Chapter 16: Allison’s P.O.V.
The girl in the mirror stared back at me, dark circles under her eyes from countless sleepless nights, hair sodden from the shower she just stepped out of, yellowing bruises scattered across her naked body. Her stature slouched from exhaustion. Not only from the lack of sleep, but also the exceeding effort she had to make to continue to seem happy and normal.
The girl looked exposed.
The girl looked vulnerable.
The girl looked real.
A knocking came from the door, but I didn’t take my eyes away from my image in the mirror.
“Merry Christmas, Allison!” I heard Brendon’s voice filled with his usual enthusiasm. He continued to yell season’s greetings to different people throughout the tiny hotel room.
I’ve been in here too long. I got dressed, making sure to wear long sleeves to cover the bruises on my arms. Then, I leaned over the sink to apply cover-up. After putting on the rest of my make-up and blow drying my hair, I scrutinized myself in the mirror once again. My appearance was shockingly different from the one I had just a few minutes ago.
I heaved a big sigh, hoping I had the strength to make it through another day, and opened the door of the bathroom.
The first thing I saw was Brendon, dragging Jon with all the blankets from his bed wrapped around him out of the room they shared.
“Brendon, It’s 8 in the morning, let me go back to sleep.” Jon said groggily.
“C’mon! It’s Christmas!” Upon glancing at me he said, “Look, Allison’s already dressed and ready for the day!”
Jon looked over at me with puffy eyes. “Then go bother her,” He went back into his room.
Brendon’s shoulders sagged. “What a Scrooge,” he said shaking his head. “Spencer and Ryan’ll get up for Christmas!” He smiled at his idea, opened the door to their room, and stepped inside.
With all the enthusiasm a person shouldn’t have in the morning, Brendon said loudly, “Merry-“
“GET THE HELL OUT!” Ryan and Spencer unanimously yelled.
Brendon stepped out of their room, “Yeah, I expected that.” He walked over to me, clad in red Christmas pajamas and a Santa hat.
“I guess it’s just you and…” his eyes widened quickly with realization, “Carson!”
He ran to the front room where the couch that Carson and I shared was. I followed this time to see that Carson was very much awake and folding the pull-out bed back into the couch.
He faked wiping away tears looking around at us, “I’m….not…alone!”
Carson and I were pulled in roughly for a group hug. I inconspicuously took in a whiff of Brendon’s intoxicating scent, missing being able to wear his jacket.
“I don’t care if you girls are Jewish! It’s Christmas!” He started to sing ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ and I had the long-forgotten urge to kiss him. He was the only person to make me genuinely smile.
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“When are we going to Pete’s?” Carson asked Ryan, who was sitting next to her on the couch in our hotel room.
He looked at his watch, “Well, he said any time after nine, so we have half an hour or so.”
I looked around at the decorations Brendon insisted on putting up. The man was stringing up lights with Spencer. Singing ‘Let it Snow’.
“Where’d you find these lights again? All the stores are closed.” Jon asked Brendon.
“Well, this morning, when you guys were sleeping, me and the girls went on a hunt for all these decorations,” he said looking up at the string of lights he was suspending from the ceiling, “We found the tree in an abandoned lot. The lights, well, uh, let’s just say we borrowed them….”
“I don’t want to know anymore,” Jon said shaking his head.
Brendon started singing again. I got up to do something I’ve been putting off for a while.
“I’m gonna go call my sister,” I mumbled before leaving to go to the bathroom.
After shutting the door, I turned on my phone. It’s been off for days, so consequentially, it was flooded with messages.
’78 Missed Calls’ I read. The number was a lot higher than I thought it would be. I clicked ‘View Now’ and with a tightening in my stomach saw that they were all from my father. Pressing ‘End’ I dialed my grandmother’s number.
“Hello?” My grandma’s voice came from the other end.
“Hi, it’s Allison, Merry Christmas.”
“Oh hello, dear, Merry Christmas to you too,” she paused and I heard another voice in the background, “Here, Kelsey wants to talk to you.” I already felt my eyes moistening.
“Allison! Merry Christmas!” Kelsey sounded excited to hear from me. I felt bad for not calling sooner.
“Merry Christmas, Kelsey,” I said trying to sound as excited as her, “What did you get?” She proceeded to list all the things that she found under the tree this year, which was much longer than the few little presents she normally got from me.
When she finished, there was a long silence. “I miss you,” She said, causing a few tears in my eyes to escape.
“I miss you too,” I said, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
“When will I see you again?” Kelsey asked. The hope was very prominent in her voice.
“I don’t know.” I wished that I did.
“Oh,” she said, barely audible.
“I promise I won’t wait so long to call you again,” I told her, ending the conversation before she could tell my voice was strained because it was struggling not to crack. “Have a great day.”
“Bye Allison, I love you.” A tear ran down my face.
“I love you too.” My thumb pressed the end button.
