Lauren's POV ~Flashback~
Today was going to be the best day ever; I could just feel it in my heart and soul. I prayed to God hoping that everything would go okay. I don't think that I have ever prayed for anything harder in my life, not even those cute brown cowboy boots with the fringe that I wanted so badly. Mama told me that I had to save up some money if I wanted them.
Anyways, today were me and my boyfriend Sam's 4-month anniversary since when we had gotten together. We had been friends for two months before we finally told each other our feelings for the other person and everything just kind of went from there. I told him when we started going out that I wasn't going to give my virginity to him, that I wanted to wait until marriage. He got a little flustered at that but I just shook it off. He accepted the fact that I wanted to wait and he had been really supportive of my decision to wait. We had first met when he was the new kid in school. Of course, a lot of the girls were almost immediately swooning over him since he looked like the younger version of Johnny Depp. He had wavy brunette hair with tints of lighter brown in them, was tall, and had gorgeous brown eyes.
The whole day, I could hardly stay still in my seat during my classes because I was so excited for when I could give Sam his present that I got him. Sam always went to church on Sunday mornings with his family, so I got him a cross necklace with his initials engraved in the back. Little did I know that the gift wouldn't be worth it and that I should have just bought those boots instead.
During the last period of the day, I anxiously had a staring contest with the clock above the teachers head, counting down the seconds until I could see him. The second the hand hit three I dashed like a speeding bullet to the school parking lot to his car. The scene that I saw in front of me made freeze in shock and my heart break. In front of his truck, was Sam and Mindy, a girl who I was a close friend of, or rather was, making out. Rather heavily, might I add. I am not a violent person, but I quickly made a silent prayer to God, the person who I needed desperately at this time, to remind me of my beliefs and to stop me from inflicting some serious bodily harm upon her.
"Excuse me, Mindy, but why are y'all making out if I am the one that is dating Sam?" I said, my voice shaky and tears rapidly pooling in the corners of my eyes.
Sam whipped his head around to face me, a look of shock clearly evident on his face. He stood there staring at me for around 4 seconds before reality set back in for him. His eyes turned distant, unloving, and cold.
"I was gonna tell y'all tonight, baby… but I'm with Mindy now." He announced.
"What!" I yelled. "How could you? I trusted you with my heart and you just stomp all over it. What kind of person does that?" I felt tears start to gather in my eyes, and I swiped madly at them.
"Here's your stupid anniversary gift. We're done you lying jerk."
Never again.
~Flashback End~
The past few months of my life had been a…. whirlwind to say the least. I had become fast friends with the other contestants who were on American Idol with me. They were all like family to me, even though almost every one of them were a few years older than me. Pia was like an older sister to me and I could go to her with advice about anything that I couldn't go to my mama about. Paul, Stefano, Jacob, James, and Casey were like my older and overprotective brothers. I loved them to death though and I knew they were only looking out for me since I was one of the younger contestants in the competition. On elimination nights, I would always be worried sick about which one of my new family members would have to go home. Haley, Thia, and Naima, and Pia would always give me fashion advice. They were the only ones who knew about my little predicament.
The little predicament about how I was in love with Scotty McCreery, my best friend, the guy who was always there for me. And Scotty…. Well, our relationship had always been really complicated. I had fallen in love with him during Hollywood Week, ever since I looked into his gorgeous blue eyes, the ones that I always got lost in. The only problem was I couldn't tell if he liked me back.
A lot of the time Scotty was shy and closed off when it came to admitting his feelings. There would sometimes be little hints that he liked me, but I never knew if they were real or if it was my mind playing some cruel trick on me.
And now I was the only girl left in the competition, and standing right beside me on the American Idol stage on the first night of the finale was none other than my best friend and "brother" Scotty McCreery. I always knew that he would be in the Top 2. Whenever I told him, he would just look at me with a "Are you crazy, it will be you up there!" look in his eyes, the ones that I had come to love over the short period of time in which we had spent together with everyone else.
Yeah, I just outright admitted my love for Scotty McCreery. We had spent so much time together I now couldn't imagine my life without him. We texted each other every day, even if we were in the same room. We had incredibly corny inside jokes and most of all we couldn't go a day without seeing each other. We couldn't be separated, we were a team. As for which kind of team, I was hoping for romantic, but only time will tell. I was called backstage to get ready for my performance of Before He Cheats. I was blessed to be singing with my idol today, Carrie Underwood. She was gorgeous and she didn't let the industry change her, just like me and Scotty don't tend to let the music industry change us. She was such an inspiration to me. She had accomplished so many things since she had been on American Idol.
