Did Ally ever mention how much she hated goodbye's?
She held tightly to her father's embrace, feeling something swell inside her throat. There was a time when she couldn't wait to leave her father's household and begin her life independently, but now she didn't want to leave. She wanted to swaddle herself in the warmest blanket and curl into the corner of the couch as she watched her favourite movie over and over again with the smell of her father's coffee brewing in the kitchen.
"You have a safe flight, you hear me?" her father told her sternly, holding her chin between his thumb and index finger and squeezing lightly.
Ally smiled in reply as she nodded. "Promise. Tell Beth I said goodbye."
Her father nodded and gave her a kiss on the forehead. At least this time she'd properly said goodbye to him unlike the last time when she'd run off to LA with only a cheap lie about attending a concert in Chicago.
It was when she was planted in her seat, eyes roaming the ground as the plane had successfully pierced into the sky, that a lonesome tear fell. She suddenly found herself missing her father already. Missing Beth already.
But then it struck her once.
Maybe twice.
It wasn't really her father and step-mother she was missing. It was Austin. Ally shook her head, because she wouldn't miss him. She just wouldn't! The boy had caused her heartache where there didn't need to be any. He could have stayed, they could have worked everything out. He could have came clean and she would have forgiven him. In a million life times, in a million different worlds, Ally would always forgive him.
And that was the truth hardening around the edges of her anger.
Austin had a vice-like grip on her and she feared that it would never release her. She would be stuck in his finger tips forever.
She wanted to punish herself for knowing that Austin could commit the world's most insane crime and she would scoop him up and defend him. She would forgive him. She would still trust him. Nothing would shatter that. Not even the wreckage he dusted around her.
Maybe he did tear her open and yank something out of her, but he could put it back in and tape her all up and she would be better. He would make it all better.
He loved her.
She loved him.
And he would make it better.
"Sorry." A stranger mutters next to her after accidentally brushing his knee along hers.
Ally accepts the apology with a polite smile and then blinks when she swears it's Austin next to her, but her breath leaves her chest with a whoosh because it isn't.
It never is.
It's funny that you won't notice how much you think about someone until you miss them.
Ally slowly looks back out the window. She wished for turbulence again. She needed something to shake her out of this rut, but, just as she feared, she knew not even the turbulence could do that.
But Austin could.
And Ally curses herself for not being able to take two goddamn seconds without thinking of her arrogant and selfish ex. She winces at the label: ex-boyfriend. She just wanted it to be: Austin, lover, significant other, boyfriend, loved one, etc.
But as she thinks about his selfishness, she sees him weakly explaining his take on himself. I'm bad for you. And he wasn't wrong. He was bad for her, but there also was a way for him to be good. She saw him become good. He was good when he grabbed her hand on the street, when he kissed her, when he tickled her side while she tried to finish a song on the piano and how she always ended up squirming until her bum hit the floor. He was good when he laughed at her and didn't bother to help her up because she would shoo his hands away anyways.
He was even good breaking her heart.
Even when her blood boiled and she wanted to tell him what a coward he was for running, he had broken her heart well and maybe nobody else understood that, but she did it. That was all that would ever matter: She didn't just understand his actions, she understood him.
He was guilty.
He was ashamed.
He was angry.
He was scared.
And then, he took his fear and he swallowed it so she could get her dream. The one thing that had been the only reason she'd even came to LA in the first place, but what he didn't understand was the fact that he was the one thing that had been the only reason she stayed in LA.
Suddenly, music wasn't her thing anymore. It was their thing.
Ally sunk back into the seat, breathing so deeply through her nostrils that it made her throat dry. She wanted to go back in time and tell him all of this. She wanted to go back and let him know that it was okay to be selfish and that didn't make him a bad person. Maybe he'd argue that he was, maybe he'd always argue that he was and maybe he'd tell her that's who he wanted to be, but she didn't care. She just wanted him to know that he deserved happiness. To be loved. He deserved it as much as anyone else did.
He's gone. Stop thinking of him.
It was a thought that suddenly crossed her mind and sent her crashing into a depressing slumber.
x
Her keys rattled in the door.
