They were leaning in, closer and closer…his face was inches from hers…
"No," Ally whispered. "No no no! This is not happening again!"
"I'm sorry," Austin said quietly. "I didn't mean—"
"No, it's not you. It's that when you do that…I feel that spark all over again."
I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, or favorited any of my stories. It really means a lot to me and all of you make my day. This story is dedicated to you. THANK YOU!
Anyway, this story will be post-Auslly breakup and possibly multi-chapter. It was inspired by two songs: Taylor Swift's Red, and Bridget Mendler's Hurricane, so I suggest you listen to those songs if you haven't already, as they set the mood for this story nicely.
I've seen some authors out there who make you earn your chapters in reviews, so I'll be stealing that from you if you're one of them and reading this. Thanks for that! And now, without further ado…
Oh, right. Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. That's all I have to say.
And now…
The bright morning sun rose over Miami, breaking through the thin yellow curtains that fluttered in front of Ally's window and on to her face. She cracked open an eye and groaned, rolling over and burying her head under her pillow.
It took her a few seconds to realize that she was suffocating herself.
She violently threw aside the covers, stomped to the window, and pulled the curtains shut. "Go away, sun," she muttered angrily, curling back up under the covers. She let out a satisfied sigh as the sun stopped bothering her.
It was three minutes before she became aware of a songbird, loudly twittering away. To say it was annoying was an understatement; Ally found it troublesome and bad. "SHUT UP!" she yelled. She couldn't even see the poor thing.
A string of curse words gushed out of her mouth like a river as she started towards the window, her eyes darting around her room in search of something to throw at it. An extra crap! escaped her lips when she realized that it wasn't a real bird she was hearing; it was the stupid nature alarm clock Dez had given her for Christmas last year.
She sank to her knees in the middle of her room. "Why, Dez, why?" she wailed at the ceiling. She just wanted to sleep; was that such a crime?
She sat there for a few minutes, wallowing in self-pity, before dragging herself to her feet. Alarm clocks didn't lie; her shift at Sonic Boom started in and hour and she had to make herself look pretty.
Oh, how she hated Saturdays.
Austin didn't say much that morning.
He didn't mutter while he searched his room for clean clothing. He didn't curse when he found that he was out of toothpaste. He didn't thank his mother for the stack of fluffy pancakes sitting on the kitchen table when he came downstairs.
"Good morning, son," Mike Moon said cheerfully, looking up from his newspaper. "How'd you sleep?"
Austin shrugged and pulled up a chair. He stared at the pancakes, but he didn't dig in; they didn't look as delicious as they usually did. Instead he fiddled around aimlessly with the fork in his hand.
"Sweetie," Mimi Moon said quietly, "the pancakes are getting cold, and you promised Ally you would meet her at Sonic Boom in half an hour, remember?"
"Ally," Austin repeated meekly.
Mike looked helplessly at his wife. She quietly sat down next to her son and rubbed his shoulder. "I know," she said in a soothing voice. "It's hard. But—"
"You've got to get over her," Mike cut in. He leaned across the table and touched Austin's hand. "You can't stay hung up on one girl forever. You and Ally…you had something, but that something disappeared. And now there's no point in even trying."
Austin glared at him and freed himself from his parents' touches, tearing up the stairs.
"Mike!" Mimi scolded. "That was a very insensitive thing to say!"
"It's the truth," Mike replied, helping himself to Austin's untouched pancakes. "He's got to know."
"He does know, but even so…it's tough for him, Mike. I think he really loved her. And it still hurts him inside."
Mike shrugged and shoveled another bite into his mouth before returning to his newspaper.
"I don't wanna talk about the things we've gone through," Ally sang quietly as she rummaged through a pile of sheet music. "Though it's hurting me, now it's history…"
The practice room felt strangely empty. Dez was sick, Trish had a job she actually cared about, and Austin…today would be an awkward day to talk to Austin. Besides, she wanted to be alone. She wanted to sit in the practice room all day, watching TV and listening to breakup songs while eating a tub of ice cream and crying. Yes, that sounded like an ideal day, except for the crying part; but she had a feeling that was going to happen anyway.
She was getting ready to do just that when the door opened. She looked up, the last words of the song she was singing floating from her lips. "But you see, the winner takes it all*…oh, hey Austin."
"Hi," he said, quietly closing the door behind him. He twiddled his thumbs and looked down at the floor. "We were going to practice today, but if you're busy…"
Ally mentally smacked herself on the forehead. "Right," she replied. How could she have forgotten? "Let's go do that, then." She usually looked forward to her practice sessions with Austin. She liked the feeling of her shoulder pressed against his, and the beautiful sound that they made together. But today he was the last person she wanted to see.
She sat down on the piano bench. The black-and-white keys, that usually seemed so full of life and possibilities, today looked dead and bland. There was no spark of motivation that urged her to play and no new song brewing in the back of her head. She still wanted to sleep.
Sleep. Oh, how warm and comfortable a bed sounded! She debated jumping up and running back home, but the calm, logical side of her reminded her that she couldn't hide from her problems forever. She took a deep breath and turned to look Austin, who had slid in next to her, in the eye.
She hadn't counted on the extremely small space between his face and hers.
