Since it took me so long to update last time I decided to post another chapter. I hope you enjoy it!
I do not own Austin and ally or this story, it belongs to The Black arrow.
Chapter Nine: Flight
Allys heart had tripped and skipped for hours before the New Years Eve party. The moon Dimension was crammed full of strangers preparing the house. There were caterers in the kitchen, baking tiny appetisers in batches. There were florists arranging huge urns of flowers. The air smelt like blossoms and pastry.
Hundreds of tea lights lined the stairs to the house, flanked the stairs, waiting to be lit at last. There was a man raking the gravel in the driveway.
Ally had been overwhelmed by the hive of activity and had gone back to Lesters house to get ready with piper.
In the few months that piper had been at Marino High, she was the only one who had bothered getting to know ally.
She was Allys new best friend by default- she was actually her only friend, other than Austin and Ethan.
Ally tentatively trusted her. She was fun, and light, and made her feel normal. She was quirky and deemed slightly eccentric.
It was no wonder she got along so famously with Mimi when she came to visit. She greeted Austin for the first time with a polite smile and a firm handshake, and then crossed to Ethan to give him the same.
She therefore passed the test. She never fished for information about Austin, and was only interested in being outside, walking, talking and people watching.
Piper looked gorgeous as always that night, even though she had only given a cursory consideration to her appearance. She stood in a plain grey wool dress, and yellow ballet flats, no makeup and long blonde hair. She looked amazing. Ally analysed the outfit over and over, trying to put her finger on what made it work, before realising it was confidence.
Ally was wearing the red dress that Mimi gave her for Christmas, but confidence was sorely lacking in her respect. The dress was exposing too much. Her arms and legs were lily white, and the feeling of the stiff silk tickling against her legs instead of denim was unsettling.
Still, as the girls talked, ally gradually forgot about how much she was revealing.
Ally sat on the edge of the bathtub with her head tipped forward as piper stood over her, winding her hair around a curling iron methodically.
"Have you made a decision yet?" Piper asked.
Ally felt sick again, and dragged breath into her trembling lungs.
There had been a meeting at school several weeks ago. The school counselor had submitted some of her school newspaper articles to an International student placement network, and ally had been offered a three month scholarship in their Journalism and Communications program.
It would mean initially interning for a medical aid organisation, learning to write press releases and publicity articles. It was an amazing opportunity that could be counted as partial credit for college.
However, she was under no delusions as to why she had been so conveniently nominated.
Austin had become increasingly unstable in the last few months and the strain was showing on both of them.
It was as if her resistance was eating at him. He was constantly furious, on edge. Testosterone trickled, seemingly undiluted, through his veins.
He had been recently suspended for a week for a knocking out the upper incisor of a foolhardy male during gym. Austins defence was that he had made an undisclosed remark about Allys gym skirt.
"A notoriously hard tooth to knock out, so they say," Austin had said afterwards as he lay on her bed, busily tearing a deck of cards to shreds.
"Of course, it's not that difficult if you have enough motivation," he mused arrogantly.
Austin, thoroughly disgraced, had been placed under house arrest. He was restless, roaming the hallways, his hands desperate for sensation.
He stroked the picture frames he passed, and scratched the banisters as he descended. He took no pleasure in his photography.
He slid into rooms soundlessly, making Mimi spill her coffee on the white needlepoint tablecloth.
He used all the hot water. He ate everything in the refrigerator.
Being imprisoned and being apart from ally was not an entire loss. His schedule was now pleasingly free to dream up new ways to toy with her; to give full consideration to various Machiavellian blueprints, which if executed correctly, would almost certainly result in her passionately kissing him in front of the basketball team.
Mike, arriving home from the hospital into the fog of male hormone, had gently suggested that ally decamp to her barren, impersonal bedroom at Lester. Austin watched from the window like a ghoul as she climbed into the car.
At the school conference, which Mike and Mimi attended without question, ally was asked to wait outside.
She could still hear through the wafer walls the other reasons for her to take the internship.
It would enable her to break free from this unhealthy co dependence. Anyone could see she was a good girl being taken over entirely. Her excellent grades were starting to slip; she was obviously unwell and exhausted. Attempts to send her to another school had failed.
Tears made the florescent lights starry as she had heard the moons murmured apologies to Lester. Their promises to pay for her flights.
Ally told piper that she hadn't decided yet. Lester was letting her decide, but her passport had arrived that morning. It lay in her bedside drawer, glowing, radioactive.
"But what are you going to do about Austin?" Piper asked, and ally had been glad that her head was upside down and that her face was hidden by half formed curls. She pretended ignorance.
