Ally's teeth gouged the tip of her thumb.

She had done the right thing, but she couldn't deny that his voice sounded sore, tired even. Like maybe, somewhere inside of him, he was aching just as much as she was. She knew he loved her, she knew that, but she wondered why he couldn't love her enough to stay.

It didn't matter now.

She was gone. Literally. She was staring out the window at clouds and the blue sky that swallowed her. She focused on not looking towards the ground that looked nothing less than little particles that she could squish with her bare hands.

LA was part of her past. Austin was part of her past.

She could have told Trish. She could have told Cassidy. She thought about their reactions when they would discover that her whereabouts were no longer in LA, but she quickly reasoned with herself that she could not afford to have another goodbye spoken to her.

If I could ruin her, I could ruin you.

And Ally didn't want to realize he was right, but she had realized it. Just in saying those words, he'd completely torn cities out of her bones. The cities that they built there together. And maybe that metaphor is too poetic, but isn't that what pain is? Some form of poetry that never rubs off your paper?

He did ruin her.

Because suddenly, she became nothing. She was her pain and it didn't matter how far she opened her blinds, or how much sunlight pierced through her, she would be the darkness that would kill it. She wasn't sure when her hopes and her dreams had become grains of sand, but at some point they had and they slipped right through her fingers and she didn't dare make a sandcastle out of them.

For a moment, she thinks about the what-if's. You know, the what if this was a mistake? Well, it probably was, but Austin "letting her go" (as he put it) was also a mistake and she hoped he ached about it. And the worst part about hoping he ached, was she still wanted to be the one to take the ache away.

She scoffs quietly to herself.

She was all kinds of pathetic, wasn't she? She loved recklessly and she was going to pay the price for it. Besides, who was she to think that she could ever love somebody like Austin Moon or that Austin Moon could love her back and it would be just like all the fairytale's?

Good God, she thinks way too much. He wasn't going to be all that she thought about on the flight to Miami. He wasn't going to be all that she thought about in Miami. Scratch that. She'd known before she'd even stepped foot into the airport that he would be both of those things. He'd only been occupying her thoughts since they'd split.

And maybe she does feel like crying about the fact that it's exactly a month ago today that her world flipped. That he tore something sacred out of her, something she held for him and still held for him. But she won't let him take anything else away from her.

Only because he'd already taken everything away from her.

He'd taken her heart, her right to love fearlessly, and he'd simply taken her heart with him. Her chest is as hollow as a pin-pricked egg. Hollow like an empty auditorium and something was screaming for her to come back, but it was of no avail. The screams are just bouncing back and forth, back and forth, wall to wall, and she was not there to hear.

She'd lost everything. Her heart. Her mind. The man she loved. Her record deal - even if that was a personal choice of hers.

Pain is a funny thing. When your heart is broken, your eyes fly open. You see everything in front of you and in hindsight. And what she saw in her future was something she no longer wanted without him. She couldn't sing to a crowd without thinking of the way his eyes gleamed underneath the stage lights, she wouldn't be able to write without thinking of that piano bench that granted them their first kiss. She couldn't do the music without him. It seemed he'd taken that right out of her.

She'll never forget the disappointment in Jimmy's face and the disappointment in her father's voice when she'd explained her newest clarity. Music was something she'd never give up on, but currently, she could not take that big of a step while still trying to regain her balance from her roughest fall yet.

The turbulence shakes her out of her thoughts, but doesn't shake the pain out of her. When it's over and the ride is smooth again, she almost thinks she misses the turbulence. It was the only thing so far that had her forgetting why she was on the plane in the first place.

She was running.

It seemed she had more in common with Austin than she thought.

But it wasn't until Austin had broken up with her that she realized how much she was missing her father's Saturday Morning waffles and his unrealistic optimism about rain storms. She smiles slightly, for the first time in a while. She imagines him saying: What a stupid boy. And maybe that's what he was. A stupid boy. A stupid boy whom she'd fallen stupidly and madly in love with, as cheesy as it sounds.

Maybe the Miami waves could wash it all away.

x

She stood there on her own, in the middle of a busy airport, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as her hands were hooked around two handles that bagged most of her belongings.

As she squinted through the crowds of people, her eyes landed on rounded cheeks and the familiar eyes she had inherited. What was left of her heart had nearly leapt out of her chest.

She wasn't sure if it was her emotional instability or the fact that she hadn't properly seen her father face to face for half a year, but suddenly her feet took her running and into his arms she pounced. Her heavy bags falling to the floor just a few inches behind her.

Hardly having time to register that it was his daughter, Lester stood there baffled until he caught the familiar scent of spicy vanilla that filled his nostrils as his face was buried into her shoulder. A burning sensation of longing and joy warmed his chest and his arms bound around her, holding her tighter to him. He was still having trouble getting over the fact she had recently moved so far from him.

He mumbled her name, but found his lips grabbing a mouthful of her hair causing him to pull back from her tight embrace. He took a look at her face, touching her cheek lightly. Behind her eyes sparkle, he saw sadness and it was his fatherly instinct to take that away.

"I've missed you." Lester finally voiced.

"I missed you, too." Ally echoed, wild emotions of happiness, longing, and sadness flitted across her gaze. She couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms around his neck once more. "Let's go home." she whispered.

He smiled gingerly as she released him. He nodded. "Beth was too excited when she heard you were coming home; she made the most delicious muffins."

Ally's eyes sparkled with hope, "Chocolate chip?"

"Mhm," her father hummed. "You should have seen the mess she made of the kitchen."

A laugh bubbled out Ally's throat as she recalled the memories of her recent step mother. Her father had met the petite woman a little over two years ago and married her last winter. Their wedding was probably Ally's favourite day; seeing her father so elated and filled with joy was all she could have ever asked after what her mother had put him through.

"How is Beth, by the way?" Ally finally asked as she took one bag from the floor and her father took the other.

He smiled over at his daughter. "She's great; got promoted to Manager at the grocers."

Ally's lips curled into a smile, one of the kinds that hadn't reached her lips very often lately. "That's great, Dad. She deserves it."

"She really does." Lester agreed.

Ally and Lester continued a warm conversation as they left the airport. They discussed nice things like the weather and Beth's cooking.

x

"...And that's why a woman doesn't need a man." Beth finished, matter-of-factly.

Ally nodded her head in agreement as a laugh rippled out her mouth. The laughter was cut short as Ally picked at her muffin. "What if said woman still loves said man, even though said man broke her heart?" Ally asked quietly.

Beth glanced over at Ally. "Said woman deserves a man who won't break her heart."

Ally breathed deeply through her nostrils and smiled politely at Beth. She reverted her gaze to the muffin that had become nothing but crumbs on her plate.

"He..." Ally trailed off. She tried to search for the right words, but couldn't find anything. How could she explain what happened to anyone when she didn't even know herself?

Ally swallowed and decided to bring something else up. "He called me. The other night."

Beth's eye brow rose high in surprise. "He called you?" Pause. "Did you answer?"

"I hung up." Ally said, something like guilt weighing her voice down.

"But you answered?" Beth quizzed.

"I didn't know it was him." Ally replied. Ally felt something sting behind her eyes, but she forced it away. "Is it bad that I...regret it?"

Beth shook her head. "It's been a month, Ally. People don't heal in a month."

"That's the thing." Ally voiced. "I don't...I don't want to heal from this. I don't want there to come a day where I'm not thinking about him or where I don't wish he was calling me. I want to need him. I want to want him." Ally explained. "I love him, Beth."

Beth tapped the counter as she stared at her step-daughter. "Then, why are you in Miami?"

"I..." Ally's voice hung in the air. "I missed my Dad. I missed you. I missed..."

"You missed the days that were before him." Beth concluded, thoughtfully.

Ally shook her head. "No," she whispered, "I only miss him."

x

"What do you mean she left?" Austin scowled.

"I mean, Cassidy and I went up to her apartment and she was gone." Trish said.

Cassidy jumped in. "Most of her stuff was still there so maybe she's isn't gone. I mean, maybe she just left the city for a few days." Cassidy comforted.

Austin's gaze narrowed on her, mentally shooting daggers into her figure. "What are you even doing here?" Austin growled.

Cassidy sighed, tilting her head up to look heavenward as she begged God to give her patience. She looked back at Austin. "Look, I know you're all Hulk about the fact that she hung up on you, but you don't need to take it out on me." Cassidy scolded. "I mean, not that I'm surprised you would or anything." Cassidy grumbled as an afterthought.

