♡ CHAPTER NINETEEN ♡
"Seashell?" Ariana heard when she woke up in the morning.
"Seashell?" The voice was only very faintly heard, like it was from far away. Ariana grumbled in her sleep.
Maybe this is just a nice, peaceful dream where Brand--
"OH FOR PETE'S SAKE ARIANA GOSHDARN MILLER, WAKE UP!"
Ariana did wake up. She looked around at her room, not sure where the voice was coming from. And then she heard a tapping sound coming from her window.
"I should've known," she grouchily mumbled. Ariana crawled towards her window, eyes barely open. She pushed aside the curtains and saw Brandon waiting patiently by his open window. Ariana sighed, then opened hers too.
"What the fudge do you want?!" she growled.
"Sheesh, what time did you sleep?! It's already eleven o'clock!"
What? Ariana fumbled for her phone on her desk, and then checked the time. The phone's light caught her off guard and then she blinked a few times and re-adjusted her eye sight. With a gasp, she realized that it was actually already eleven twenty-three!
Ariana groaned. "Well I'm sorry for being extremely tired after being kicked out of some club meeting, slapped by your psycho girlfriend, and had to walk home at eight in the evening! Well at least Damian was there, but I wasn't even able to eat lunch and dinner yesterday!" Ariana ranted.
"Look, I'm sorry that Mikaela did that. She didn't mean to-"
"How can you slap someone hard in the face and not mean to?!"
"Let me finish. And I'm sorry that I wasn't there to walk home with you. And... wait, Damian was there?" Brandon looked at her with furrowed eyebrows.
Ariana bit the inside of the her cheek. I shouldn't have said anything! she mentally sighed.
"Yeah, I sort of went to his shed after you and Mikaela were busy smooching--"
"Seashell, we weren't-"
"I have to take a shower." Ariana closed her window shut and pulled the curtains together and went to her closet. Picking out a black tank top and blue shorts, she went into the bathroom and took a long, well-earned bubble bath. And then she changed into her clothes and blow-dried her colorful hair.
When Ariana exited the bathroom, she directly went down the stairs and ate breakfast. Percy strolled in the kitchen afterwards, and Ariana fed him the dog food that her parents had bought. Taking out her phone, Ariana texted Brandon, saying:
Hey-yo, Davis! What was that you wanted to tell me again?
She got a reply almost immediately after, saying "Just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for what happened yesterday. Mikaela's calmed down now. And also... why didn't you tell me that you hadn't eaten yet?! We could've gone out to McDonald's or something!"
"It never really crossed my mind until today ," was Ariana's reply.
"Meet me outside. We need to talk," Brandon replied. Ariana sighed, went up to brush her teeth, and then went back down again to meet up with the very mysterious Brandon Davis.
Note the sarcasm.
"What is it?" Ariana asked him as she neared the boy who was waiting by her fence.
When Ariana joined him, he walked towards the sidewalk. "I have an idea about what we could do in A.M.O."
"What?"
"We need disguises. They won't let us in if they recognize us, so lets use fake identities to find out what A.M.O actually is," Brandon beamed.
Ariana shook her head. "Why do you still want to find out what it is? I mean, we could just check the Internet and search for what A.M.O means."
"I already checked. Nothing."
"Why are you so persistent with this?"
"I don't like having questions unanswered, seashell." Soon enough, the two ended up in the boulevard where Damian and Ariana sabotaged a fashion show - the same boulevard where they had the singing competition.
"What are we doing here?" Ariana asked Brandon.
"Shh," he held a finger to her lips. Ariana moved it away from her mouth.
"I don't like having questions unanswered, Brandon," she told him. Brandon sighed.
"We're here to pick up our top-class disguises. Follow me," he gestured. They jogged to one of the stores. Brandon strolled in like he owned the place and started talking to the cashier. Soon enough, the cashier gave him a giant paper bag and he thanked her. Brandon smirked at Ariana's dumb-founded expression.
"Come on," he grabbed her wrist and dragged her towards the restrooms. He gave her a pile of clothes and something hairy, and some make-up kits. And then he disappeared into the boys bathroom.
With a small shake of her head, Ariana went into a stall and started changing into the clothes. She ended up wearing a frilly light pink blouse and a gray skirt. She gagged at the clothes, and then went out of the stall and examined her reflection.
