S1 Ch 7: The Drive to Austin's House
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Disclaimer: any songs I use the lyrics to work better if you listen to the songs when they come up, just saying. There's a list at the tail end of this story, just look them up & read along. I also tend to leave some space for imagination, so just imagine what's happening if you'd like while the songs are playing.
Also, if you guys wanna point out any grammatical, spelling, or continuity errors I accidentally let slip by, please let me know either through reviews, or PMs. They'd be greatly appreciated in the long run.
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Ally was driving Austin home in his Camaro. All was quiet on the drive. Well... except for the radio, which was playing Austin's song 'Illusion.'
Step right up on the stage
Free yourself from the cage
Pick a card and guess it girl
Here's a lesson, girl
It's just an illusion
One, two, three I disappear
Coming right back, so stay right here
Ain't no second guessin', girl
I'm impressive, girl
But I'm just an illusion...
"Hey, Ally. Can you turn the radio off? I've kinda got a concussion-turning-into-a-migraine type of thing thing going on here & I need it to be quiet," Austin said.
"Sure, here," she said, turning the radio down to just a barely audible volume.
"Thanks."
"No prob. Listen, I'm sorry about what happened back there."
"It wasn't your fault. That guy's a psycho. Speaking of, what happened with you guys to where he'd get drunk & do something stupid like that?"
"I don't know if you'd wanna hear it."
"I do, trust me."
"Well, it all happened several months ago..."
(Flashback)
Ally approached the cell phone cart where Dallas was working.
"Hey, Dallas," Ally said to him.
"Hey, Ally. What's up?" Dallas replied.
"Oh, not much. I was just minding the store when I thought, 'Why not say hi to Dallas?' I mean, you've kept your distance for a few weeks, so here I am."
"All right."
"Anyways, there's this movie I wanna see & I don't have anyone to see it with. Wanna go?"
"You asking me to go out again?"
"I believe I just did."
"Wow. Sure, why not?"
"Great, so I'll see you Friday at 7:00 after my dad & I close the shop?"
"Yeah, sure."
"All right. See ya later," she said, then walked back to the store.
(Ally's voice came in narrating over the flashback while talking to Austin)
"It was set in motion. I asked him out & we went to see the new Muppet movie, but a few weeks after we started resuming going out, he started changing. He was texting me pretty much every single second of the day to track my every move."
"I remember that," Austin chimed in. "It was getting to be so much that we couldn't get much work done on any new songs during our writing sessions. Every 5 minutes, your phone would chime with him asking what you were doing, where you were, & other stuff like that. I swear, it's like he had OCD mixed with amnesia, like Dory from Finding Nemo. I never trusted him after that initial stuff. Damn it, Ally. I told you to watch your back."
"I know, I know, but that wasn't as bad as what happened over the following weeks."
(More flashbacks happened, showing every different occurrence with Ally's narration)
"What happened next was that we'd go out somewhere & he'd ask me about what I was doing when I was writing songs with you, like you said. It'd be, 'What did you do when you were hanging out with Austin?', 'You don't have feelings for him, right?', & the worst was that he said, 'Are you cheating on me with him?', and I'd give him the same straight answers. I'd tell him, 'No' & 'We were just working on material for him to sing' & stuff like that. It got to the point where he told me to prove my love to him by telling me to...well..." Ally paused, feeling uncomfortable with what she was remembering, since she's been trying to repress the moment in her brain as best she could by just pushing it out & trying just to forget it all, but remembering it again in this much detail made her want to throw up for how disgusting she thought the whole ordeal was.
"What? What did he want you to do Ally? Come on, I'm your boyfriend. If you can't tell me about some of the baddest parts of your life, who can you tell?"
"Ok, your right. I can tell you anything. It's just that it makes me uncomfortable & when I get uncomfortable, I start rambling on & on so I can ultimately avoid..."
"Ally, just spit it out. It's just me here & I'm not going to tell anyone. Now, calm your OCD & tell me," Austin interrupted as she was starting to ramble on.
"All right. Here goes. He wanted me to prove my love by going all the way with him, & I wouldn't, so I broke up with him right then & there."
"I had a feeling that's what you were going to say. That's the wrong way to go about it. I mean, I'm a guy, & even I know that sex has to be consensual. It's not enough if a girl does it with a guy just to prove that she's faithful to him. They both have to be ready, be sure it's what they want, be sane," he smiles at her, & she laughs a little, thinking it was a little funny. "& most of all, be ok with what might happen afterwards."