Dez joined the threesome in the living room, handing Austin a beer. Trish scowled at him. "You're supposed to be comforting him, not giving him a drinking problem!" she yelped.

"I am comforting." Dez replied. "Beer is a comfort."

"Shut up, both of you." Austin snapped. "Why would she leave?"

"Here's a thought," Cassidy tapped her chin twice, faking deep thought, "Maybe because her boyfriend broke her heart?"

"Cassidy," Austin hissed, lowly.

Cassidy caught herself feeling a little bit sympathetic suddenly. She glanced over at Trish and then looked towards Austin. "Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that she...went back on her record deal." Cassidy said, timidly.

Austin looked at Cassidy. "She...what?"

Trish stepped forward. "Ally went back to Jimmy and resigned from her record deal."

"Why would she do that?" Austin questioned, baffled.

Trish shrugged. "I don't know. Jimmy told me a couple of days ago. He never went into detail, just said that she resigned. Cassidy and I hadn't heard from her in a couple of days, so that's why we decided on going to her apartment."

"That's when we found that she wasn't even home." Cassidy finished.

"Wait, wait, wait." Dez broke the tense air. "How'd you guys even get into her apartment?"

"I had a spare key from when I bought her the apartment." Trish responded.

"And you guys just sort of...unlocked her apartment and poked around in it?" His eyes grew slightly as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Creepy."

"That's not the point, Dezmond!" Cassidy hissed.

"That is kind of creepy." Austin agreed after a moment.

The girls grunted and rolled their eyes.

"Where do you think she could have gone?" Dez asked.

"I know where she is." Austin muttered, taking a sip of his beer. "She went home. Back to Miami."

"How do you know that's where she is?" Trish asked.

"Simple. Before we broke up, she'd been telling me that she wanted to visit her Dad because she'd been missing him. We break up, where else does she want to go? Daddy's arms." Austin said, gulping his drink.

"Do you think she'll be back?" Cassidy asked. "Why wouldn't she say goodbye?"

"Well, You two aren't exactly the most exciting." Austin replied, wryly. He frowned when Trish tossed a pillow at his head.

"Don't you want to go after her? Find her in Miami?" Cassidy questioned.

"Why would I do that?" Austin questioned, taking another sip of his beer. "We're broken up, remember?"

"Well...Why would you call her?" Cassidy questioned, lifting an quizzical brow.

He scowled over at her and took another drink. "Doesn't matter." he muttered onto the bottle. "If she wanted to get away, then let her be away."

"So, you're not going to do anything at all?" Trish queried.

"Why should I?" Austin questioned, "When I tried to do something, she hung up, right, Cassidy?" he added, thickly as Cassidy exhaled.

"Don't you want her back?" Trish asked.

"I can't have her back." Austin spat. "The entire reason we're in this mess is because of me. I don't deserve, Ally and she sure as hell doesn't need me."

"You are so selfish!" Cassidy exclaimed.

Austin blinked twice, dumbfounded. "I'm...selfish?" he laughed. "I'm pretty damn sure this is the most selfless thing I've ever done."

"Selfless?" Cassidy echoed, angrily. "You think breaking up with her was selfless?"

"Look, For Ally to get what she wanted, what she deserved, I needed to be out of her life, don't you get that? I can't be with Ally. I'm bad for her. Hell yeah, I was willing to break up with her, to destroy my happy ending, just so she could get her happy ending." Austin hissed.

"That's funny," Cassidy spat, "Because her happy ending was with you. And it'd always be with you. Don't you see you were her happy ending, Austin."

"You don't know anything." Austin growled, standing up. "For once, try staying out of my business, okay? Make something up the press, lie to my fans, do whatever you want, but stay out of my personal life. You don't know a damn thing."

He collided his shoulder with hers as he walked out.

Dez whistled awkwardly while Cassidy and Trish exchanged looks.

"He was all she wanted, why doesn't he see that?" Cassidy questioned.

"Because he doesn't want to see it." Trish replied. "He thinks he's not good enough for her so that's what he's trying to be."

"He's so stupid." Cassidy grunted.

Trish rolled her eyes as she thought about her best friend. "You're telling me." she muttered.

x

Unedited, sorry!

And yes, to those wondering, I snuck in the answer to your question: it has only been a month since their split and this chapter's setting was the day after Ally hung up on Austin.