The blouse surprisingly fit her just right. The skirt was a little too tight, but she would manage. Her keds didn't fit the attire, though. Ariana tied her hair into a bun at the top of her head and threw on the wig. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she practically cracked up in laughter.
The wig was colored a chestnut brown color. It reached up to just below her shoulders and was in beautiful curls. There were some longs bangs framing the side of her face, and Ariana tucked a strand behind her ear.
Ariana opened the make-up kits. The contents looked completely foreign to her, but Ariana was able to put on some eyeshadow and blush. She didn't put on lipgloss since she was never fond of it.
When Ariana glanced up at herself in the mirror again, she saw that she was almost completely unrecognizable. The eyeshadow caused her eyes to look softer and the blush made her bone structure look weaker and less striking.
Ariana flipped her - fake - hair over her shoulder and stormed out of the bathroom. When she arrived outside, Brandon was already waiting for her.
He had on a light brown wig that resembled Harry Styles's messy hair. He had changed into a long-sleeved button-down blue shirt and some slacks and suspenders.
Ariana laughed. "Nerd," she remarked.
Brandon gave her a look. "Girly girl."
She made a face. "What's your name?" she asked Brandon. He thought about it for a minute.
"Jack Winchester," he beamed. Ariana laughed again.
"I'm..." she thought for a name, "Caroline Georgia."
Brandon nodded. Ariana put her clothes in the paper bag that he held and looped her arm through his. "Shall we go, Jack?"
"Indeed we shall, Caroline."
~~~SOME TIME LATER~~~
"Hello, can I help you?" Earl asked Jack and Caroline.
"Yes, we want to join A.M.O," Brandon-Jack said.
Earl beamed at the two, momentarily blinding them with his teeth. "That's gray! We're looking forward to new members."
Ariana-Caroline smiled back. "So where do we sign?" she asked.
Earl startled them by laughing abruptly - again. "You don't sign up here, sweetie. If you hate music and want to join A.M.O, then go ahead!"
Ariana-Caroline stared at him. "Excuse me?" her voice was squeaky.
"Just go through that curtain over there and your fellow Anti-music Organization members should be very friendly."
Ariana looked at Brandon. Anti-music organization? Ariana thought. Brandon gave her a reassuring look. "Thanks, Earl," he told the bald guy and steered Ariana towards the curtains.
Before they went in, he quickly whispered something to her. "A.M.O sands for Anti-music organization! That was why they threw us out! Because we were singing!"
"This is so not right, Brandon! I honestly can't imagine life without music and now here they are, making some club against music!"
"I know, it's revolting. But we have to play along. Pretend you hate music too, and chat with some people. Find out their stories and why they hate music, maybe we can find a way to change their minds in the future."
"In the future?! We have to change them now! They can't go on living like this! They-they shouldn't!"
"I know. Just... play it cool and we'll see how it goes, 'kay?"
Ariana pursed her lips, then nodded. Together, the two went through the curtains and smiled at the people in the room. The place was set up exactly like the day before, and Ariana recognized some of the faces.
She smiled at some of them and dragged Brandon towards a group. "Hi," Ariana greeted in a gushy tone.
"Hey," a guy greeted her. "My name's Chase, you are?"
Brandon cleared his throat. "This is Ari-Caroline," he pointed to Ariana. "And I'm Jack."
The group welcomed them and asked them one question that practically made Ariana's heart stop momentarily - "What made you hate music?"
"Well," Brandon started, "Ar-Caroline's ex sang their theme song to her on our wedding day."
Ariana's eyes widened. She looked at Brandon and he gave her a look that said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything else!"
"Aren't you guys a little too young to get married?" one girl raised an eyebrow.
"We're not that young, though. We're both twenty-one, but just look really young. And plus, we're both helplessly and irrevocably in love," Brandon smiled. At that point, Ariana wanted to slap him. But she couldn't, since they were - quote - "helplessly and irrevocably in love."
"Oh, are you?" Chase questioned.
"Yes. Yes, we are," Ariana piped in, hoping that she sounded convincing enough. "Our marriage got cut off short due to my ex's drunken incident, though."
Another girl was about to ask them another question when Brandon cut her off. "How about you guys? What made you hate music?"
The group laughed, and then offered them seats and glasses of lemonade. When Ariana and Brandon were comfortable, Chase started with his story.