"Well," piper had said, "He's not going to let you go."
This was not news to ally.
"Why don't you want Austin?" Piper asked, genuinely interested. "He's supremely gorgeous, and he adores you."
"He'd eat me alive," ally had replied. "It's complicated enough already. If we had sex, it would make him even worse."
Piper had laughed. "It's so romantic." She kept curling. "I wish I had someone who felt that way about me. He's darkly, desperately in love with you." Her voice had a strange note in it, and Allys brow creased.
Piper was as always undeterred by Allys silence. "If someone loved me like that, I wouldn't know how to handle it."
"I still don't know how to handle it," ally told her. "It's too much. Besides, he doesn't feel that way about me, exactly. I don't know what he feels."
"What about you?" Piper asked, sitting her upright and pinning the curls up onto the top of her head. "Are you in love with him?"
"God, no," ally told the one lie she could actually deliver convincingly.
"We were raised together. He's practically my brother."
The familiar knot of panic settled in her stomach when female acquaintances wove Austin into conversation.
Piper wasn't so much subtly weaving. She was spray painting. Ally turned up the stereo in an attempt to signal that the conversation was over.
"Be truthful," Piper persisted, shouting over the music as ally misted herself with perfume.
"You can't tell me you haven't thought about it. You sleep down the hall from him."
Ally said nothing. Of course she had thought about it. Every day, for years.
Lester drove the girls to the party. He muttered as he pulled up in the moons drive that he would come to the party after his shift ended. He hated parties. He probably would go straight home and make an excuse.
Ally walked up the stairs into the moon house, the same house she had been in virtually every day since her mother's death, yet she hardly recognized it. It was beautiful; finally achieving its full potential. The house was full of people, elegantly dressed, handling crystal glasses and taking morsels from passing wait staff.
There was Ella Fitzgerald music playing. Ally, in her red dress, curls and red lipstick, suddenly felt like they were all in wartime, closeted together to make the most of each other's company and any pinch of luxury they could find. To live, and love, before the air raid sirens started.
Ally was pierced by the image, and felt young and impossibly happy. She was able to walk into the room with more confidence, with pipers arm linked through hers. The atmosphere was suddenly filled with possibilities. There were some classmates there, and as Mike smilingly handed her an inch of champagne, ally locked eyes with Austin.
He looked like the devil in the tuxedo that Mimi had insisted on. His hair was ruffled and twisted, and his eyes stripped the dress from her curves as she shivered.
Ally leant against the wall for support, chatting with Piper, and watched him surreptitiously throughout the evening.
He sat directly opposite her, across the room in the centre of a small grouping of chairs against the wall, slouched in boredom, his detested bowtie already dragged loose. He hadn't even bothered shaving. He had his camera with him, but was not taking photos of the guests as requested by Mimi. He shook his head at all offerings of food by the wait staff. He ignored everyone around him.
He did nothing but sprawl in his seat, motionless, except for his eyes.
Austin looked at her once in about every twenty seconds. Ally timed him. She stole another glass of unattended champagne, attempting to quench the fire in her chest. He frowned as he saw her tip the glass back, yet his eyes hinted at a perplexed amusement.
She saw him ignoring girls who tugged at his sleeves, her breath catching in her throat every time his lamplight eyes caught hers. Her pulse felt like a fingertip softly tapping at her throat. Faster now.
She smoothed her dress down, and his eyes followed her hands as she adjusted the low neckline. He raked his eyes down over her dress and her exposed limbs.
His jaw flexed as she spoke with one of Ethan's male friends, but he made no move from his seat.
Mike beckoned to Austin. He reluctantly stood and walked directly towards her, cutting through the crowd, and her knees trembled.
He snapped his eyes away from hers and veered towards Mike.
Suddenly shaky, shy, she went to the bathroom, locked herself in and studied herself in the mirror. Wondered what he was looking at.
She realised she looked like a different person. Piper had somehow sculpted her into a more beautiful, more alluring version of herself. Her skin was milk white, her dark eyes sultry beneath their black feathery lashes. Her body was an hourglass, wrapped in silk; unadorned by jewellery.
She checked her lipstick and stepped back out. Her stomach was suddenly sweetly sick.
She closed the bathroom door behind her as Austin walked past, carrying some bags of ice up from the cellar. She took his sleeve on impulse, feeling bold.
"I need to talk to you," she whispered, her nerves skittering through her.
"I need to tell you something, in private."
He arched away from her as she tugged on his lapel. She looked down at the dripping bags of ice between them. "Meet me upstairs?"
He nodded, his face completely blank, but said nothing.
