AN: Well I got a lot of views and follows for that last chapter haha. Drama draws them in, eh? So just quickly I'd like to thank Luckystarz910 for always reviewing, and I mean like every chapter! But also to Dr. Austin A. Winchester whose review kinda made my day in a totally lame way. But thanks to everyone who is on this journey with me:) I FINALLY finished Chapter 11! It took me so long and I don't have a clue why haha. Anyway enough of me rambling, here is Chapter 8! :) Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally. But for the record I do wish I owned How I Met Your Mother because that way I wouldn't be still pissed off at that ending...

Parties & Mistakes

Chapter 8: Ally's POV

There's times when you need to let things fester. Or at least that's what it seems like now. Things were too fresh, too new, we couldn't talk to each other. This had become clear to me. We let our emotions get the better of us. But this realization didn't help me feel better in the slightest. We made that mistake in talking to each other when we were both clearly too upset to just talk. Things had been said that never should have been. I guess anger has that way with people.

A sigh escaped me. I wanted out of this incessant English lecture. I hated that I wanted out of the lecture, because I love English. It's my favourite subject and it's never boring. For the past week though, English - much like all my other classes - had been boring. I couldn't focus because everything reminded me of the catastrophe that is my social life. The blonde boy sitting in front of me reminded me of said social life.

He was slumped against the wall, trying desperately to pay attention in class. His hand was on his head, a support to keep it up. He looked bored to say the least. I knew that wasn't just it though. He may have been bored like I was, but that was a whole different and new kind of boredom. I felt so bad for him. Everyone was still hating on him, it was unrelenting. In a day he'd gone from an up and coming popular superstar to an average boy who was the brunt of the joke. I'd ruined everything for him. I ruined his life and I wasn't even sharing any of his blame. Is it worse to suffer in silence or own up and be made fun of for it? That was the question taunting me every waking hour of the day. It was a question that was even bothering me in my sleep. I'd been having the weirdest dreams and they all revolved around Austin. They all had his lazy grin, his tousled blonde locks, those enticing brown eyes. Even in my sleep I couldn't get away from him.

"Ally?" Mr. Fairfield asked. Shit. I have no idea what he asked. I'm his star student and I have no idea what he was talking about. What's he going to think of me now?

"Uhhh.." I spoke. My eyes were wide as saucers, I was desperately trying to scrounge up some answer. Someone give me a hint!

Austin slunk off of the wall and turned around to face me. "Ophelia's death," he mouthed to me. What about it?! I opened my mouth, about to spew some answer about symbolism and suicide, when the bell rang.

"Oh thank God," I whispered to the desk.

"Don't like Hamlet?" Trish asked me, a strange grimace on her face.

"We'll pick up our discussion where we left off tomorrow," Mr. Fairfield said. "Starting with you Ally."

I shot him a wry smile then looked away, somehow managing to stare at Austin who had just gotten out of his chair. He knocked twice on my desk, debating whether or not to say something. I glanced down at my maroon leather messenger bag, putting everything that I had taken out back into it. When my gaze drew upward again, he was gone. I guess he'd decided not to talk.

I huffed out my breath and shook my head, slinging my bag over my shoulder. It was then I realized Trish was watching me. I jumped.

"Okay..." she drew out the word, confusion crossing her features. "And that was?"

"What?" I asked, playing the innocent card.

She looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. "Ally, what is going on?"

I bit my lip as we made our way out of the classroom. I held open the navy coloured door for her before mumbling something about getting to class and not being late. This hurried mumbling was a horrible getaway attempt, but I ran off before any further questioning happened. She knew. I didn't know what she knew, but she knew something. It wasn't like I'd been discrete in my awkwardness. You'd have to be close to me to see that I had a problem, and she was exactly that. To my understanding, she probably thought I was still stressing over what we had talked about on Sunday. She probably thought I just felt awkward because I was in love with him. Well, there's a bit more on top of that.

I usually walked to class with Trish, or at least to the stairs where I'd go up and she'd stay down. But it had been different for a while. What I'd done with Austin had shifted more than just my relationship with him. It had made me feel something that I couldn't quite pinpoint, a feeling that only led to dodgy, abnormal behaviour. Which of course Trish noticed. I was probably the most obvious awkward person in the world.

I slumped down into my seat, listening to the girls in front of me yammering on about Austin. I'd realized that even though people hated him now, there were certain groups that had some degree of pity for him. Of course, those groups absolutely despised the girl he'd slept with.