"So you see, I used to love music," and then he gagged like what he just said was just so disgusting, "and then I wrote this song and performed it onstage and people threw tomatoes at me and I actually went home with tomato stains and even bruises! After that, I never had anything to do with music." Ariana almost wanted to slap the guy, but she remained smiling and nodding as if she could relate to what he just said.
Brandon took a hold of Ariana's hand again, and Ariana shot him a glance. Play along, play along, she repeated to herself.
"You two really are in love, aren't you?" a girl remarked, glancing down at Ariana and Brandon's intertwined hands.
Ariana was taken aback by the comment, but Brandon smiled warmly. "Yes, we are," and he looked at Ariana with something meaningful behind his eyes that Ariana couldn't unite decipher.
"Aren't we, seashell?" he asked.
Ariana swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yeah," she said hoarsely, then cleared her throat. "Well, I know I am," she said more strongly.
The rest of the day, the two went around the room and asked about their different stories and opinions about music. By the time they got to the sixth person, Ariana told Brandon that she couldn't take it anymore and that she wanted to go home.
"Okay love," Brandon smiled at her. The two bid goodbye to the acquaintances they made and exited the building.
Ariana heaved a sigh of relief. "That was horrible!"
"At least you lived through it, seashell."
"I endured it," Ariana replied. The two walked in silence until they reached their neighborhood.
"I'll just just change out of the clothes and then give them to you later-"
"No, you have to keep them. And plus, we're going back to A.M.O tomorrow," Brandon told her.
"I know," she groaned. And then she walked to her house.
"Bye, seashell!" Brandon called after her.
Ariana merely waved her hand without looking back at him.
~~~THE NEXT DAY~~~
Ariana woke up and took a bath early the next day. She dressed into a blue dress and sandals and put on her wig. After feeding Percy and Jaz, she went out the house.
"What are you wearing?" Ariana's mother asked he daughter when she saw what she was dressed in.
"Oh me and Brandon were about to go do some... role playing," she replied. After that, Ariana bid her mother goodbye and headed out the door. The first thing Ariana noticed when she noticed was Mikaela.
Yes, Mikaela Proud has made an appearance yet again!
She was talking to Brandon outside Ariana's house's fence. Brandon was all silent, while Mikaela was talking animatedly about something. At first, Ariana was only curious. And then she recalled how it felt when Mikaela's hand slapped her and the stinging pain that followed her and Ariana suddenly filled with anger.
Ariana went over to them. "What's going on?" she asked.
Mikaela looked at Ariana with a puzzled expression. "Who are you?"
Brandon was also wearing a disguise, but he must've given Mikaela a lame excuse just like the one that Ariana gave to her mom.
"The girl you slapped," Ariana replied honestly. Mikaela's eyes widened.
"You're in the play, too?" she asked Ariana. Brandon must've told her that they had hung out because they were participating in a play together.
"Yeah?" Ariana replied ignorantly.
"Seashell, Mikaela has something to say..." Brandon nudged Mikaela, who sighed and crossed her arms.
Ariana mimicked her actions, but in a more snappy way.
"I'm sorry I slapped you and told you to back way from Brandon and being a total B. I'm sorry for what I told you and again that I slapped you. I hope we can start over and be friends," Mikaela said in a really rushed tone that Ariana actually took a few moments to process all that she said.
"Did you tell Brandon about how you sort-of blackmailed me?" Ariana asked slowly. Mikaela shut her eyes and nodded, keeping her head down.
"Well... I don't think we can really start over," Ariana said. Mikaela looked up at her with a sad look. "But I'll give being friends a shot."
Mikaela beamed and - much to everybody's surprise - hugged Ariana. The girl was stunned for a moment, and then she awkwardly patted Mikaela's back.
"I forgive you," Ariana said quietly. "Sort of."
~~~Author's note~~~
Hi!
So now you know what A.M.O is! What do you think Ariandon will do next? Hmmm?
Anyway, I'm sorry but I have writers block again and I will probably take longer to update :( please forgive me, but I have to tell you guys that there will only be six more chapters to go and then TPH will be over :'(
Of course though, I still have a question for all of you lovely people...
Are you a morning person, or an evening person?
I'm an evening person, hands-down. Okay once again, please don't forget to comment, vote and fan! Bye, peace :)
-J.Q