I reached over two hundred reviews for this story. TWO HUNDRED! I love you guys so much! I was freaking out and jumping around my house like a psycho. My entire family thought I had finally gone insane. They don't understand my happiness.
Raelyn723- Thank you! The 'game' is to get the girl to say I love you before the seven days are over, so if the girl says I love you before the seven days are up than Austin wins. Dallas and Austin did create the game. It wasn't something Austin just decided to wake up and do. For your next question you can use your imagination. It really doesn't matter whether or not it was her first kiss. If you want to think it was, than that's okay. I'd like to think she was hesistant because she's not an idiot. She knows about Austin's reputation and I didn't want to write her as one of those stupid girls that gets fooled so easily. She was smart enough to not kiss him on the first date.
Aigoopi- Haha! I'm not sure why no one told you. Maybe it's because my story isn't as popular as some of the other amazing stuff out there. I like to make characters that have the same personalities in the show but not so much where I am basically copying every single detail in an episode. Dallas does come back. Don't worry. :) Right now I kind of just want the seven days to be filled with Auslly fluff. There won't be too much drama which means Dallas doesn't make an appearance until towards the end.
KR Blake- The Challenge spoilers for GFHS...seems like a fair trade. You start and I'll reciprocate. :) It wasn't so hard figuring out that you weren't human. You made it so blatantly obvious with your out-of-this-world writing. But think about this: if you kill me, you'll never know what happens at the end of The Challenge. MwahHaHaHa! (That's how you do an evil laugh.) :)
Disclaimer: I am on strike...
A smile did not leave my face the entire day. Dallas asked me about it during lunch, I told him I was happy about baseball season beginning. Dez cornered me in the locker room, I told him I just bought an new pair of sneakers. Both of these statements were true, but neither of them were the cause of my beaming smile. I turned around, watching her retrieve books from her locker. My grin widened and I thanked god that Dez and Dallas had already gone home for the day.
I continued to stare, my gaze fixed on her. She must have sensed a presence because she looked away from her books to meet my gaze. Her eyes met mine and she gave me a large smile and a timid waggle of her fingers. I traced the curve of her bottom lip with my eyes, my smile stretching until it hurt, as I thought of how less than twenty four hours ago, those lips were pressed against mine. My thoughts flew back to yesterday evening, remembering the heated kisses and the falling on the floor of the tree house with our limbs tangled together. Somewhere during my reminiscing, Ally had shut her locker and walked towards me.
"Are you busy after school?" she asked, her voice snapping my attention.
I grinned down at her. "Nope," I said with a suggestive smirk.
She rolled her eyes, grabbing my hand in hers. "Let's go somewhere," she eagerly grinned. She closed my locker for me, giving me no room for protest.
Not that I was going to anyway.
She began to lead me out the doors of the school, when I pulled her back into place. She looked up at me with curious eyes. "Wait. I have to do something first," I said, a large smirk taking over my features.
Her eyes were still confused as she cocked her head at me. "What?"
I only smirked, removing my hand from hers and quickly grabbing her by her thin waist. I pulled her body against mine, smirking as a startled gasp escaped from Ally's lips. I pulled her upwards, my hand accidently moving up her shirt, touching her bare back, but I made no move to remove it. I ducked my head, pressing my lips against hers. She gasped again, but her hands snaked around my neck anyway. I gently pulled away, a large satisfied smile on my lips.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," I breathed, letting go of her. She rolled her eyes again, as if saying boys will be boys, and began walking down the hall again. I ran after her, grabbing her hand in mine once again. Her eyes widened in surprise at my action before returing to normal as a small smile graced her lips.
We stepped into the parking lot as we both headed in the directions of our cars. Unfortunately, our cars were on opposite sides of the lot, and with our hands still intertwined, we didn't get very far before the other person pulled us back into place. We snapped our heads towards each other, both of us wearing matching expressions of confusion.
"I'm driving," Ally firmly stated as she jiggled her keys in front of my face.
"No. I'm driving," I said as I pulled her to the direction of my car.
"No," she argued, pulling me back to the spot.
"Yes," I mimicked her tone, steering her in the direction of my car.
"You don't even know where we're going," she fought back as she walked in the opposite direction. I sighed, letting her pull me.
"You could tell me," I suggested.
She only shook her head at me with a devious smirk. "Payback. Austin. Payback."
