In which Austin and Ally meet in the 9th grade through a stolen song and corn dog drumsticks. She slams her book shut and clutches it her chest every time he comes around and he wonders how this lyrical genius can be so painfully shy. When they sit at the piano bench together he makes sure their legs touch and their fingers collide far more than necessary and she blushes every single time until that rising pink becomes one of his favorite things about her. When they finally kiss it's with ebony and ivory keys before them and her book wide open, for their eyes only. They're kiss is a confession because by that point the practice room is sacred and it is theirs. He's her boyfriend and when he grins at her over a candlelit pancake dinner she pinches herself hard and uselessly beneath the table. For 2 years they explore one another, joking and laughing one moment and sharing their ugliest secrets the next. For 2 years they kiss, they fight, they smile, they make music that transcends piano and lyrics, and they cultivate a love that's beautiful in its breathtaking depth. And then, things happen; painful, unforgivable things that suck the life out of all that's blossomed between them. And as Ally glares at his blurry silhouette through tear choked eyes, and Austin stares at her silently, his throat raw from screaming, they both know that something's destroyed and it's permanent. They break up. It's the summer between 10th and 11th grade and they break up. And everything, EVERYTHING is so awkward for so long that the songs kind of suck and Trish and Dez walk on eggshells constantly. Then one day they're alone in the practice room, its hallowed walls now tainted, and Austin makes some dumb joke and Ally's laughter is real for the first time in a small eternity. They enter very tentatively into a friendship even though they can't make eye contact for longer than 7 seconds at a time and their conversations often slip into these black holes of uncomfortable silence and, really, could things ever truly be as they were? One late afternoon at the beginning of their senior year, they find themselves parked on one of Miami's highest cliffs, lying side by side on the hood of his car and watching the sky change color with the setting sun. It's still so tense and weird and they're both thinking of excuses to leave until Austin, in a fit of desperation, pulls out the freshly-rolled joint he planned to smoke later, and awkwardly asks Ally if she'd like to partake.
He allowed the smoke to mingle in his lungs for a moment. And when it felt right, his lips didn't purse but simply parted, releasing a potent cloud into the evening sky.
"Als?"
"Hm?" She reached over and pinched the joint between her fingers. For a split second they were both holding it, connected by a psychoactive drug.
"Do you…." And then he drifted off under a dizzy spell. The car hood beneath him rocked gently.
"Hm?" she repeated absentmindedly. She stuck the doobie between her lips and let her arms fall to the cool windshield.
Austin chuckled suddenly, "We're like that movie Wayne's World on this car right now."
Ally tried to continue inhaling and puffing hands free but a burst of laughter rolled up and out of her throat. Her clumsy hands reached for the joint as quickly as they could, pulling it from her lips.
"Yea all we need is for an airplane to fly overhead while you curse me out."
He took the reefer from her slowly, "Hey wait are you suggesting that I'm Garth in this scenario?"
"Duuuh Wayne's a brunette and Garth's a blonde." Ally declared grinning like a sweet little know it all.
They laughed loudly and uncontrollably and shook the car with breathless vibrations.
"I AM WAYNE." She whispered it like a monumental proclamation between the giggles. They laughed until their ribs hurt, until their stomachs cramped. And then, when the sky was blushed pink and the sun gradually setting, Austin's brain wandered back to the beginning.
"Als?"
"Hm?"
"Do you think that um…" he paused to let the rest of the sentence fall into place, "…that um if I had never stolen your song that we would've still like...you know like been together?"
"Oh God Austin." Ally groaned around the joint that had somehow found its way back between her lips. "Isn't it bad enough that we have the weirdest, most awkward friendship ever? Now you're getting all mushy on me."
"Come on Als humor me." He glanced at her. She looked at him as she inhaled and, as usual, found it nearly impossible to deny those incredible eyes.
"Okay…what was the question again?"
He snickered, "I said uh...do you think that if I didn't steal your song or play the drums with corn dogs that we uh still would've like somehow found our way to each other?"
