Falling Away
Chapter Nine: beautiful things can come from the dark
A/N: Now that school has ended and summer vacation has begun, I will hopefully be able to update quickly and more often. I hope you like this chapter.It's a bit shorter than the others though.
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"You want to stay at the Plaza."
"Um. Yeah."
"And your reasons are, again?" Mia asked, biting her bottom lip. Adam and Mia sat at the wooden table in the kitchen, peering into each other's eyes. "You're…I mean, you're not trying to get away from me, are you?" Adam's eyes widened and he vigorously shook his head.
"No! No. Of course not, Mia," Adam said, his emerald green eyes downcast as he stirred his cup of coffee, looking for something to do with his hands, to take away his nervousness. "I…well, I just think it'd be better if I stayed at the Plaza." Mia raised an eyebrow.
"Better?" Mia echoed. "What do you mean by better?"
"For…For our relationship," Adam said, still looking down at his coffee.
"In other words, you want more privacy," Mia said flatly, her eyes still on Adam.
"Well…Yeah," Adam said admittedly, forcing himself to look up at Mia. Her gray eyes, he noted morosely, were sad. She must've, he thought, really thought that he wanted to get away from her. But it was the exact opposite, of course. He loved her but he just needed to get away from the loft. For the last few weeks, he hadn't been himself. He had tried to act like the Adam that everyone knew and hopefully liked. But that wasn't him. Not entirely, anyway.
"Okay," Mia said simply. Easy as that. Okay.
"Are you sure you're not upset?" Adam said, his electric eyes warm and careful. Mia nodded, stuffing a piece of her blueberry muffin into her mouth. Adam smiled and leaned forward, kissing her mouth softly. Mia noticed with slight disgust that he smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke.
"Have you already packed your bags?" Mia questioned, dusting the crumbs leftover from the blueberry muffin off of the table, onto the spotless kitchen floor. Adam took her hands from across the table, concentrating on her short, but manicured, fingernails.
"Adam?" Helen said from the entrance to the kitchen. "There's a limo here for you. Adam looked to Mia and smiled, giving her hands a gentle squeeze.
"I'll call you tonight," Adam said, beaming. "And we can arrange dinner plans for tonight, okay?"
"All right," Mia said, not wanting Adam to leave on such short notice. Or leave at all. Helen smiled at the couple before heading back to her bedroom, where Frank was watching a documentary on jellyfish. The couple rose from their seats and walked to the exit to the kitchen.
"I love you, Mia," Adam said. He cupped her face, planting several small kisses onto her lips. Mia grinned.
"I love you too, Adam," Mia said, pecking his cheek.
"Bye," Adam said softly. He smiled before walking toward the entrance to the loft. He smirked back at her before opening the door and leaving the loft. Her lips burned where Adam had kissed her, so softly, so tenderly. Her normally cold hands were still warm from his grasp.
"Bye, Adam."
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"Can you drum a little louder, Kristen?" Michael hissed into the microphone. Mission for Recognition was practicing for their headlining tour, which would be starting in a mere two weeks. In fact, the kickoff show would be on Michael's twenty-fourth birthday. Michael felt oddly nervous as the prospect of going out on tour, riding on a tour bus with four other people. One of them being a person he desperately needed to cool off his relationship with.
"So, you're starting with 'Darkest Rose?'" Warren Semple asked from across the room, sipping a glass of red wine as he watched Mission for Recognition practice. They had so far been practicing for nearly a half-hour with not much progress. Kristen drummed much too softly while Michael seemed to want to appear broody so his vocals were too growly and not very understandable. He noticed, though, that Max was playing with newfound enthusiasm.
"Yeah, that or 'Reoccurring Kind,'" Michael uttered into the microphone, a small smirk playing on his pink lips. Warren nodded lazily as Michael's personal assistant wrote down notes beside him.
"Michael. Stop trying to act all troubled and shit," Warren said, his eyes rolling like cherries in a slot machine. "We all know that you come from a relatively wealthy family with some penthouse apartment." Michael shot Warren a glaring look before speaking into the microphone.
"Okay, let's play…'Pessimistic Paranoia.'"
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MISSION FOR RECOGNITION Track Listing
Darkest Rose
Reoccurring Kind
Pessimistic Paranoia
The Nonexistent Girl Finds Her Way Back
Aiming for Ailema
Wishing for Nothing
Look My Way
Empty Glances and Stares
Keeping the Night
Brand My Name
Falling Away
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They had planned to meet up at seven-thirty for a nice dinner in an elegant Italian restaurant. Mia lightly drummed her fingers on the glass-covered table, her eyes on the entrance to the restaurant. It was seven forty-five and Adam had yet to show up. She had chosen an amazing outfit to wear and if he didn't appear soon, he'd never get to see it.