She went upstairs, the champagne suddenly hitting her bloodstream, making her feel light as air. She concentrated on her feet, and watched her beautiful shoes climb each stair. One step closer.
She didn't know exactly what she wanted to do, but she was glad she had nice underwear on.
She mentally gasped at the thought, telling herself that nothing was decided, that she could change her mind at any moment.
But she knew the moment Austin realised what she was considering, the zip on her dress would be sliding down.
She felt ashamed of herself as she realised that it was possibly the prospect of a separation that was making her act.
Though, she reminded herself, that decision wasn't entirely made either. Her thoughts were fluttering. She would have to put it out of her mind, otherwise he would get upset.
Her body was assuring her that the decision was made. She felt herself growing hot, sensitive.
It was amazing how free she felt, she mused giddily. She should stop fighting him, fighting this pull. To give her body what it had been craving for so long. Maybe Piper was right; maybe he loved her enough that it could work. Maybe he just needed to be shown that he loved her, and how much.
Fate and destiny layered in her bones as she looked down from the top of the stairs, saw Mike and Mimi steal a quick kiss before parting to check on the kitchen and their guests. The warmth and energy of the house seemed to steam upwards, making her flush.
Her blood throbbed thick in her veins. She walked to the end of the hallway, and sat on the end of Austins bed.
After about ten minutes of agonised waiting, ally emerged.
"Austin?" she called.
She felt foolish as she realised he had probably been waiting in her room. She ran her finger down the wall as she approached the white door.
She paused, and could hear noises from within. With a sick kind of slow motion, she touched the door handle and for once it opened without creaking. The door slid open like a theatre curtain.
Austin was kneeling over Piper, thrusting into her. Her dress was pushed up her thighs, and his tuxedo pants were undone. Alice was laughing softly up at him, her hands grasping his shoulders.
Ally could do nothing but stand and stare, her hand clutching at her throat. Nausea roiled and she thought she would throw up.
Both Austin and Piper turned their heads at the same moment, like mirror images of each other.
Piper looked stricken. Austin did not look remotely surprised to see ally. He pushed himself away from Piper, turning to do up his pants. He rubbed at the back of his neck.
A sob broke free from Allys throat. She slowly stepped out of her high heels, and ran barefoot down the stairs.
"Ally?" Mimi called as she lurched past, out onto the stone steps, across the gravel drive, every step biting and crippling.
The air was cold and cut her flesh to pieces, but she was glad of it. She ran across the fields. It was a clear, full moon. She could hear Austin in pursuit, his harsh breathing. She slipped on the frosted grass, landed on her hip, ruining her dress. She staggered to her feet, her breath rattling in her lungs.
She ran like she was running from the hounds of hell.
She ran until she burned where once she was ice, and could not feel anything; the bruising on her side, the numbing cold, the broken heart.
She could hear his steady footfalls growing closer and closer. He was panting her name with each exhalation.
She ran up the stairs to her house and into the kitchen. Lester was standing there in dress slacks and a button up white shirt. There was a bottle of wine on table. He had been planning to come to the party after all.
Lester gaped at her in complete horror. Ally grabbed his shirt, ruining it, covering it with dirt and mud.
"Austins following me. Don't let him in! Please. Just make him leave," she begged. He took her icy shoulders and demanded to know what had happened, asked if he had hurt her.
No- yes- no- she stammered. Her feet were in agony; cut from rocks and so cold that the warmth of the room was lancing them with pins.
"I'll deal with him. Go upstairs and shower." Lesters face was grey.
He picked up his service revolver and stood on the front porch.
Ally stood numbly under the spray of hot water, watching the mud swirl away down the drain. The cuts on her feet stung so much her moan echoed off the tiles.
She washed away the lovely curls, rubbed off the lipstick, let the perfume run off her skin. She washed away that momentary, foolish decision. She made her eyes stare and would not let herself cry. The thought of her father downstairs, taking care of things, was too much. One acid tear leaked out.
She came downstairs, her ruined feet tender. Lester sat impassively in his armchair.
"He's gone," he commented curtly, observing her limping. "Disinfect those cuts."
"Please, I want to go away." She said softly, looking at the floor. "I have to get away from this."
He nodded, and they existed together in the room for several minutes of awkward silence, until it was obvious he would say no more, and she crept back up the stairs.
She just wanted to vanish.
She wanted it to be as if she had never existed.
As she huddled in bed, she finally cried.
This was what she got for making rash decisions. This was what she got for trusting, for believing that a dress and some lipstick could make all the difference. With every sob, the layer around her heart tightened.
She couldn't get warm and the cuts were so deep.
