin did. He cared because she was his best friend, he cared because she couldn't get hurt, and he cared because he loved her.
Ally does this thing every night they're together, she looks right through him but always seems to miss his heart. She missed it when he tried to teach her how to slow dance because she complains about it non-stop and then when he finally taught her, she decided slow dancing was lame but she had gotten nervous when Austin was holding her close.
Was it that hard to fall for him? Was it so hard for her to see her best friend as more than, well, a best friend? Because he's seen her as so much more since they were seventeen and she's just always been on this narrow path of "we're just friends". He didn't want to be just friends. He hates being friend zoned, he wanted to have a better relationship with her. He wanted to hold her in the night and he wanted to kiss her in the day. Ally deserved to feel loved and he could give that to her instead of her feeling the need to march around with some Gavin guy whom Trish claims is bad news. Austin has never met the guy which is another reason why Ally says Austin has no right to share his opinion. Deep down, Ally knows Austin is right because Gavin seems to always ask for something more than a kiss.
Austin lets a low rumble out from his throat and it sounds like a growl. His chest is warm with jealousy when she's on the phone with Gavin. When she starts snapping at him and insulting him through the cellular device, Austin grins with pride. Gavin must be a loser because Ally told him that he was and once Ally makes a statement, it's always the truth.
Ally settles down on the couch next to Austin and tells him that he was right. Austin teases her with his witty comments before they focus talking about Austin's new album that is coming out soon. He watches her while she talks and he just wonders why she can't figure his heart out.
Push your lack of chest out
Look at my hair
Gotta love the way you love yourself
Your obsession with rocks and brown
and fucking the whole town
is a reflection on your mental health
Ally's sitting there on his counter top, her feet are dangling and she's convincing Austin that all the boys love her. He tries not to let out a ferocious growl because he doesn't give a damn and now she's making him angry with her pride. Ally never used to be proud. She was down-to-earth and humble but now she's was becoming full of herself. She's sure that a boy named Jonathan was hitting on her last night at the party and Austin yells at Ally, losing his cool because she shouldn't be going to parties. Ally rolls her eyes at him and tells him to stop playing the protective best friend roll because the job was already taken by Trish. Austin nearly snaps her neck but he doesn't because he loves Ally, despite everything she's telling him.
He told her not to be too proud of herself because it's a turn off. She smirks and asks him if it really was and he doesn't even reply this time because he doesn't know how to. He just knew that he didn't want anybody looking at her, only Austin could look at her because she was his. He claimed her first. He winced at the word 'claim'. She wasn't his possession but as her best friend, he should get a say in what she does and who she hangs out with.
Austin expected Ally to drop from her high and start walking along a line of her lows, he thought she would complain about how she feels ugly and unimportant all the time. Austin usually saved the day and showered her with compliments and told her how much he valued her. But she hasn't dropped from her high as she tells him to look at her hair because she thinks it looks so good on that day and it does. She has started to like the attention she was getting from Austin ever since she started telling him about the boys who looked at her and she was liking how protective he was. She was growing more self-centered as time went on and Austin couldn't love her more. He preferred this over her usual insecure attitude. He loved it when she loved herself. He teases her about her bloated ego and Ally only smirks.
Austin has started to worry about Ally because Trish came running to his house the other day because Ally was at it again! It's been months now and Ally was spinning out of control. He wonders what happened that made her turn from being so good to being so bad. The town was even looking down upon her and Jimmy suggested Austin found a new songwriter but Austin ignored the suggestion and assured Jimmy that his best friend was perfectly fine but now he bites his cheek because he doesn't know. She's gained obsession with Cocaine and Heroin, and sleeping with any boy who will take her, which was pretty much the whole town. Jimmy tells Austin that he shouldn't ignore that Ally is out of control because her odd obsessions with these things are a reflection on her mental health.
He picks her up and takes her to his place and he takes care of her because he loves her so much and he doesn't want to see her hurt. She giggles and laughs as she loses herself in her thoughts and Austin sighs, his heart breaking for her. She doesn't come around to talk about life often and he misses it. She doesn't even write about her own feelings anymore. She's locked herself inside and he's tried to waver her smirk but she doesn't let up. He decides to ignore it and just make sure that she doesn't kill herself.
I remember when I found you
Much younger than you are now
And once we started having friend's around
You created a television of your mouth
Austin was watching Ally sleep on his couch. Her hair was tangled and he figured she might be drooling on his couch but he didn't mind. It was nice to not see her smirking for once. He missed her smile and he found that sometimes, she smiled in her sleep. He recalled when they met. Only fifteen and vulnerable to everything, he had no idea that his songwriter would be the woman he loved and also the woman that he was losing sleep over because he's stuck worrying about her every day and every night.
She was so cute back then with a little barrette clipped into her hair to tuck back a few strands of hair that always got in the way, and her love for pickles and the shyness that overwhelmed her and made Austin feel like her superhero because he shielded her from her fears. Not anymore. Ally was so fearless now that he was worried that she would kill herself just because she wanted to have some fun. She hardly ate pickles anymore now and her hair had grown long and she never clipped in barrette's anymore. She used to be so happy and now she just smirked and her eyes were flat. It made his heart hurt.