The truck pulled up in front of a building I didn't recognize. It was a church, or what looked like the remains of one. The building was completely broken down, with windows hanging off its hindges and pieces of tile falling off the roof. I stepped out of the car after Ally did. She walked ahead, through the large black iron gate that surrounded the church.
"What is this place?" I asked, uneager to follow her into the building that looked like it came out of a horror movie.
She looked at me from over her shoulder, still walking across the courtyard. "My safe haven," she said with a smile.
I swallowed the fear and jogged to catch up with her. I intertwined her hand with mine, quickly feeling reassured, despite the dark gloomy shadows that casted over the courtyard.
Not that I was scared.
The weeds grew tall and branched out in all directions, making the walk to the door seem dreary and endless. We walked up the stone steps until we reached the large wooden door that Ally pushed open with ease. I looked around at the completely empty building and I could almost feel a shiver making its way up my spine.
"Ally?" I timidly asked as a brief thought occured to me.
"Hm?" she answered already making her way down pews of the church.
"You like me right?"
She stopped, turning around to look at me with furrowed eyebrows. "Yeah?" she uneasily answered. "Why?"
"So you're not going to kill me or anything?" I cautiously wondered, taking small baby steps to where she was.
The confusion was gone and annoyance flashed across her face. She rolled her eyes and placed a hand on her hip. "You think I'm going to kill you?" she incredulously asked.
I scoffed. "Well you did bring me to this really creepy church and you're being suspiciously quiet through all of this," I said while motioning to the dark and gloomy looking interior of the building.
She looked around at the place, spinning around in a full circle, as if everything was so new to her. "Fair point," she agreed as she turned back to face me. "But I'm not going to kill you, dummy. Now come on."
She walked to a side door at the back of the room, motioning for me to follow her before disappearing through the door. I sighed, tentatively following her through the door. Behind the door was a spiral staircase and after a mental debate between reason and curiousity, curiousity won, and I ran up the staircase. I entered what looked like the priest's office. Ally stood by a window when I walked in. She heaved it open all the way before waving her hand to me. I walked up to her, my eyebrows knitting together even tighter.
"Follow me," was all she said before climbing out the window. My jaw dropped and I ran over to the window, ducking my head out of it. I found her easily climbing up the side of the church. The bricks stuck out in the perfect places, giving her a step to climb on. She made her way to the roof with ease, clearly showing signs of doing this before. I looked up at the chipping tiles and the loose bricks. I gulped and with some internal words of encouragement, I pulled myself through the window, grabbing onto the brick. I exhaled before taking careful steps to the roof.
"Crazy wall climber," I mumbled inbetween heavy breaths. When I reached the top, Ally had already situated herself on the edge, her legs tucked into her stomach and her arms wrapped around her knees. I smiled, joining her in that same position.
"Why here?" I asked, already knowing she would tell me.
She looked at me, a faraway look on her face. "This is where my parents got married."
I didn't say anything. I knew she wasn't done and I would wait until she was ready.
"This is also where they met," she continued, a distant look on her face. "They were ten years old. My grandparents brought them here on a Sunday. My dad told me how bored he was. He said the room was filled with people dressed in dull and dreary colors. It was all dark pastels and boring blacks. Then he saw my mother. There she was, her little ten-year-old self, standing in the middle of the room dressed in all bright vibrant colors. She was dressed head-to-toe in hot pink with the exception of two yellow bows pinned to her hair."
She chuckled, so absorbed into the memory she didn't notice my arm sneaking around her shoulders, pressing her side against mine.
"Even at ten years old my mom was so sassy and outgoing. She was always that one person that stood out in a crowd. She was very independent and whatever everyone else was doing, she did the opposite," Ally smiled, but this one seemed more depressed than her previous ones. "I wish I could be more like her. More brave and confident."
"You don't need to," I said, interupting her. "Besides I like you much better when you're shy and dorky."
She hid her face in the crook of my neck, obviously hiding a blush, but I felt her smile against my skin. "Thank you," she said softly, turning to look up at me. I grinned, pressing my lips to her temple. "My parents-" she began again, "-were so in love. You saw it in their faces everyday how much love they had for each other."
"Wait, you believe in love?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows. It was hard to believe the girl with the steel barrier and snappy comebacks believed in something so juvenile.
"Of course I do!" she stated in a duh tone of voice.
"That's strange," I said my eyebrows coming together further. "You don't seem like the type."
She faced foward again, tearing her gaze away from mine. "That's because I stopped believing love would ever find me," she murmured so softly it could have been mistaken for the whistle of the wind.
