Late Nights & City Lights (Connor Franta / O2L)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I stood in front of my mirror, looking like hell.  Like I had crawled from the deepest, darkest depths of hell.

I hadn’t showered yet, so my hair was knotted and unruly, sticking up in seemingly impossibly places.  The past few sleepless nights had left their marks in the form of dark bags under my eyes.  It didn’t help my case that I was wearing the baggiest sweat pants and tee shirt I owned.  I knew I had to clean up though, and fast.  Today was the day.  Today was Friday.  Today was Alexa’s beach party.

“Shit,” I muttered, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.  It was almost noon, but I had only fallen to sleep around five this morning.  I was a sight for sore eyes.

I grabbed my towel and slipped into the bathroom, turning my iPod on shuffle as I waited for the shower to heat up.  I stripped off my pajamas and left them in a heap on the floor.  Before You Exit started playing as I stepped into the shower.  I scrubbed every inch of my body while humming along with the various songs and bands that came on.

Almost twenty minutes later I finished and dried my body off.  I took a comb to my hair, wrestling with the impossible knots until each and every one of them was no more.  I wrapped my hair in a towel as I returned to my room to get dressed.  The boys weren’t coming to get me until five, but at the pace I was currently moving at, I would barely be ready by then.

Figuring I would do something productive while getting ready, I called my dad since I hadn’t spoken to him much since coming out to California.  I stuck him on speaker phone so I could move freely about my room.  He answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”  Dad’s groggy voice came over the line.

“Hey Dad,” I said, loud enough to make sure he could hear me.

“Hey Allison.”  He perked up immediately, though I could still hear a trace of weariness.  “How’s my little girl doing?”

“Awesome,” I said, riffling through my selection of tanks.  “California is really great.  I’ve made a lot of great friends.  Gina—Kelly’s younger sister—has been absolutely great with showing me around and such.  How was Hong Kong?”

Dad was a high-level manager-slash-international representative for some large company.  I wasn’t exactly sure what his job entailed, but I knew he traveled quite a bit, especially now that I was out of the house.  He had been overseas for a month and by the sound of it, he was still readjusting to the time zone differences.

“Interesting,” he responded.  “Quite different from the US, I can tell you that much.”

I laughed.  “Get any good sales?”

“Yep,” he responded, stifling a yawn.  “The merger went through as planned, so I’m expecting a nice bonus any day now.”

“Ooh, do I smell Christmas in Bora Bora?”  I joked.

“Possibly.”  He chuckled.  “So are you going to want to return to New York at the end of the summer?”

“Of course,” I replied instantly.  “I love school, Dad, you know that.  Though I wouldn’t mind spending summers out here.  The beaches are slightly colder, but on average, it’s generally nicer than Baltimore.  You should just move out here.”

“But then I’d be on the other side of the country during the school year,” Dad pointed out.

“Oh yeah,” I mumbled, biting the inside of my lip.  I shrugged, pulling on an Aztec-printed bikini top with solid pink bottoms.  “Oh well, we’ll just have to bring my friends over next summer to stay with us.  I’m sure Gina would love the East Coast.”