I sat on the counter around the sink, trying to calm down. Suddenly, there was a beeping from my phone and my heart clenched. I wasn’t ready to talk to my father, not now. I lifted up my phone to turn it off again. To my dismay, the screen read ‘Nick’ instead of ‘Home’. He had texted me.
Happy Christmas!
I sighed. I guess that I shouldn’t always expect the worse. I texted back lamely:
You too!
Then, I turned off my phone, fixed my make-up and went back to where everyone was sitting.
“There you are! We were just about to go,” Spencer said to me.
We all left the hotel room and rode the elevator down to the lobby. Everyone was talking excitedly about the holidays, but I just kept on thinking about how much I wished that I went down to Florida with Kelsey.
The cab was waiting for us just outside the revolving doors, which Carson and Brendon made sure to go through several more times than they needed to.
Pete’s townhouse was on the outskirts of Paris. The boys said that he rented it to spend time with Bronx apart from Ashley, who was staying in a hotel. Pete had Bronx this morning, so he was going to throw a huge Christmas party tonight. I don’t know how he would invite too many people since he was in a different country and all, but when we arrived after about 15 minutes of driving, there were a way bigger number of people than I had originally expected.
“Whoa,” I said quietly addressing the huge amount of guests as we pulled up to Pete’s modern-looking rental.
“Yeah, Pete has a lot of friends,” Jon said.
We walked through the cold, dark night up to the doorstep and Ryan knocked on the door, hearing the loud thumping of music inside.
“Hey!” Pete Wentz himself opened the door and greeted us. “Glad you could come. Get the hell in here!”
Everyone came inside, greeting Pete with Carson and me trudging in last. After the door was shut, I copied everyone else and slipped out of my coat and scarf.
“Okay, Pete,” Brendon started, sounding desperate, “I’ve been with these youngsters way too long,” tilting his head towards Carson and I. “Where’s the booze?”
Pete smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” He put his arm around Brendon’s shoulders and led him to the kitchen; we all followed passing several people on our way. “Pick your poison.” He opened a cabinet and revealed an array of liquor. “Help yourselves! I gotta get back to the party.” Pete said as he left the room.
Jon got out some glasses and put ice cubes from the mini-fridge in them. I noticed he got out six and heard Carson swallow hard next to me. I safely assumed she noticed too.
Brendon poured some liquor into all of them. I couldn’t read the French label to see exactly what it was. Everyone picked up a glass, except Carson.
“Don’t you want some? The drinking age is younger here,” Ryan asked her.
“No,” she looked at the glass meant for her as though it was poison, “I don’t drink.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Carson grabbed another glass and filled it with water from the sink, “So we can make a toast,” she explained.
“Well, cheers,” Brendon stated, “For a wonderful Holiday, a new band member, and a new friend.”
“That was so cheesy,” Ryan said.
“Why do you always have to ruin the mood? Just drink your booze!” Brendon told him.
We all clinked glasses and I took a huge sip and made a face. The stuff tasted awful, but I was already feeling a little buzz.
“Strong,” I noted.
Spencer nodded; also making a face as he swallowed.
“Well, let’s go party!” Brendon said pronouncing ‘party’ like ‘par-tay’ and doing a little dance with his shoulders.
I let the others go ahead of me and then quickly downed my drink and filled my cup again. Smiling as the alcohol took over.
The rest of the night went by in a blur, involving horrible dancing, some caroling, and a whole lot of drinking. At one point, Brendon and I ventured away from the party to survey the rest of the house apart from the crowed living room and front rooms surrounding it. We found a staircase, and after tripping up it more than once, we managed to make it to the top, laughing the whole drunken way. There were a few rooms on the top floor, mostly bedrooms. We went in one and I found another bottle. I pressed the bottle to my lips and took a long swig. After that, everything became very hazy.
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Sorry this took a while. The past couple days I've been mourning over the fact that my brother deleted my sims 3 family. Yes, that would be the family that I've had for two years. TWO YEARS! I started out with one girl, she had 4 children with 4 DIFFERENT sims! You know how long that takes!? She married her best friend! Her husband died. She reached her life goal. And then her oldest daughter had a kid and then the original sim died and the family moved. and then her oldest daughter had 8 children! EIGHT FREAKING CHILDREN! The oldest daughter (Truth) reached her life goal and several of Truth's children became audults the oldest one was a lesbian vampire! And Truth's husband who I made acheive all the way to be governer died. AND TRUTH WAS JUST ABOUT TO HAVE HER BLACK BABY! HE DELETED IT! ALL OF IT! TWO FRIGGLENUTTING YEARS!
Okay, rant over. Now you know that I play Sims WAAY too much. I hope you liked the chapter. I just want to thank every person who has kept reading all our shit. You're awesome, seriously. And I hope you guys had an amazing holiday! Brendon Urie singing White Christmas as the video. <3 (Is it bad it took me like five minutes to find the less than symbol? ...don't answer that.)