About two weeks have gone by. After school one day Susie comes running up to me holding a piece of paper. She jumps up and down happily. "What?" I ask her.
"The schools talent show! It's coming up! I can't wait." She says.
"That's cool." I say.
"Do you have any talents? You should totally do it. Make your mark on the school before you…" She stops herself.
"I like to sing, and play piano. But I have horrible stage fright, so good luck getting me on stage." I say, but when her eyes light up, I automatically regret saying that.
"You are totally entering!" She says.
"Do the things I say to you just like, go in one ear and then right out the other?" I ask her. She just laughs. "But first, we're going to get Austin back, and then you guys can like sing together or something."
I almost drop my book onto the floor, but catch it in time. Why did she have to mention Austin? And why did she have to mention us singing together? Memories flash in front of my eyes. The first time I went to Austin's house, when we sang 'Marry You' together. The first time we kissed. A tear falls down my cheek. Susie notices automatically. "Oh no. What did I say?" She asks.
"Nothing… It's just Austin and I sang a song together once. We barely knew each other and I went to his house and we started to sing Marry You. And then he kissed me after." I say, and then sigh. Just then I notice someone near the end of the lockers, like there listening. Susie says something and distracts me but when I look back, they're gone.
"And forget about your plan, I already told you it won't happen." I say and walk towards the doors.
Susie's POV: Woahh that's a first right?
I see Austin going up to his locker. I know Ally said not to go ahead with my plan, but it doesn't hurt to try, right?
"Austin. We need to talk, now." I say.
He's startled by me at first and then nods, continuing to take books out and put them in his locker.
"You need to get back together with Ally." I say.
I think I hear a chuckle. "You're funny."
I stare at him, and make my face as serious as possible. "I'm serious." I say.
"I'm not going to. She keeps too many things from me and that's not healthy. Plus, I've been hanging with Lily and she really isn't that bad. We've been doing a lot of things we did when we dated. Like hangout spots and stuff."
I start to feel sick. "You're kidding me right? You don't even know what's going on with Ally. Maybe she had a really good reason to keep things from you or something. Try to sit her down and talk to her." I say, but he just shakes his head.
"It's for the best I guess." He says.
I shake my head. "Wow, and I thought you were better than this." I say, I slam his locker door shut and walk away.
End of Susie's POV:
Me, sing in the talent show? Susie is crazy. I mean, it'd be kind of cool, but not with my horrible stage fright. First semester is over in a month, and my dad's starting to pack. Now he hides the boxes from me before I can hide them from him.
I'm lying in my bed, writing in my song book when I hear a knock at my front door. My dad's not home so I run downstairs to open it. It's Susie. She looks… angry.
She bursts through the door and sits down on my couch. I walk over and stand in front of her. "Hi?" I say.
"New plan, you're going to sing a song at the talent show to get Austin's damn attention." She says.
"Did you… Did you talk to him or something?" I half yell.
"Uh… Maybe" I say.
"Susie! You promised!" I yell now.
"Hey! I promised I wouldn't tell him you're moving. And I didn't. I just tried to talk some sense into him. You need to work fast girl, Lily's starting to break him down. They've been hanging out!" She says.
I feel my heart break into another thousand pieces. I sit down next to her, "Really?" I ask her. She nods. "We need to find some song out there that will be perfect for you to sing." She says.
"I, I write songs." I blurt out, "Really? That's perfect!"
"I can't. I can't sing in front of people! And plus, me singing a song to him isn't going to change his mind." I say.
"We have to try." She says.
I sigh. "I'll try to write a song. Good luck getting me out there." I say.
"It will happen!" Susie says excitedly.
xXxXxXx
That night I sit at my desk and stare at my song book, but nothing is coming to me. How do I write a song to sing to Austin to tell him how I'm feeling, in front of everyone? No way, I can't do this. I rip out a page from my book that's been written on, and then erased, and then smudged with tear drops. I crumpled it up in my hand and threw it across the room.
I stare outside my window and try to brainstorm but all I can think of is Austin. What is he doing right now? He could be with Lily. Susie said that they have been hanging out a lot. I can't believe that he would hang out with her. She's probably using past memories to get him to be into her. She works fast; here I was worrying about ghosts when there was a live person trying to ruin my life too.
Anger and sadness starts to boil inside me and I take my book and throw it, as hard as I can, in the trash. I walk over to my bed and crumble into the pile of blankets and pillows. I take deep breaths and try to promise myself I won't cry again.
I wake up and I realize I fell asleep, it's the middle of the night and it's rather warm in my room, even with the window open. I walk over to the window and I realize that it's because it's fairly warm outside. I'm tempted to go for a walk but I don't dare go anywhere at night by myself.
I walk back to my bed and force myself to go back to sleep again.
xXxXxXx
School can be such a dreadful place. It's supposed to be the place of learning, to enjoy, to even sometimes, have fun. But then there's boys and girls in the same building all day and all that causes is, drama, heartbreak, awkwardness, friendship, romance etc. I unfortunately have to deal with the heartbreak and awkwardness, with Austin and Lily. The only thing that sort of gets me through is the friendship with Susie and Dez.
Lily's waiting for Austin at his locker, before school has even started this morning. I hide behind my opened locker door and act like I'm really preoccupied. But I peak around the locker door every once in a while. Austin shows up finally, but he doesn't look at pleased as I expected him to be. She hugs him as he puts his backpack in his locker. He sort of hugs her back and she starts blabbing about who knows what. Probably dinner plans later, or make out plans or something.
I sigh and slam my locker door shut and sadly, walk by them since that's the way I have to go to my next class. Austin watches me as I walk by and Lily smiles big and says "Hi Ally!" I give her a look. One of those looks that's like "I know your psycho so don't say hi to me". And continue to walk.
I'm at my new usual table outside for lunch and Susie and Kendall join me again. They've been eating with me every day now, and occasionally Dez will join us too.
"Only a few weeks until the talent show!" Susie says happily.
"So?" Kendall says.
"Um, I'm dancing in it! And Ally's going to sing!" She says.
I try not to choke on my chocolate milk, "No. I'm not. I couldn't even write a song." I say.
"You have plenty of time left to write a song." She says.
"You can think that…" I say.
"So, Austin said he was thinking of entering the talent show." Kendall says.
Now I get that sick feeling in my stomach that I get every time someone mentions Austin's name. If he does enter the talent show, he'd win for sure. I'm surprised he'd enter though.
"Lily won't like that." I say.
Kendall shakes his head, "Actually, she's the one that's trying to con him into it." He says.
"But I thought one of the reasons they broke up was…" But I stop talking. Susie just nods, understanding what I'm thinking.
One of the reasons Austin broke up with Lily was because she wasn't supportive of his music career hopes. But now if she tries to in courage it, she'll think she has more of a chance with him.
"Awesome." I say sarcastically. I lay my head on the table, tempted to start hitting my head off of it multiple times.
"Song… Talent show… Win back your man." Susie says, in an odd ghostly mesmerizing dramatic voice. I just laugh at her.