"I left the next day at lunchtime. Lester drove me to Seattle, and I went and stayed with my grandparents for a week before my flight out of the States. You didn't try to contact me. I didn't hear from you for five months." Ally said, aloud, exhausted.
She slipped her hand from his. The wind whipped at her hair. The storm was getting closer.
His eyes were still hidden behind his glasses.
He said nothing, and the feeling of embarrassed hopelessness clogged her throat. She had just told him everything, and he didn't say a word.
"I ended up going to South Africa first. I drafted press releases for Medecins Sans Frontieres."
Still, nothing.
Ally hated being stranded on this beach with him, with her worst day laid at his feet.
He walked, kicking away stones that crowded his boot, making her flinch.
The Hole in the Wall loomed up ahead, surprisingly close.
"Can I tell you my version of that night?" He asked suddenly, pushing his sunglasses onto the top of his head. He swung her around to face him.
"Is there any point?" She asked, and he looked at her with real disappointment.
"Ally, I am an asshole, but you cannot deny me this: I listened to you. Would you extend me the same courtesy?"
She opened her mouth, could not find the words, and he just looked at her for the longest time. He then turned and continued walking.
Fury knocked her down from behind, stamping up her spine, and the control on her patience snapped. She was tired of making allowances for him, for his behaviour, for handling him like a difficult child. He had effectively just dismissed her, and as she strode after him, the uneven sand and stones gave her a slight wobble, enraging her further.
She caught up with him and grabbed his wrist, dragging him around to face her.
He pulled his hand back as her anger sliced at him, but she held him so tight, he could not extricate himself.
Ally stared up into his eyes, her own narrowed and pitiless. And remembered.
She remembered flinching away from the touch of a male colleague as he accidentally brushed the back of her palm, the look of horror on the man's face, evidently wondering what had been done to her. Not being able to explain herself.
The panic attack she had half an hour before Elliot was due to pick her up for their first date. The feeling of the bathroom floor's tiles beneath her cheek as her heart pounded until she thought it would implode. The adrenalin boosting and poisoning her blood, blurring her eyes and weighting her down. The weak sickness that pervaded afterwards, robbing her of her appetite, the ability to smile and be normal as she sat across from Elliot in the restaurant. The constant reflex to look over her shoulder.
Austin pulled back his hand harder now, stepping back, blinking hard, but she stepped forward and dug her nails into the back of his hand. She grabbed a hold of his belt, the leather warm beneath her hand, and held him still with all of her strength.
His face was pinched, and she continued slapping him with the images, faster now, all out of chronological order. The cuts on her feet. Standing on the sidelines, always avoided and alone, the feeling of always being watched. The snide whispering behind her as she passed in the halls.
No privacy. No secrets. The locked door. Lesters look as she stood at the foot of the stairs, asking to leave. The sheer terror of arriving in a foreign country, so alone, feeling like the last remaining human being on Earth. The strangeness of being able to meet the eyes of other people; people who didn't know who she was, who Austin was, his gift and her unrelenting weakness.
Sleeping in silence for the first time in years.
The first female friend she made when starting at the newspaper; their regular ten o'clock coffee and cookie ritual.
Feeling anonymous, faceless in the city, cut adrift, hating it, loving it.
Being fifteen years old, watching an old black and white movie at the moons, watching a squirming heroine tied to the tracks as a train predictably loomed closer, billowing white smoke. Looking over at Austin and thinking, with a sick, strange fascination, that this dramatisation was exactly what her life was like. But the only person who could rescue her was the one that bound her.
The night she slept with Elliot for the first time, after eight months of his persistence and patience, the feel of the cotton sheet beneath her cheek afterwards as he ran his hand up her arm, her secrets safe.
Austin reared back in horror, his breath caught in his throat and his belt cutting into her fingers.
She released him. They both stood, breathing heavily, staring at each other.
Ally would think later, that the strangest thing was this.
She had rehearsed this exposition of the New Years Eve fiasco more than any other fantasy when cocooned in her bed. She had dreamed of hurting him, knocking the breath from him, exerting cruelty and power over him.
It had gone exactly as she had always dreamed it would. Even better, in fact. She had told her story, finally gotten him to listen to the events that had been the catalyst for the severing the ties that bound them. She had made him understand the pain he had caused, she was sure of it.
She had seen the look in his eyes as she finally released him, had seen him flex his fingers in pain as he staggered back.
But she watched him walk away from her, his camera swinging useless from his hand, she felt no victory at all.
As she studied his hunched shoulders, she imagined she had almost felt his deep shock and grief through the palm of his hand.
A/N: thank you so much for the reviews. Keep them coming and I'll update early again (: