Coming to a close...
The last hour of my life was filled with a lot of swearing, sexual innuendo, and Zack's abs all through text messaging. The swearing part mostly came from the many times the word "fuck" came in our conversation, mainly from Zack. I wasn't sure if Zack was intoxicated during the time we were texting each other or he was really like this when he was super happy…maybe he was super happy in a particular way. Either way, I was content with everything that was going on. Zack and I were working things out; the neon wearing monster was out of the picture, and Cassadee wouldn't go in my business about this whole thing. The only thing that bothered me was the phone conversation he had earlier in the day. Did Zack screw someone over? Did he really fuck a girl during the party? Maybe Jack was not kidding and he tried to cover it up by saying that he was joking. I didn't want this to ruin the fun, but it was hard to avoid it. I didn't want to think about that now. Zack and I were in a good point in our relationship and running bad thoughts in my head would ruin that.
Since almost everything was falling into place and the drama died down (for now), I decided to go to the mall again and continue on with my Christmas shopping. I didn't think anyone would get in the way this time so this was going to be much smoother journey at the mall. Just in case if something did happen, I parked my car near Nordstrom instead of Sears. Lily was unpredictable and I couldn't risk my car of getting another flat tire. I ran out of spares.
As usual, it was complete chaos at the mall and everyone was frantically buying anything that was in their reach. The halls were completely crowded and the stores were so compacted. It almost felt like I was at a concert without the awesome music playing. All the stores were playing cheesy Christmas songs. Although I loved Christmas, I hated the music. I would prefer Fall Out Boy's "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" be played over the intercom instead of "Jingle Bells."
I walked in a sports store since my dorm mates, Hayden and Olivia, loved the Seahawks and the Sounders. Lucky for me, almost every Seahawks and Sounders gear in the store was on sale. I ended up buying a John Carlson jersey for an acceptable price for Hayden while I bought Olivia a Sounders sweater. I guess my Christmas shopping was pretty much done except I wanted to buy Zack something. I didn't know what to buy for him though. I mean, they didn't sell surfboards here in Seattle. Did they sell any skateboards here? I highly doubt it. I didn't want to buy him clothes since I didn't really know his style. He wasn't like the rest of the band. Pretty much the rest of the band wore Glamour Kills gear and skinny jeans. Zack's fashion changed on a daily bases. Besides, it would be worthless to buy him a shirt; he'd end up taking it off. I wasn't complaining about that.
While I was walking to F.Y.E., I saw my nightmare…again: the neon wearing monster accessorizing his black eye with additional bruises on his cheek and arms. I didn't remember Zack beating him up that much. He only punched him in the eye. That was all. He saw me walking in his direction and he smirked. Why couldn't I have a nice visit at the mall? There was always someone to ruin the party. As if on cue, John came in the scene. He was walking out of F.Y.E. and saw Jean-Paul aiming at my direction. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into Aeropostle. Out of all the stores we could enter in, we ended up staying in here with all of the girls beaming at John. John gave them small smiles while we went to the back of the store, avoiding Jean-Paul's path. He released his grip from my arm and smiled. "You are so lucky I was here."
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, thanks for coming out on cue," I grinned while I gave him a hug.
He hugged me back and kissed me on the forehead. Okay, that was weird. Why was he doing this? "Don't mention it," he moved a portion of my hair out of my face.
"Umm…why did you kiss me?"
John shrugged. "I wanted to. You're a beautiful girl. It's hard for me not to kiss you," he slings his arm around my shoulder. "It's not like you and Zack are together anyway."
I backed away from him in confusion. "That's not true. We are working things out."
"So you and Zack really did have a falling out, but now you guys are together? I don't get it," he placed his hand on mine. "He screwed you over."
"That's not true," I asserted. "I trust him."
He shook his head. "You barely know the guy. You only met him like what? Three days ago or something? You don't know him at all."
Not this again. I pulled my hand away from him. "I need to go," I stormed out of the store. I felt footsteps behind me. John was saying a lot of things, but ignored him. I didn't know how this news spread so quickly, but I was guessing everyone knew about it. All Time Low was friends with everybody. Everybody was in on it. Did Jean-Paul know about this? Maybe that was why he was smirking at me. He probably knew that I used Zack so he could stay away from me. John held my arm, forcing me to stop and turn to him.
"Look, I'm sorry I said that. It's just…I don't know. It's just hard to…"
"Whatever, John," I snapped. "My day was going well until you said that to me," I never knew why the heavens hated me. First Jean-Paul, then John? Why was this all happening?
Jean-Paul walked up to us. He crossed his arms and glared at me. I didn't know what he wanted. They needed to leave me alone for once. "Tell Zack that he will get revenge for what he did to me."
I glared right back at him. "Why? Did he give you those bruises as well?" He didn't answer. I looked at the both of them. They were both staring me down. "Seriously…did he do that?" I pointed at the bruises on Jean-Paul's arm.
He gave me a weird look. "No shit, you're the reason why this happened to me," he was about to charge me until John stopped him.
"Enough with this," John pleaded, and then turned to me. "Maybe you should go home now."
Without saying a word, I walked out of the mall and went to the parking lot. This has to be the craziest day of my life so far and it was only the afternoon. I needed to talk to Zack about everything. I needed to know who he was talking about on the phone with Alex. If he really did screw someone over, we were over.
Umm...I guess not. This was supposed to be the last chapter and then an epilogue after this. The upcoming chapters will probably surprise you...stay tuned.