I watched her gloomy expression, wishing so badly that I could go back in time to erase the my words. "So when are you going to show off your incredibly charming and ruggedly handsome boyfriend to your parents?" I teased at a desperate attempt to bring the mood back to the way it was before.
The smile was wiped from her face and a dark cloudy look took its place. Her eyes became clouded, the chocolate color turning to a muddy brown. It was a look I had unfortunately seen many times before. It was the same panic-stricken look she had when I saw her on the phone that one time. The same look was on her face when she tried to cancel our first date.
"What's wrong? You look almost as nervous as the night you met Cassidy," I joked but my question was serious.
"I'm not good with confrontation," she defended, her voice coming close to a whine. The clouded look was almost gone and her eyes were swirling back to its beautiful pools of chocolate.
"You had no problem yelling at me the day we met."
"That was different," she shyly said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I was in a bad mood that day."
"Why?" I asked, watching as the darkness shadowed her face as quickly as it had gone. She gave me no answer, only stared hopelessly at her fidgeting fingers. "Was it the same reason you showed up late to school that time? Was it the same reason you and Trish had that weird conversation about our first date?" My voice was getting louder and although I tried to hide it, we both heard the anger behind it. I was getting frustrated with all the secrets and the changing of subjects. I had let this topic drop way too many times and I wasn't backing down again.
"Stop!" she shouted, pressing the palms of her hands against her ears. "Stop asking so many questions!"
"Then try answering some of them!" I shouted at her. The birds, that were resting on the opposite side of the roof, flew away at my increasing volume. I could tell Ally wanted to do the same but I gripped her knee, keeping her in place. "I told you all my secrets yesterday! I told you things I've never told anyone before. I bought you to the one place in the world that made me vulnerable. I trusted you enough to bring you to the one place that was mine and why can't you do the same? Do you not trust me? Damn it Ally! Answer me!" I shouted, finally reaching my breaking point. I've been bothered by this too many times and I've let this go too many times.
Her hands dropped from her ears and she was silent. The kind of silent that made everything feel so empty and broken. The kind of insufferable silence that ate at you until you were completely hollow on the inside. The silence that made all of your thoughts and feelings seem so damn loud.
I scoffed. "So that's it? You're allowed to know my secrets but I'm not allowed to know yours?"
Her face was expressionless as she swallowed a lump in her throat. She was tense and the stoic look on her face told a thousand stories all at once. I continued to watch her, searching for some sort of entrance to this mysterious jigsaw puzzle. I sighed, finding none as usual, a heavy feeling sank down to my stomach as I stood up and walked to the edge leading back downstairs.
"It started seven years ago," she said lowly.
I turned around to face her motionless figure. She never left her previous position, didn't even flinch. She continued to speak, still facing the air in front of her. It didn't even seem like she was talking to me. She seemed to be talking to herself, but didn't care whether or not the world chose to listen. I took quiet steps back to our spot, careful not to disturb her.
"When I was nine, my mom passed away. It was so unexpected. One day I was walking around, feeling like I was the luckiest girl on the entire planet, and the next, I no longer had a mother. My dad took it worse than any of us. He was never quite the same after she passed. He closed himself off and he began to get health issues. He had extremely high blood pressure and constant headaches. But then, a few years ago, things started to get better. He was smiling again and going out more. We all thought that he was finally moving on. But then a year ago," she paused to run a hand down her face. She chewed her bottom lip as if questioning whether or not she should continue.
"A year ago-" she repeated, "-we found out that my dream music school in New York was sending scouts to evaluate my piano recital. MUNY was my dream school and I didn't think I would get in, but a week after that, I got a call from the school. They were offering me a seat. The tuition costs $35,000 per year. I almost turned it down, but my dad insisited. So I went to New York to attend MUNY for sophmore year. For the first few months my dad called me everyday. He would always be there to wish me goodnight and I would hear his voice every morning. But then those calls slowed down so that I only heard from him once a week. Eventually those weekly calls became monthly. I got worried so I tried calling him, but he never answered. I had to resort to calling my other family members, but that was also a dead end. A few days before that school year was over, I hadn't heard from my dad in two months, so I called his doctor."
She swallowed and her eyes were glistening from the tears brimming on her eyelids. "Apparently, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in January. His doctor told me he had refused any form of treatment because he couldn't afford it. All the money that he was making, was going to pay for my school." Her words were coming out in choked breaths now and I had to fight the urge to just grab her and hold her. She didn't need to be held, she needed to be heard.
