Hi guys!
So this is the beginning (prologue, sort of) to a story that might become a multi-chapter. It's very short (actual chapters would be longer), but I want to know what you guys think…if I should continue it of not.
Disclaimer: Nothing Austin & Ally related is mine—that stuff belongs to Disney.
So…Enjoy!
"I really like you, Ally."
Ouch. That was blunt.
Blunt like, it kind of hit Ally Dawson in the gut and knocked all the wind and feelings out of her, leaving her to stand there like an emotionless puppet gasping for breath.
Without the gasping for breath part—it was metaphorical. Honestly.
The standing was, you know, awkward. Because she was like the most awkward and least-qualified person to be plopped into this unfortunate situation. Which was, in her current breathless state, probably a lot more dramatic in the heat of the moment than it would be years later when she looked back on it. If she ever got the chance.
I really like you wasn't exactly a line you could just toss out into conversation at her age (kind of anticlimactic, in her opinion). I really like you, Ally was even worse, because those words and her name together in one breath were so new and unfamiliar and strange to her ears that the sentence almost sounded like a rhetorical statement (which she assumed it wasn't.)
But that didn't mean it wasn't (it probably wasn't). She didn't know if she hoped it wasn't or if she didn't, her teenaged brain crumpling under the stress. Right there she wished she were more of a girl; allowed to break into sobs when her girlish mind couldn't handle what was happening, buckling on her weak knees.
At any rate, the boy standing in front of her—Austin, Austin Moon was his name—seemed pretty serious about it, the abundance of expectation in his eyes close to frightening. What he was expecting her to say she had no clue; oh, that's nice didn't seem to cut it, and I like you too sounded like it was cut out straight from the script of a romance movie that was undeniably thick with cheese.
Ally Dawson was not a romance movie.
But unfortunately, her only options were to a) be a romance movie, or b) be a gutted puppet.
She went with option B, which meant she kind of just stood there, windless and puppet-y, staring up at Austin Moon and his rhetorical statement that probably actually wasn't really a rhetorical statement, trying to decide what to tell him and how.
The only word she could muster was "um," and even that sounded stuttery and unconfident (was um even a word? If it was, then it was a really lame answer; if it wasn't, it was still lame but possibly even more so).
At any rate, the whole situation was embarrassing as hell.
"Um…" she began, slowly, buying herself time as she tried to stuff her thoughts somewhere where they would stop bothering her the way they were, "is there, like, any other meaning to that sentence?"
It was the best thing she could come up with at the time. Looking back she thought of a hundred other, less lame answers that were conveniently hibernating at the moment, and then she felt really damn stupid.
And this whole time Austin Moon, who was no less than the hottest guy in their grade (second to only maybe Colin Harris, who even Ally could admit was ridiculously good looking to the point where she would maybe even call him gorgeous), was watching her with these really big eyes. He had to shift his glance down and she had to tilt her chin up, mostly because he was so attractively tall and she was so tragically short.
The thing was that Austin Moon was not just the hottest-maybe-second-hottest guy in the grade; no, he was never just to her. He was her best friend—best guy friend, at least. He was the type of guy who was tough on the outside, shielded by cocky attitude and good looks, but soft and gentle on the inside. She could get under his skin as easily as she pleased, because they were best friends. They had done everything together since the summer before the ninth grade, when she had started helping him with his music—for three years Ally had been eating, sleeping, breathing Austin Moon. They were friends, partners…exes…
This conversation—this I like you, Ally—could totally ruin all of that. Literally kill it.
No—skin it, and carve the flesh from the bones and chop it into tiny pieces and dump it in the trash.
This half-hopeful, half-crushed expression he had on his face right now was starting to kill her already. "Ally…I—look, I get it. We've already given this a shot, and—"
"This?" Ally repeated. Her eyes followed his left hand, which was making this weird back-and-forth sweeping movement between their two bodies. "Oh…you mean, like…us?"
"Yeah." She saw him gulp. "I was just thinking, like…because last time we said we weren't ready, and I just thought, we could…try…"
"Try again?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." She still felt lame. "Um, so you're asking me out?"
He cleared his throat. "Yeah. I guess…yeah."
"Oh." Her eyes started to develop a mind of their own. Suddenly she was seeing the tiny cracks in the paint on the wall, a fruit fly buzzing in the corner of the ceiling, her own reflection in the glass of the window across from her (she also began to feel very self conscious.) As long as she could look at anything that wasn't Austin, she was all set. "Well, um…yeah. I'll go out with you."
The words left her mouth before she could veto them.
And that is how Ally Dawson fell in love.
Like it so far? Hate it? Should I keep going?
Tell you what—if I get five reviews that say I should continue I will. Otherwise I guess I'll take it down and get rid of it.
Title is also a work in progress—if you have any ideas, I'm open.
Review it up! Thanks!
~Mia