"I'm totally betting she used him. Like she was probably the one who got him to the point where he would sleep with her," Tracey, a petit blonde girl who had always had a thing for him, said.

"So then why's he protecting her?" her friend Amber asked.

"I think he's just a nice guy."

"That or he doesn't know," Leslie, the third friend supplied.

At that point our teacher walked in, informing us that this was a period to work on our upcoming projects. Which basically meant everyone was going to talk. Everyone was going to talk about the giant rumour that had been plaguing the school. I sighed and pulled out my laptop. If I was smart I would've asked to go to the lab, but now he's seen my computer.

"Seriously?!" I heard Amber shriek loudly, her tanned manicured hand coming to her mouth.

"Yeah. She's throwing another party. Same day, just a different week. Everybody's thinking she's doing this to get the same result." Leslie supplied.

"I think everybody knows that's what she wants. But how fucking stupid is that?" Tracey said rolling her doe eyes. "I mean it's not like Austin's going to go to the party."

"Oh my God..." I mumbled to myself.

Suddenly three sets of eyes were on me. I stared impassively at my laptop pretending that I'd seen something on there to warrant that reaction.

"You're one of Austin's friends, aren't you?" Tracey asked.

I closed my eyes, wanting to talk about anything but him. When I opened them again I panned up the screen before meeting three curious faces. They all looked bright eyed bushy tailed. This whole Austin scenario was making everyone way too curious.

"Yes..." I said hesitantly.

Tracey beamed. Amber exchanged excited glances with Leslie. I feel an interrogation coming on.

"So like do you know who he did it with?" Leslie asked. They were positively bouncing with excitement. I absently drummed my fingers on my desk, well aware they were studying my every move.

"Uhhh..." it was times like these I wondered what my face looked like. I hoped to all hope that it was not a mask of guilt. "Well no"

Frowns crossed their features. Confusion laced Tracey's face. "But, how do you not know?"

"It's somewhat changed how Trish and I interact with him," I spoke. At least that wasn't a lie.

"So you guys aren't speaking to him?" Tracey asked, confused.

"We're speaking, just not about that," I placed emphasis on the final word, inadvertently making my eyebrows rise.

They all mumbled words of registration. Each of them studied me for a beat of a minute, trying to decide if I was reliable or not. Eventually they turned around and continued their conversation about Austin.

I pretended to be working for the rest of the class. Pretended like I was doing research, or typing, or doing something remotely productive, but all I could focus on was their conversation. It was more than Trish had gathered in her gossip search. I should've expected that though, these girls knew everything. The only thing they didn't know was that I was the one Austin had slept with.

They talked of Kira's new party. She somehow thought that the same result would happen as last time. She thought that Austin would return, and again have sex with this 'unknown' girl. I have to admit it would be pretty funny just to go there and spite her by doing that, though I'm not exactly that person. And I don't think Austin is either. This attempt was fairly futile on Kira's part, but from the gossip sisters I found out why she was doing it. She'd narrowed her list down to 20 people before taking Austin's words to heart. Obviously she wasn't on that list. Once Kira had realized that 'the mystery woman' wasn't on the list she needed a different tactic. Bring in the idea of another party! No doubt it was a stupid idea, even the gossip sisters thought so. They always say desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess this was one of many desperate measures.

Mainly though they talked about Austin rather than the odd actions of Kira. For nearly an hour they talked about him. Defending him and berating the whore who seduced him. Needless to say I was overjoyed when that last bell rang.

It was like last week. I just wanted to get home. There was no greater desire than that in my body. I just wanted out of the rumour mill, the one that was somehow revolved around me. The mystery whore, as everyone had started to call her, was faceless and nameless, but still the talk of the school. Well this mystery whore has spent only a week in this place and is already sick of it. The thing is, there's no way for it to end. Whether I come clean or not, people will still talk. Kira will still be hunting, and will be even more relentless when she finds the one who 'victimized' her. So I pose again, is it better to suffer alone or own up and be hated for it?

"Ally wait up!" Trish called from the opposite side of the foyer. "Ugh, why are you not going to your locker anymore? You're always in such a hurry! Are you avoiding me? Did I do something? Are you still pissed at me for leaving you at the party? Pissed enough that you wouldn't want to go to the makeup one tonight?" she looked so concerned, always babbling more when things were wrong. But I had had it with today and everything that had happened the past week, so I snapped.