They both froze, eyes locked. Ally saw his mouth open slightly, as if he wanted to say something to her, and she could feel his warm, minty breath on her cheeks. It made her wonder how his breath, each and every day, smelled so freaking minty.
"Ally…" he began quietly.
"No," she replied shortly. She turned away from him, laying her hands down on the piano keys, debating what to play. A breakup song? A heartache song? A complicated piece to show Austin that, despite his endless prayers, she was and always would be a much better piano player than him? No. None of that seemed right.
Her entire life, Ally had always easily been able to communicate her feelings through her music. To her, every piano key was a word, every melody a sentence, every song a story. She could pick out just the right ones to let everyone know how she felt. It was as natural as talking.
But today, the keys looked like nothing more than a repetitive sequence of black and white, blurry and far away; like waking up in the morning and trying to remember a dream, but finding that the memory is just out of reach. She felt tears prick her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. Today was not a day that Austin was going to see her cry.
"Ally?" Austin's voice drowned out her thoughts. "Ally, the song?"
The song. Right.
But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how long her hands hovered over the piano, she couldn't bring herself to play it. She shook her head, trying to clear it of all her thoughts so she could focus on the piano.
"I can't do it," she mumbled quietly.
"What?" Austin said. "Why not?"
"I just can't, okay?" She turned away from him and angrily crossed her arms over her chest. "There are some days when I just can't successfully do everything I'd like to. My life isn't a gold star like yours." She couldn't see him, but she knew those words stung his insides. He hated to feel superior to his friends.
She didn't dare glance at him. There was a bubble of awkwardness floating around them, and if she popped it, her triumphant moment would be ruined. She wanted him to feel bad, guilty even, about what he had done to her, she wanted him to realize that he was a complete blockhead, even though a dark, remote part of her, though she would never admit it, wanted him to spin her around and kiss her and tell her he wanted her back as much as she wanted him. But Ally pushed that thought back to where it came from.
"Ally, come on." She heard his voice break through her web of thoughts. She knew he was sorry, but that wasn't enough; she wanted to make him pay, and that was the moment that she vowed to never cave in to Austin Moon again.
And the result of this vow was that the song she played was not the one she'd been planning to.
"Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street…"
Her fingers dug into the keys, but only long, melancholy chords escaped them; she didn't bother with the intricate string of notes she'd come up with the evening before. Right now she wanted him to hear her words, to hear that he was nothing but a disappointment and an illusion, nothing but a blonde let-down.
"Losing him was blue like I'd never know, missing him was dark grey, all alone, forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met," she sang, confidence bubbling with every word. She took a deep breath and prepared for the harsh punchline of her joke. "But loving him was red…*"
She looked over at him as her last chord stopped ringing, but the heartbroken look on his face was enough to make her wish she hadn't.
"Ally…" he said quietly, his words barely loud enough for her to hear, "there's no reason why today has to be awkward." He looked down at his hands.
"No reason?" Ally repeated. Anger flared inside her, and she debated driving it back to where it came from and keeping her cool, but no: she was done. Done pretending everything was okay, done pretending it didn't hurt her, done pretending like none of it mattered anymore. Instead, she let the smoldering coals rise into a flame that licked her throat, charring her very insides. "No reason?"
Angrily she stood up from the piano bench, a disappointed look of disbelief flickering across her eyes. "Austin, there's every reason why today should be awkward. Do you know what I wanted to do today? I was going to sit and cry until you showed up, but no, I pretended like I was fine. I've been pretending I'm fine for the past year, and I'm tired of it!" She stared him down, daring him to make eye contact. When he didn't respond, she continued yelling.
"Today hurts, Austin, today brings back so many awful memories for me, do you know that? Do you know why? Do you know what today is?"
Her voice cracked and she found new tears welling in her eyes. A deaf silence suddenly descended on the room as she stopped shouting. She flopped down in a chair, exhausted from her rant, every last bit of energy spent on desperately trying to keep her body from racking with sobs.
"I do know what today is."
In any other situation, Austin's voice would have sounded quiet, but under the soundless blanket it was unbearably loud in Ally's ears, like an unexpected clap of thunder that shattered the constant patter patter of rain on a roof. She looked up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Then why are you acting like you don't care?"
"I do care, Ally, I really do." He sat down in the chair across from her. "I just…I can't communicate my feelings, you know that. If I could I would have told you that a long time ago." He maintained shaky, but still present, eye contact with her. "I think you know that too."
It took Ally a long time to decide how to react. Finally, her voice still slightly watery from crying, she whispered, "Tell me. Prove to me that you know what today is."
He sighed. She knew him well enough to know that there were tears threatening to break past his eyes too. When he spoke, his words were barely a whisper."Today, we've been broken up for exactly a year."
Oh, touchy touchy subject, isn't it? Well, that was chapter one of Beautiful Noise :) I sincerely hope you enjoyed it and I sincerely hope you'll review. Thanks!
* The first song Ally sings is The Winner Takes It All by ABBA. Don't own it.
** The second one is Red by Taylor Swift. Don't own this either.
I'll make a deal with you: If I get 6 reviews on this, the next chapter will be posted. If not, Beautiful Noise will forever remain a one shot ;)
~Mia