The lock was always sticky and it annoyed her. She heard the small click and twisted the door knob. The door swung open slowly and Ally dropped her bags in the doorway and stretched her sore hands. She pushed her bags through the rest of the door way with her foot. She locked the door behind her. She hoped that she wouldn't be getting an earful from Trish or Cassidy for leaving so suddenly.
She rolled her eyes to herself for being so naive. She can't hope to not get an earful from either of them, because she knew that she would be without a doubt. She'd practically disappeared into thin air for a week and a half.
Ally headed to the living room area of her apartment and dropped her purse next to the couch. That was when she realized that she was not alone.
Ally gasped, almost scared enough to jump but her muscles had contracted and kept her frozen solid. She wracked her brain, silently asking herself if she had really gone crazy. Perhaps, she was tired? It was a long flight.
But it came crashing down that, no, she wasn't crazy.
She was finally really seeing him in front of her and she didn't know whether to cry, smile, or scream. But in the midst of her silence, her lips had parted open slightly and she quickly closed her mouth to swallow hard.
His hair wasn't as neat as it normally was and she realized that it had gotten longer. Not drastically, but still longer.
He wasn't looking at her and instead had kept himself distracted with the leather couch, stroking the arm of the chair and watching his own fingers trace imaginary circles on the piece of furniture. "I wanted to talk." he finally said.
His voice sounded so level. So normal. So void of any pain. So different from the way he'd sounded on the phone call a week and a half ago.
"How did you..." She was breathless and confused.
"Spare key." Austin answered.
She swallowed hard. "No, I mean, how'd you know when I was coming home?" Ally managed to spit out after choking on the first couple of words a few times.
"I have my sources." His lips curled into his infamous smirk and he finally glanced to her with half-lidded eyes. She couldn't see his gaze from behind his bangs and long eyelashes.
She had sent a text to Trish earlier that day notifying that she was returning, but Ally had shut her phone off right after she'd clicked send and she had yet to turn her phone back on. Trish had to have told him that she was coming home. Though, Ally knew Austin well enough that nobody knew he had snuck himself into her apartment awaiting her arrival.
Ally gulped down air. "What'd you...I mean...You want to talk?" God, she hated stumbling this much, but looking at him caused such a sharp pang and it made her stomach rumble.
"Yeah, I do." Austin said.
Her eyes flickered down to his hand. The pads of his fingers rubbing circles on the arm of the chair. She wondered if he knew that she was dying to hold it, to lace her fingers in his again. That's when she noticed the tremors in his fingers, the ones that he was trying to hide or shake away by playing with his fingers.
He wasn't as unaffected by her presence as he wanted to play out.
"Um." Ally licked her lips. "Here?"
"Where else?" Austin remarked, glancing at her again quickly before returning his gaze to his moving fingers. "You resigned from the label."
"Yeah." Was all she could think of to reply.
"Caught me by surprise." Austin admitted to her. "Last I heard, you were dying for people to hear your music."
"I was desperate for that once." Ally replied, her voice an octave lower than she had liked. "But then I realized it's no fun having a dream when there is no one to dream it with."
"Hm." Austin hummed, nodding his head as his eye brows arched for half a second. "You went to your Dad's?"
"How'd you know?" Ally questioned, thankful and surprised that her voice had suddenly begun to steady itself.
"How wouldn't I know?" Austin replied, cheekily.
Then Ally recalled how many times she'd previously mentioned to Austin how much she'd wanted to visit her Dad again. Ally nodded her head. "Right." she murmured.
"You also hung up on me. That surprised me, too." Austin told her. "I had assumed we'd have a nice chat."
"A nice chat." Ally chortled without humor. Her arms had crossed at some point as if it was the only wall that she could put up to separate herself from him.
"Yeah." Austin nodded. "I was wrong, obviously. You didn't even say hello." His mouth formed a pout that angered her.
"Yeah, well, you dumped me. That surprised me." Ally retorted.
It was like throwing a rock at a glass wall. Maybe the glass fixture didn't come crumbling, but she'd wedged a pretty good crack in whatever he'd been using to separate himself from his emotions. He finally looked at her and Ally could see that his eyes were no longer hooded by his lids and she found a fire in his gaze.
"Touchy topic?" Ally queried, almost surprising herself with the attitude she'd drowned her voice in.