"Thanks Austin. God, why can't there be more guys be like you?" she asked, not believing what he just said.
"If there were, then I wouldn't be special," he answered in a joking manner, chuckling a bit.
"You got that right," she said, agreeing with him. "Kind of cliché, but I gotta say, you're being really great with this."
"Yeah, I mean, I just have at least a basic understanding of how relationships should go, but compared to that guy, I'm pretty sure everyone else also has a better understanding of than him too."
"Yeah. You know what? I don't know if I deserve you. You're a real gentleman to me."
"I try," he said, somewhat self-centeredly. "I'm not sure you're right about not deserving me though. You had that jerk as a boyfriend for, like, half a year. You definitely deserve someone like me for putting up with that guy," he continued, assuring Ally that her suspicions aren't correct. "Especially when he gets so fucking drunk, he suddenly develops some type of Alzheimer's & sucker punches me in the nose," he continued, hushed & looking out the window.
Ally heard what he said, but said nothing. She just kept driving. Every time Austin started to nod off, she'd wake him back up by talking to him, because you're not supposed to let a person with a concussion sleep, until it passed.
About 20 minutes later, they pulled into Austin's driveway. Austin pressed a button on a small box attached to the driver's side sun visor & the garage door opened, to reveal no other car, except for a truck, signalling to him that his mom wasn't home.
Ally pulled into the garage, then turned off the car.
"I see that only your dad's truck is here," she said.
"Yeah. She's in New York settling a court case," he said, closing the garage door.
(Ok, so in this universe, Austin's mom is a successful lawyer & only his dad was a mattress salesman, FYI)
"O...K. She just leaves you home by yourself?" she said while they were getting out of the car then they closed the doors & she locked them with the locking button on the car remote attached to Austin's key chain.
"Yeah. She figures since I'm 17, she can leave me home alone. She's been doing that a lot since dad died, really. Whenever she doesn't have nights off, she goes out with her friends. Only to come home at 10 o'clock, or later on most of them, making me worry about when she's gonna come home. I mean, it hasn't even been a year yet. I think there should be a principle there," he said as they went into his kitchen. He got an ice pack & put it against his head. "Ah, that's better. So, anyways, the principle. I think that, out of respect, if you were married, & your loved one dies, you should wait a standard of at least 3-4 months before you start dating again & if you have kids, either wait at least a year, or until your kids are grown & out of the house until you start dating again. If you wanna get married though, wait like a year and a half to 2 years before doing that at least. It's just out of respect, but that's how I think it should go."
"You raise some good points, Austin," Ally started. "You talk like the guys on Seinfeld a bit, you know. You go deeper into topics in discussions than most other people & you're not afraid to speak your mind."
"Yeah. I like being outspoken like that. It makes me feel like me, different," he said, putting the ice bag in the freezer.
"How's your head?"
"Not so great, it's not really a concussion any more. It's more like a debilitating migraine & migraines are the worst form of headaches. Can you hand me a glass of water & some Tylenol?" he asked her & she got them for him. "Thanks," he said, then put the pills in his mouth & took a drink to swallow them. "Migraines are, literally, the worst form of headache. They're the only form of headache I get. You wanna know how you can tell you're getting one?" he said, ready to give the answer, then sipped some more of the water for a second. "You can tell you're getting one if you see these like things in your eyes, like ripples if you throw a rock in water. Ripples in the air, mixed with static that you see on a TV when it's not working right."
"You gonna be ok?"
"Yeah. The Tylenol should help when hell freezes over, but I should be good after some sleep."
"But what about me?"
"You can't drive my car to your house. I'm gonna need it tomorrow. Why don't you make yourself comfy in either the living room, or the guest room & I'll go sleep in my room," he said, starting up the stairs, but quickly lost his balance, causing Ally to catch him as he was falling.
"How about I do that after I help you up to your room?"
Austin couldn't & wouldn't argue with her. Ally put his arm over her shoulders & helped him walk up the stairs...
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Oh, a cliffhanger! Sorry for that you guys, but the chapter was getting too long to continue in a 1-parter...
Thanks to the 'guest,' who pointed out the error in the lyrics. I get my lyrics from online sources. Some aren't as reliable as others, the one I got when I wrote this chapter the first time, is 1 of those...
PEACE...
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