Ally pursed her lips and blew towards the stars. The question felt too heavy for all their current lightness. The joint smoldered as she passed it to him. Their fingers brushed.
"Yes….yeah…" she decided in an instant.
"You think?"
"It wouldn't have been until after high school though."
He grinned, "Oh really?" then inhaled and held it.
"Are you ready for me to paint the uh paint the picture for you?"
His grin widened before shrinking to a pucker and liberating the smoke, "Oh PLEASE do I'm already fucking riveted."
"Shut up. Just shut up. Ok so…after I graduate from Marino High I'm now attending MUNY and-"
He gasped, "Congratulations!"
She couldn't help but laugh at his enthusiasm, "It's just pretend Austin."
He grinned and passed her the ganja.
"Anyway um…" she pinched the joint between her thumb and pointer, "Yea so I'm going to MUNY and you," she pointed their shared marijuana stick at him, "are about to go on a world tour soon Mr. Rockstar."
"Ooo I like the sound of that." he reached for the weed but she moved it away. Reflexes severely delayed, his fingers continued forward and swiped at the air.
"So anyway," Ally paused to take a shallow hit, "Anyway….MUNY has hired the one and only Taylor Swift to perform at our homecoming rally."
"That's so generous of T-Swift."
"Yeah she's a very giving person and plus me and her go waaaay back."
"Ah." He smiled dreamily at her, "So this story is just straight up fiction then?"
She nudged him and handed over the joint, "Shut the fuck up the two of us are bff's okay."
He just took it and smiled wider, loving this drug induced side of Ally, enjoying the uncharacteristic profanity rolling from those perfectly pink lips.
"Okay okay okay," he said, "so Taylor's putting on a show…"
"Yeah she is but then tragedy strikes!" she lifted her hands up, fingers splayed against the sunset.
"Dun Dun DUUUUN!" Austin cried dramatically, breathing smoke like a dragon.
"She falls and breaks her leg on the set of the 'Shake It Off' video."
"That so?" he puffed.
"Devastating break dancing accident."
"Hm pity."
"Sooo guess who we get to replace Miss Swift?"
"….Mr. Swift?"
"Noo it's-" Ally burst into a fit of laughter suddenly, the weed bubbling in her system, "Seriously?!"
"I'm just saying."
"ANYWAY, we get the rockingest," she suddenly cupped her hands around her mouth, whisper-yelling like an announcer, "the rollingest, the beach blonde that's got it going on! Austiiiin Moooooon!"
He chuckled, sending tiny clouds into the sky.
"And you, being just as generous as T-Swift, agree to do it before you go jetting around the globe."
"Oh yeah of course us blondes are a very giving people."
She smiled, "I'm on the homecoming committee and it's my job to tune all the instruments for the talent before the show."
"The talent." He repeated with another grin.
"So I'm out there on the stage we've set up on the football field, fiddling with the piano. And I'm excited because if you requested a piano then that means you're going to be singing something slow and sweet at some point in the show."
Her voice softened, like the opening notes of a sad song.
"It's Spring in New York so everything out there is green and blue and warm and when I breath in it smells like tulips and the maple and spruce wood of the piano."
Austin let the smoke from his now 3rd successive hit linger in his airway.
Ally sighed, her eyes searching the sky, finding new stars as the daylight dwindled, "It's an antique square grand, refurbished and painted cherry red."
He let out a low, smoldering whistle, "Impressive. You're probably the only one that knows how to tune thatt thing, their string designs are a nightmare."
She just shrugged, "I'm a piano geek. Sue me."
But he just smirked instead.
"I'm out there on the stage alone. Everyone else is off putting up decorations and stuff and I've already done the drums, keyboard, and guitars. The piano's the last thing. I'm testing it out, playing the first few notes of one of my favorite songs of yours, when somebody else walks up on stage behind me."
"Is it me?"