"I'm more pissed that you even dragged me to that damn party in the first place!" I yelled a decibel too high. A red headed freshman looked over at us, curious as to what we may be fighting about. I sighed and dropped my voice. "Besides, I wouldn't be allowed to go if I wanted to."

"Right, your mom probably wouldn't want that," she spoke, ignoring my first comment. There was curiosity sparkling in her eyes, but she had the decently not to talk about it in public. "So your house or mine?" she asked in a way that told me I was not getting out of this.

"Mine."

A&A

When Trish wants to talk about something serious, it means business. Serious business. There's very little that she takes seriously, she's a carefree spirit, the complete opposite of me. That's why I love her. But in this moment I did not love her.

We were sitting in the living room of my house. Neither of us were talking. She was simply staring at me, waiting for me to spill whatever was making me act so differently. Of course I had no idea where to start.

And a part of me was kind of mad at her for taking me to that party. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be in this mess.

"Come on," she said absolutely exasperated. She was sitting cross legged on the leather footstool in front of me, fingers toying with the strings on her zebra print scarf. "Al, come on." she said more gently, leaning forward as a sign of comfort.

I blinked a few times before everything broke. I laid my head against my drawn up knees as sobs began to wrack my body. Tears streamed down my face, making my legs wet through the fabric of my dress. My hands went to my hair, then moved to begin wiping at my eyes. I couldn't think. I could barely breathe.

"Oh my God!" I heard Trish whisper and felt her presence beside me on the couch. Her arms wrapped around me and I cried into her shoulder every pent up emotion I had had during that week was gone. It was gone in a stream of tears from a broken soul.

"Ally it's okay," Trish spoke clearly.

"No..." I garbled. "It is so... So far passed okay.. Noth..nothing is okay. Nothing is ever g..going to be okay."

"Well that's dramatic," I pulled away from her shoulder to glare. "Sorry!" she held her arms out, welcoming me back into them. I heard her sigh, I knew she didn't know what to make of this. Quite honestly, I didn't either.

I don't know how long I cried on her. All I know is that when I stopped my eyes hurt and my face was beat red.

"Are you okay?" Trish asked me quietly.

"No," I matched her tone.

"What happened?"

I took a deep shaky breath, willing myself not to cry anymore. "I had sex with Austin."

Surprise registered on her face for a moment before she closed her eyes. She let out a sigh and shook her head slightly, sending curls back and forth. When she snapped her eyes open I saw sorrow.

"Why didn't you tell me? Ally, I could've helped you. You must've felt horrible. Obviously you still do feel horrible. Oh my God, this is why you've been acting so weird. It's why Austin's been acting so weird around you. Oh I feel awful. I kept telling you everything about all of this! I kept bringing him up and forcing you to watch videos and making you read comments about yourself. Oh God, everyone at school's been talking about 'the mystery whore', I even called her that. I'm so sorry, you're not a whore. Granted you guys are stupid, but you're not a whore." she rambled on. A small smirk appeared on my face and I almost laughed. But even if she was rambling, she was right. I felt awful.

"I have no idea what to do," I sniffed.

"Have you talked to Austin?" a mixture of pity and excitement creeping into her voice.

"Yeah... Let's just say, it didn't go well."

"What? Why? What happened?"

Curiosity killed the cat. It was an expected question but a part of me didn't want to talk about it. The other more logical part of me, knew I had to though. I sighed, straightening out my legs and placing my feet on the ground. I hunched over, propping my arms up on my knees and my head on my hands. "We fought. We didn't start out that way. I mean we were awkward as hell but we were semi joking."

"So then how'd you start fighting?"

"I guess we just weren't ready to talk. I said we were stupid and Austin got all righteous, telling me to come clean if I want to," I straightened up and met her eyes. "He got really defensive and I don't know why."

"Boys are idiots." she offered, laughing slightly. "It's like a fact."

She may have been laughing, but I could tell she was angry. "Don't be mad at him, I'm just as at fault."

"Maybe, but I bet you didn't start the fight."

I huffed glancing down at my hands, "How do I fix this?"

Silence filled the room. It wasn't like Trish to just stop talking especially when she was asked a direct question. I shifted my gaze over, she was visibly shaking with anger. I opened my mouth, confused, before noticing that she was staring at something. Someone.

In the entrance to the living room, stood Austin Moon.

AN: Leaving on a tiny bit of a cliffhanger. Gotta keep you guys on your toes! Reviews are lovely guys:) See you next Saturday!