"You think I didn't miss you, Ally, is that it?" Austin questioned, his voice shockingly calm, though his eyes were anything but.
"I don't know, did you?" Ally meant for it to be sassy as all get out, but the words practically drifted in a gentle breath.
Something jumped in his jaw, but he looked away from her, not acknowledging her countering question. "You think everything for me is so easy."
Ally frowned, unsure of what he was saying or where exactly his point sat.
"You think I just dumped you and everything was la-dee-da, right?" Austin questioned. He huffed. "If only all break ups were that easy. Whether you believe me or not, I was doing you a favor."
"A favor," Ally breathed, "Doing me a favor?" She tried to raise her voice, but the words passed through her lips still quiet.
"Yes, a favor. You deserved your dream to come true and I granted it." Austin replied, arrogantly. "See, I was trying to help out but apparently my help was selfish. We can't give a guy a break, can we?"
Ally shook her head as she looked to her feet. "It's always about you." she mumbled.
"About me?" Austin echoed, "This was about you. This was all about you. I was trying to make you happy."
"Well," Ally looked at him sarcastically, "You didn't a bang up job with that, didn't you?"
"Your appreciation warms me." Austin retorted, sarcasm soaked his voice thin.
There was a beat of silence. It was long and thick, neither of them wanting to be the one to break it. Ally was scared for him to walk back out that door, worried that it really would be the last time she saw him in the flesh. She didn't want to even think about the only time she would be seeing him would be on the cover of petty magazines.
"I forgive you." Ally suddenly said. "For...For lying and...whatever else you did that got us into this mess. I forgive you. You were stupid. But I forgive you."
Austin stared at her, completely caught off guard by her acceptance. He slowly nodded, unsure of how to react to her words.
"I never wanted to hurt you, Ally." Austin whispered, "But that's just what I do. I hurt people and I move on. That's what I've always done, but I just can't seem to shake you."
Ally frowned in confusion.
Austin finally got to his feet. Ally gulped and backed up a step.
"Breaking up with you was one of the hardest things I have ever done since my Mom died and I need you to know that." Austin told her. "I thought it was the right thing, the thing that you deserved at that time. You had a dream and I was afraid that you would live it. That's not what a boyfriend does, a boyfriend is supposed to encourage your dreams, not crush them."
Austin had come closer, now standing in front of her.
"I know you think I didn't miss you. That it was easy to let you go, but it wasn't. And when you hung up that night, I realized what I'd done. How far I'd pushed you away and...I realized that I may never get you back." Austin said, his fingers had cupped their way around the base of her skull.
Ally looked up at him. "So, what? Now that I resign from the label, you want me again?" Ally whispered, begrudgingly.
He stared down at her, eyes flitting across her face. He shook his head. "I don't want you back. I need you back, Ally." Austin replied. "Saying goodbye is easier when it doesn't hurt this much. I love you, Ally and there won't be a day where I will ever not love you. It has nothing to do with you resigning from the label. It just has everything to do with the fact that I love you and I need you and I want you to need me, too."
Ally slowly reached her hands up to grab his. Austin thought she was going to pull them away, but instead, she only held onto his wrists. Her eyes had become glassy and she was practically drowning in the emotions of his eyes.
"I want you to get your record deal. You deserve it too much to not have it, Ally." Austin told her, brushing a thumb along her cheek where a tear had fallen but he'd been too late to catch it as it dropped from her chin.
"I do need you, Austin." Ally whispered. "And I'm not a buff for the clichés, but I love you, too and losing you was the worst thing to have ever happened to me."
His eyes were soft on her face. He moved his hands away from her skull and cupped her face. His pressed a kiss gently to her mouth. His nose brushed hers awkwardly, but neither of them had the heart or will to pull away.
Ally wrapped her arms around his neck, keeping him close. And something she hadn't felt in a while happened:
Her heart. It started beating again.
x
that was cheesy and lame and i'm so sorry but i'm exhausted and i just wanted to get this chapter done. i'm not sure if the whole forgive-you-love-you thing happened too quick, but if it did, i'm sorry. Stories that drag out their nonsensical dramas annoy me so I was to keep the love-drama to a minimum.
P.S. This chapter is unedited.