She smiles, "I don't see somebody walk on stage. I don't even hear it. I feel it."
"…that's fucking creepy."
"Can I tell the story asshole?!" she laughed.
"Oh please continue I have to know how this ends."
"Shush." Ally snatched the roach, "So anyway…yeah I can tell someone's there behind me because the hairs on the back of my neck rise so violently it's like they're trying to rip out of my fucking skin."
The tiny joint found its way to her rosy mouth and Austin shivered, his brown eyes staring up into the darkening atmosphere.
"There's this electric prickling climbing up my spine, inch by inch, vertebrae by vertebrae. And even the weather changes. The barometric pressure shifts like there's a hurricane just over the horizon, waiting to turn my life completely upside down. The greens and blues and tulips and woods are sharper, brighter. It's all emeralds and sapphires now, flowery perfume and peeling bark." She pauses to inhale a lung full of the sweetly pungent marijuana, holding it for a moment, then releasing a baseball sized puff of grey-green smoke to rise and rival the brightening moon before drifting apart.
"I'm sitting there on the stage, staring down at the black and white keys with every single one of my senses heightened, wondering who it is that's standing behind me and yet, somehow already knowing. I turn around and there you are. Austin Moon." Ally closed her eyes, pinching the doobie between her thumb and pointer finger. "And you're staring."
He raised his arms up, folding his hands behind his head.
"I don't know this about you yet but you always take a minute to walk on the stage before anyone shows up. You like to stand in the middle and close your eyes and hold out your arms and let the silence wash over you. You revel in the emptiness because you know that you could've always ended up that way, audience-less, no one to listen or cheer. And the reality of that stings like hell, it pierces you somewhere vital and important but the pain is humbling so you love it."
"I love it." He repeated without thinking.
"You didn't expect anyone to be there on the stage. But I am. We make eye contact but I can't move. You're in a plain black v-neck, jeans, and some Chuck Taylors. Your hair, even more blonde than I imagined, is messy but with purpose. You're handsome, you're gorgeous, and I can't move. I'm a huge fan of yours and all I want to do is scream and attack you and get down on one knee and ask for your hand in marriage but I can't."
They both chuckled at that, breathy and light and dizzy.
"I can't because I can tell that you're…important. And not like celebrity important but important to me." she licked her lips. "And I can see even from where I'm sitting that your eyes are a lighter brown than I thought, especially in the hot Spring sunlight. They're like an amber-ochre combination. And I realize then that I'm grinning because that color has always made me smile and it's like I finally know why."
Austin's heart rate kicked into a slightly higher gear as the inhaled chemicals coursed through his blood. Ally took another hit, relishing in the bitter taste as it coated her tongue. Behind her eyelids, a sun-drenched rockstar stood before her in a world of heightened color.
"You can't move either even though I'm just some college girl because you feel it too. The importance. And you, usually supremely confident, falter a little. But you walk slowly up to me anyway because your body won't allow you not to. We look like opposites, you in your dark clothes and me in something floral and flowy. We don't look like we belong anywhere near each other. But we do. We're connected by a cherry red piano, by brown eyes and the scent of tulips and something else that's larger than the imagination." Her eyes opened slowly, careful not to shatter the illusion, "Aaaand the rest is history….oh yeah and you perform and it's great."
"Interesting story." Smiling, Austin accepted the reefer from her with his heart nearly in his throat, "But what if Taylor shows up right in the middle of our little moment to say that she can perform even with a broken leg?"
Ally sighed, "Then I push that damn piano on top of her and break T-Swift's everything else."
They both laughed. They both floated at an altitude that couldn't be reached with just Mary Jane alone.
"I like that story." Austin took his hit before holding the roach out to Ally, "Party on Wayne."
She grinned and pinched it carefully, brushing their fingers in the process, "Party on Garth."
Quick A/N: Just realized that some of you may not understand the Wayne's World reference. Sorry for being old. Nothing a quick Googling won't fix.