"May I take your order, miss?" asked the waiter, a glowing smile on his tan face. "Or are you waiting for someone?" Mia opened her mouth to respond but at that exact moment, Adam burst into the door, a serious look on his face. He spoke to the concierge and then saw Mia. A warm look replaced his former seriousness and he walked over to Mia. He swiftly swooped down and kissed her cheek before taking the seat from across her.
"Uh, I'll have pasta with prego sauce, Parmesan cheese, and no meat," Mia said, looking up at the waiter. "And…a glass of iced tea, I guess. Thanks." The waiter nodded and then turned to Adam.
"And you, mister?"
"I'll have the same," Adam said. The waiter took both of their menus and walked toward the kitchen.
"Where have you been?" Mia said quietly, taking a roll from the basket of bread on the center of the round table.
"There was a lot of traffic," Adam said, reaching for Mia's hand across the table. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Mia said, whose right hand was now enclosed in Adam's. He caressed her thumb, using the other hand to hold up a glass of water to his lips. The buttered roll melted slowly in her mouth as she took in the sight of Adam, his hair perfectly ruffled, his verdant eyes deep and spirited. He really was very beautiful, Mia thought. There were a few short moments of painful silence before Adam broke it.
"So. What did you do today, Mia?" Adam asked, pulling his hand back to his side from Mia's. Mia looked bemused as she stared at her empty hand on the dark blue clothed table. "Nothing," Mia said quietly, pulling her hand back to her lap as Adam watched her every movement with somewhat less vivacity than he once had.
"I just wrote some more of my novel and played with Rocky," Mia said in a shockingly cool voice. So, she hadn't written a full-length novel by the time she was twenty, like she had planned when she was fifteen. But she had finished a little less than the Young Adult novel she had started when she was seventeen. Before then, Mia had concentrated on writing articles and short stories for The Atom, Albert Einstein High School's newspaper. She had even gone on to become the editor-in-chief of the newspaper her senior year.
"Oh. That's rad," Adam said, almost encouragingly. The conversation wasn't going as well he had hoped. "I settled into one of the larger suites at the Plaza. It's actually a floor or two beneath Clarisse's. And I saw Michael Z pacing outside, waiting for a cab or something. I didn't say 'Hi' though."
"That's…cool," Mia said, still partially irritated that Adam had chosen to stay at the Plaza instead of at her mom and stepdad's apartment. She thought sadly of the empty guest room which still smelled like Adam, of coffee, cigarettes, and burnt leaves, the scent she longed to smell everyday when she woke up.
"I guess so," Adam said. Mia was surprised at the sheer awkwardness of the conversation, the long pauses. She felt suffocated and that was never something she had expected to feel when she was with Adam.
She sighed, fingering her snowflake necklace.
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If I didn't care about you
Would you still care about me?
If I drank until I slept
Would you still think about me?
You glance my way
And I can't help but stare back
It may be carved in stone but
I still want you
I still need you
--Excerpt from "Empty Glances and Stares" by Mission for Recognition
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"Hello?"
"Hi, Michael!"
"Mom?"
"Yes, sweetie. It's mom. We were all just wondering if…"
"Yeah?"
"Could you come back to the apartment so we can give you your Hanukkah presents? I forgot to when you visited two weeks ago."
"Oh! Hanukkah?"
"Yes…Hanukkah…You know, the Jewish holiday celebrated over a course of eight days in which—"
"Mom. I know what Hanukkah is."
"Of course you do, Michael."
"Okay, so I'll come by tomorrow."
"Around seven?"
"Yeah. Seven's fine. Bye."
"Michael."
"Yeah?"
"Have you been wearing thick layers to protect yourself from the cold? I know how your skin can—"
"Mom!…"
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's okay. Bye."
"Bye, Michael."
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"Oh…my…God." Those three words pretty much summed up the thoughts of Mission for Recognition when they entered the Plaza to see it had been "magically transformed" in the time they had been rehearsing across town for the Glances and Stares Tour. The fountain in the middle of the lobby had been replaced with a simply enormous Christmas tree, though the reception desk was encircled with Menorahs. Red and green garlands hung loosely around the room, above the fireplaces and drowning the tree.
"Now I feel like an outcast for being Jewish," Michael said sarcastically, looking up at the ceiling. Red, green, and white balloons covered the usually beautiful ceiling. They looked rather menacing; He was afraid that they might come untied and kill them all.
"You're not alone, Michael," David murmured as soft fake snowflakes fell down onto their heads, covering their hair with shimmering flakes of fake snow.
"So, who wants to come over to the Moscovitz apartment and see what Hanukkah gifts I've gotten?" Michael said, leading them toward the elevator. The elevator doors opened and they all went inside. Michael pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator stopped at the fourth floor. The doors opened and Michael gasped at what he saw.
Adam and Mia were kissing, their arms wrapped around each other.
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A/N: You know what to do.