~Fast Forward 15 minutes~
I felt the familiar tingling sweep through my body, the feeling that I always get when I am performing on stage in front of a crowd. The feeling like this is where I belonged. Like this is where I was destined to be. I started to sing the first lines of Before He Cheats. As I was singing, I noticed a guy that looked incredibly familiar to me…. Oh no. I would recognize that wavy brown hair and brown eyes anywhere. For some mysterious reason, my ex-boyfriend Sam had come to see me perform on the American Idol stage and gathering from the look on his face, he was up to something. A smirk was playing on his lips and his head was cocked to the side, as if he was looking at me like I was piece of meat. I suddenly started getting nervous, antsy under his stare. Under a minute later, Carrie came out and started to sing her parts of the song, just the way we had gone through during rehearsals. Although me and Scotty were still minors, the show producers and everyone else involved in the show worked us as hard as they could without pushing us past our limit. Whilst we were singing, thoughts and questions as to why HE was here kept zooming like race cars through my head. One last look at him and that stupid little know-it-all grin on his face and I knew what I had to do. I continued belting out my parts of the song, but this time I stared directly into his eyes. As if I was conveying a message of "You can't play around with my heart any longer." He got the message loud and clear. His eyes widened in shock at how bold I was being, on live national television nonetheless, and he abruptly turned away and pretended to be fixing his shirt. And the point goes to Lauren Alaina Suddeth.
~Scotty's POV~
Right now, Lauren was on stage performing Before He Cheats with her country idol, Carrie Underwood. I knew this because Lauren practically talked about how talented and pretty and amazing she was and how she was really excited to be performing with her. That is why we all nicknamed her Chatterbox. However, I would let her talk my ear off any day.
Lauren was amazing and beautiful and smart, a very down to earth person and she even prayed with me sometimes. Lauren Alaina Suddeth was the sweetest, kindest, and funniest girl you would ever meet. That is why I fell in love with her. She was everything that I ever wanted in a girl. I would always sneak glances at her. I think the other Idols noticed that I loved her. How did I know this? Stefano, James, Casey, Jacob, and Paul would always tease me about and start singing, "Lauren and Scotty sittin in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g," non-stop. Sometimes they would even do it when Lauren was about to walk into the room. Of course, after all the teasing, they would get all overprotective big brothers of her and warned that if I hurt her, they would hurt me. We had all been thrust together in this wild ride of an adventure, so we had become a really close family. The older guys and girls thought of us as their younger siblings and always felt the need to protect us. Tonight, I just had this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like something was going to go either terribly wrong or incredibly amazing tonight. It was gnawing away at me and I felt helpless. And then I saw what it was. Or rather WHO it was. During Lauren's performance, she kept looking at this guy with wavy brown hair and brown eyes. Like she was trying to say something to him. He kept staring at her with a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. Just the way that he was looking at her made me want to inflict some serious physical harm on him. I would seriously have to pray to God later and ask him to forgive that sin.
~Fast Forward 45 mins~
As the show came to an end and the people started aimlessly wandering about, crew and other idol contestants included. After quickly glancing around for Lauren to congratulate her on another amazing performance, I spotted her near one of the exits talking to HIM. She had a nervous look on her face, as if she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Something inside of me just snapped in me when I saw the way he was acting towards her. It was like there was a ticking bomb inside me but instead of losing my life, I would lose the LOVE of my life. I hastily maneuvered my way through the crowd to get to her. When I was about 3 feet away from her and she could see me, I felt a tug on my arm and I was dizzily spun around in a half circle. Color me surprised when I came face to face with my ex girlfriend Stacey. The last time I had seen her was around 4 years ago, after she had to move to Washington DC after her Dad got a job offer there.
~Flashback~
A young 13 year old Scotty McCreery is standing in front of the just as young 12 year old Stacey Keller, his cheeks damp with the tears that had freely flown down his face less than 5 minutes ago. He was so ashamed of crying. He had only cried once before in his life, and well, he didn't like to mention it.
"But why?" Scotty whimpered, his voice barely a whisper.
"I-I'm sorry, Scotty. My Dad got a job in Washington D.C. and I can't handle a long-distance relationship." Stacey responded with a hurt look in her eyes.
"Can't we find some way to work it out? Please!" he begged.
"I'm sorry, Scotty. I love you, please don't be upset over this. Bye, I have to go." She cried, running out to her father's car. She looked out the back window one last time and saw Scotty run out into the street. He had just lost the best thing that ever happened to him. He crumpled down into a broken heap near the middle of the road and openly started sobbing. His sister Ashley came running out of the house and started to comfort her heartbroken younger brother as he watched his now ex-girlfriend disappear into a cloud of dust.
Little did he know that fate would soon intervene in a mysterious way, not by reuniting him with Stacey, but by bringing him Lauren.
~End Flashback~
In a meek and timid voice, I said hello to my ex-girlfriend Stacey. However, what she did next shocked me. She kissed me. Right on the lips. In front of everyone. I was shocked to say the least. It didn't feel right, like I should be kissing Lauren instead.