He noticed her change once she started inviting her friends around and Austin invited his friends. They all got together and he managed to stay out of the eye of how bad the company was, but Ally hadn't. She had gotten caught him in everything they told her and everything they said was fun. Ally hardly knew which way was up and which way was down anymore, her mind spun her right around and when she straightened out her vision, she'd do it all over again. She was deteriorating and the hurt of Trish suddenly ditching her had compounded it and she started to drink. She loved Trish like a sister, but it hurt Trish to see her best friend like this. Austin would never leave though. He loved Ally and despite that she suddenly loved the attention she was getting from partying, he would never walk away. He kisses her forehead lightly and whispers an 'I love you', the three words that she never hears.
He needs her to figure his heart out because maybe if she did that, she'd see that she's not alone and she'd stop her non-sense.
You got something to say?
Why don't you speak it out loud, instead of living in your head?
It's always the same.
Why don't you take your heart out, instead of living in your head?
Four months go by and Ally is so much worse as she's sat at his counter top, munching down on some cereal. The kitchen is silent and they try not to discuss last night because Ally had stumbled into his apartment, drunk and high and crying. Her eyes were droopy and her face was puffy. She didn't tell him anything last night but Austin knew that there was something she was hiding and he wanted to know what it was.
"You're not eating," Austin states as he sees that she has fallen into her thoughts instead of eating her cereal. Ally doesn't reply and Austin sees how faded her eyes are. He realizes that he's a strong boy for being able to watch the woman he loves destroy herself.
Ally had a dream last night, actually it was a flashback. She was in the practice room and Austin was sitting next to her. They were playing music, writing it. Austin was teasing her and she was elbowing him until he fell off the bench and she nearly stopped breathing from laughing so hard. She woke up smiling from that dream but now she was drained of everything she had because she missed that life. The simple life.
It was all her fault too, Ally had concluded, she had chose this for herself. She had so much waiting for her and now her father refuses to speak to her and her best friend has gone away. Dez only talks to her when Austin is there. Austin is the only one who has stuck around and won't leave her side. Her skin is nearly peeling from the emotions that are squirming inside her heart that need to be let out but she doesn't know how.
Why had she started this? Well, she got stressed about college, so she drank. She never went to college. She stayed in Miami to drink and party and get into all kinds of crazy shit. She's even ended up in jail more than a few times and Austin has bailed her out every single time. He's the only one in this town who still smiles at her. Ally wonders why she did this to herself. If she would've just talked to her parents or even Trish and got them to calm her down, she would've been fine. It was also just one party, she told herself that it was just one party, she didn't know that one party would make her do a 360.
It wasn't until last night that she was drunk and high, that she realized what a mess she was and how much she really wanted to be her old self again. Drugs and alcohol had broken her to pieces and she didn't know how to glue herself together. She smirked instead because it was easier pretending than telling somehow how it really is. That she goes to bed afraid of dying every night or that she gets high because she's haunted by her own thoughts.
Austin is standing in front of her and watching her. She's staring down at that bowl and she doesn't even notice when he's pulled it away from her and set it down in the sink. Her eyes were flat but he sees something flicker in them. Emotion crosses her face for the first time in a long time and Austin straightens up because she's not smirking anymore and there's no wall standing between them.
He suddenly rounds the counter and Ally hadn't even known she started crying until Austin had his arms wrapped around her, rubbing her back in soothing circles. He loved her and it broke him to hear her sob into his chest so brokenly. She tells herself to push him away, to keep her distance because being close to people is a bad thing but she ignores her thoughts and wraps her arms around him, clutching his shirt into her hands and holding him tight.
"Ally, stop," he whispers, begging that she'll just quit the drugs, the alcohol, the partying. He pleads that she smiles again and that she'll admit how she's feeling because it's too lonely keeping everything inside and she finally feels understood. She cries a little bit harder until her knees are shaky and she has to sit down on the floor, Austin sits next to her and tries to keep her calm.
Ally wants to listen to him so she decides to do it. She decides to drop everything she's been so fascinated with over the last year and focus on getting better. She promises Austin that she's not an alcoholic, it was just something she did, now she's unsure about the drugs but she knows with his help, she'll manage.
"But where do I start first?" she whispers, her voice trembling along with her body.
"Why don't you figure my heart out?" Austin whispers, collecting her face into his palms and kissing her lips softly, ignoring that they tasted of beer and cigarettes. Finally, the day Ally's been waiting for. She kisses him back because that's all she's ever wanted and when she tells Austin this, his face twists into a look of anger and shock because this entire time he's been waiting on her when she had been waiting on him. She smiles slightly and kisses him again. Everything seemed to fall into place now; Ally had figured out Austin's heart and he had figured out Ally's. Everything was going to be fine.