"I came back for summer break and-" she stopped to let out a chocked sob. "Do you know what it's like to have your own father not recognize you?" she cried, turning to face me for the first time since she began talking, her voice growing louder with every word. "Do you know what it's like to walk into your own house and have your father look at you like you were some stranger? It took him five minutes to realize who I was! The house was a complete mess because he couldn't remember where anything was! Do you know what it's like to have to teach your grown father how to use a remote or how to properly say simple words? Do you know what it's like to have to wake up before the sun to make sure your father was still alive? Do you know what it's like to have to completely cut off your social life because you have to spend every second helping a middle-aged man find his way around his own house? You will never know what it's like."
The tears were streaming down her cheeks in an endless waterfall and she made no move to wipe them away. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she shouted at me, probably pouring out all the anger she had been holding in for so long.
"You will never know what it's like. I have to help my father, who is so much older than me, get dressed in the morning. I have to teach him how to hold a fork and do basic things that people learn to do when they're seven. Do you know how scary it is to not know what mood you'll catch him in? You never know whether or not he'll be angry or calm." Her voice was reduced to a whisper now. "You think I didn't tell you because I don't trust you? I didn't tell you because I couldn't. Because the more people that knew, the more real everything became."
She sat with her legs pressed tightly against her chest and her lips pressed together in a tight thin line. Her silent tears were rapidly falling down her face, soaking her shirt and pants. I didn't know what to do or say and I never felt so useless as I did in that moment. "I'm sorry. I didn't-" I began.
"But sorry is going to fix anything," she said cutting me off. "Sorry isn't going to make everything better." Her voice was hoarse and I knew it was from all the crying. She cried so much until her throat burned and her eyes turned red.
I knew there was nothing I could say to her at this point, so I sat there letting her cry. I didn't hold her or try to make her feel better because I knew if she wanted me to, she would've asked for it. She doesn't need to be comforted, she just needed to know that there would be someone by her side when she needed it. When she's done letting out all the captive tears, I will be there, letting her know that it's okay to be vulnerable. I'll remind her that crying doesn't mean you're weak, it means you're human. I'll let her cry until it feels like all of her strength is gone, and I'll be the one holding her up, telling her that it's okay to not have to be strong for once in your life.
She wiped away her tears on her sleeve, but this time, these tears weren't replaced by new ones. Her face was red and her eyes were puffy, but the tears were gone. Ally gave me a weak smile and I took that as a sign to finally wrap my arms around her. She buried her head in the crook of my neck and I smiled wide. My fingers ran through her hair, untangling some of the knots. I twirled her caramel strands around my fingers and paid extra attention to the dyed ends. She lifted her head up to look at me through her glistening eyes, but this time it wasn't the tears that made them glisten, it was the lightheartedness shining through.
"So was that why you were gone for a year?" I asked with an easy smile.
She let out a humorless laugh. "What have you heard?"
"Pregnancy, rehab, jail, space," I counted off my fingers.
"Space?" she incredulously asked, cocking her head to the side in confusion.
"Some guy in our debate class had this theory you were abducted by aliens," I said while shrugging.
She laughed, rolling her eyes in amusement. "Wow, has this really become such a popular topic?"
"You'd be surprised how much stories I've heard."
"Well none of those stories are true. I was in New York for school. I dropped out so we could afford to pay for medical treatment," she said, a morose expression flashing across her face. I planted a gentle kiss on her forehead, bringing a smile to her face.
"Thank you," she mumbled quietly. I knitted my eyebrows together at her question. "For not leaving when I cried," she said, answering my silent question.
"I'll never leave when you need me," I whispered in her ear. She gave me a tender smile and although it was a big promise, I meant it. I only hoped she knew I meant it too.
"Do you want to return to the real world?" I asked, looking uneagerly at the edge of the roof where we entered from.
"Nah," she breathed, tilting her head up at me. "Let's stay in our world for a little bit longer."
I grinned, tilting my head down to meet her halfway. I closed my eyes, pretending for a little while that our world was the only world that existed.
Longest. Chapter. Ever. I had fun writing this although it was a little sad. Sorry, but at least all of you guys know the mystery behind Ally.
I apologize for not updating in two weeks. It was finals week so I basically had two finals per day.
I hope you like this chapter and please review! Please? I need something to take my mind off all my final exams. I'm stressed...
xoxo :)