She just did something to me. I got butterflies in my stomach and my palms would nervously sweat. I always tried my best to maintain my self-control around her, it seemed like she testing me more and more by the day. My mother always taught me to respect women, so I gently pushed Stacey off of me. I heard an audible gasp to my immediate right. I looked over and what I saw broke my heart. Lauren was standing there, eyes widen open in shock. Tears started to freely drip down her face as she took in the sight before her. She turned to leave but I rapidly caught her by her small hand, which I couldn't help but notice fit perfectly with mine on several different occasions.
"What Scotty? What do you want?" she whimpered, her voice as small and broken as I had ever heard it.
"Please-please let me explain. This isn't what you think." I implored.
"Well, it sure looked like what I thought I thought it looked like. Just leave me alone Scotty McCreery." She yelled at me.
I stood there, watching the love of my life walk away. I couldn't let her go, not like this.
"Lauren wait, I LOVE YOU!" I hollered over the loud crowd.
I saw Lauren halt dead in her tracks. The room went deadly silent. All eyes were on me and the confession that I had just made, in front of hundreds people nonetheless.
"You-you w-what?" she questioned.
Thinking that this was the time that I was finally going to tell Lauren how I felt, I boldly and without hesitation walked towards her. She glanced around nervously and mouthed to me, "What are you doing?" I mouthed back in return "What I should have done a long time ago."
With as much courage as my body would allow me to sum up, I took a hold of Lauren's hands and intertwined our fingers. Whilst I was doing this, a small smile crept its way onto my country girl's face. I tilted her chin up tenderly with two of my fingers and kissed her gently on the lips. At first I could tell that she was in shock from current events. Before the show, she forewarned me that she was going to kiss me if I won and then later she changed her story to it was dare. After 3 seconds, she finally leaned into the kiss and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her hands reached up to play with my hair as we were enjoying this moment. Jennifer Lopez had suggested that I should cut it short again, changing it back to the way it was when I first auditioned for American Idol. I had talked to Lauren about it and she made me promise that I wouldn't cut it short again. Needless to say, I promised. If Stefano was here right now, he would be loudly coughing that I was whipped, even if we weren't dating. I rubbed soothing patterns across her upper back and I felt a shiver course through her body as I touched the area not covered by her dress with my bare fingers. Unfortunately, we had to stop kissing so we could get some much needed air in our systems. Dazed, we stared in each other's eyes. It felt as if we were in our own little world. Cheers and applause started sounding all around as we nervously looked around.
"You have no idea how long I have wanted to kiss you like that for." I admitted, a giddy smile playing on my lips.
"Oh and why is that Scotty McCreery?" Lauren asked, a hint of amusement and playfulness reflecting in her voice.
"Because I love you darlin'. Ever since you first came up and talked to me during Hollywood Week, I knew that you were the one for me. I love how you are so energetic. I love how you always manage to look gorgeous and stunning and beautiful in whatever you wear, even if it only sweats and an old t-shirt. I love how you light up a room and laugh at everything, even my terrible jokes and impersonations. I love how you kept your faith and trust in God. And most of all, I love how we both chased our dreams and shared this adventure with each other. I wouldn't change it for the world." I responded, as my baby blue orbs looked into hers.
All she did was stare up at me in awe, before planting a firm, yet gentle and tender kiss on my lips.
"I love you too Scotty. Ever since Day One of Hollywood Week when I first met you. I just thought you didn't feel the same way. You have no idea how happy you have me with those three single words." Lauren said to me, whilst lovingly gazing into my eyes.
As we were standing there the band started playing a slow love ballad.
"May I have this dance, baby?" I shyly asked Lauren.
I heard a giggle escape through her lips quietly before she tugged me towards her. I gently wrapped my arms around her waist, whilst she once again draped her arms around my neck and lay her head on my shoulder.
In this moment, I was blissfully happy with my gorgeous girlfriend in my arms, swaying softly to the music. I wish this moment could last for a lifetime. We didn't think about how the PR reps and how they insist that we say we are just friends and "like brother and sister", even though we just had dozens of witnesses that saw us tell each other we loved them and kiss, or our parents who would lecture us probably on taking on too much stuff at once. As we were dancing, I looked around. A lot of other people were dancing. I saw Jennifer Lopez dancing with her husband Marc Anthony and she gave me thumbs up. I saw Paul dancing with his girlfriend Nikki Reed and he gave me the gesture to say he was watching me and that he would come after me if I hurt her. After all, Lauren was like a little sister to him and the other older contestants and he just didn't want to see her get hurt. Our respective exes were nowhere to be seen, god bless.
At this moment, nothing could possibly bring down my wonderful mood. I had the most beautiful girl in the entire universe in my arms. Forever and Always.
The End