#3
Ayla's POV
We were chest to chest and I could feel his heart beating next to mine. He lifts his muddy hand and caresses my cheek. He starts leaning up towards me, but before he can kiss me I grab a handful of mud and smear it on his face. I then quickly get up and start dribbling the ball towards my goal. I take a shot just outside the 18 yard box.
"Goaaalllll!" I yell.
I start jogging back to a now standing Brennan.
"Looks like I won" I say, smiling.
"I guess so" he responds "good game".
He reaches out his hand for me to shake it. Just as I'm about to shake it, he takes his other hand and wipes mud down my cheek.
"Oh it's on" I say.
I grab a handful of mud and wipe it down his chest.
After about 10 minutes of our fight we are both covered in mud, and water from it still down pouring.
"Brennan, Ayla, time to go home" Jill yells from the passenger side seat.
***
I glance at the clock on the stove, and it reads 8:03. All of the Donnelly's and my family are sitting around on the couches talking.
"Katie, I could easily beat you in wrestling" Brennan says to Katie
"Prove it" she responds, getting up.
Brennan gets up too, he walks to an open spot on the floor and gets on his hand and knees. "Go" he says to Katie.
Katie reaches over Brennan and puts her left arm, under his and above his head. She starts trying to flip him before she can Brennan gets a good grip on Katie and puts her flat on her back. She is trying to wiggle out of his grip but he keeps her there. Ryan gets on the floor and starts pounding his fist on it each time he says a number, "1, 2, 3".
Brennan lets go of Katie.
"And our winner is" Ryan says, grabbing Brennan's wrist "Brennan Donnelly". Ryan raises Brennan's arm in the air. "And the crowd goes wild, ahhhhh" Ryan says.
"Thank you, thank you very much" Brennan says, bowing.
"My turn" I say standing up.
My older brother, my younger sister and I wrestle all the time. Yes, I have and older brother, his name is Ayden. He is 18 and stayed back in Wisconsin because he got offered a job to work with Brewers. Doing book work or something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's his dream job. He also basically gets paid to watch the game. Of course he has to do other things, but still.
And, I have a younger sister, she is 14 and her name is Ashlyn. She is also back in Wisconsin. She is staying with my grandparents because she wants to go to a soccer camp this summer and just hang out with her friends. She is the type of girl that likes have sleepovers and staying up all night.
Brennan looks stunned for a couple seconds but then composes himself, "okay" he says.
I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty strong. Swimming basically consumes my life, and swimming really works your muscles.
I walk over to Brennan, and get down on my hands and knees. Brennan starts the same way as Katie, but manages to get my flat of my back. Ryan gets down on the floor "1, 2...". Before he can say three I manage to flip us and get Brennan flat on his back. Before he can react to what has happened, Ryan has already counted to three.
I stand up and reach down to grab Brennan. He smiles before grabbing it and pulling himself up.
"We have a new reining champion" Ryan says in his announcer voice. He grabs my wrist and raises it in the air "Ayla..."
"Forest" I answered him, telling him my last name.
"Ayla Forest" he announces.
***
I lay in bed, twisting and turning. After about ten minutes of having my eyes closed, I open them to check the time. I don't know why, but when I can't sleep, I constantly check the time. My alarm clock read 1:03. I am also the type that likes to walk around and eat when I can't sleep.
I get up and walk out of my room, as quietly as I can. I walk into the living room and notice a faint light. When I look closer, I recognize an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and a person sitting on the couch. That I notice is Brennan. I walk over to the open spot next to him on the couch. He jumped a little when he saw me.
"Hey" I say, sitting next to him on the couch.
"Hey, you scared the crap out of me" he replied.
I let out a small, quiet laugh, "I kinda figured when you jumped"
"Sorry, I get scared easily" he says letting out a small laugh.
"Oh my gosh, me too" I said feeling like someone finally could understand me, "it's weird though because I put bread in the toaster, and I know the the toast will pop out, but when it does, I jump. Every time."
"I thought I was the only one" he said.
We both started quietly laughing, "we are so weird" Brennan said, after he stopped laughing.
"It's better than being normal" I replied.
"I didn't know you watch Grey's Anatomy" I say, glancing at the TV.
"Yeah, Katie got me into it about a year ago. It's really good"
"I know right, I've seen the entire thing twice, but I'm re-watching it again"
(A/N SPOILER AHEAD)
I watch the screen. Izzie is telling Alex about how he needs to understand why she signed the DNR papers.
"Now him understanding, that's true love" Brennan says, taking me by surprise.
"But Alex should support her choice no matter what" I started "as a boyfriend or a best friend, it's Izzie's choice what she wants to do with her life, and no matter what, Alex should support that. If she wants to get a tattoo, he should be there holding her hand, if she wants to go skydiving, if he's not jumping with her he should be waiting at the bottom to congratulate her for doing something that amazing. And if she wants to jump of a cliff, he should be cheering her on until she leaps. But I think it's selfish of him if he wants her to stay alive for his own pleasure, and not for what she wants" I finish my rant.
"He wants her to stay alive because he's in love with her"
"If that's what you think, but he's also getting 'benefits' from being in the relationship" I say "and besides, if he loves her so much, then why does he move on so quick when she leaves"
I soon realize what I did, "I'm so sorry I didn't mean to spoil it"
"It okay" he says "but I take it you don't believe in love"
He was right, there was I guy I liked starting in sixth grade. I thought he was perfect and thought I loved him. He gave me signs that he liked me back for a while, and things were going great. Until someone I had been friends with, turned on me. She started telling him lies and rumors, and he believed them. He then started dating someone I thought was my friend. She would always talk about the relationship and how much they hung out and how he always said how he loved her. I started liking him in sixth grade, but the drama didn't start until freshman year. It was terrible, the guy I had wanted for so long was in love with someone else. That wasn't the only thing, I started becoming very self conscious of my weight and how I looked. I was depressed for a while and wouldn't eat. I would cry myself to sleep every night and would wake up with puffy eyes. The shower is where I cried the most, because the water running would drown out the sounds of my sobs. In the shower I would break down and fall on my knees, and lay my forehead on the shower floor. All my friends left me because they believed the rumors, soccer was my escape, and when I got home I would shower and then try to fall asleep before I fell apart. I got to the point where I didn't want to live, suicide was an option. I would constantly think about how people would react if I was gone, and every time I played the situation in my head, no one ever cared that I was gone. But very very deep down inside me, I knew that it would pass and that I just had to wait. After about a year, I found real friends, people that supported me and had been through the same thoughts I had. My best friend Cricket was the main person that helped me through it.
He name isn't actually Cricket, it's Molly. But her last name is Crockett and when she first came to our school, she was tell me and a couple other people how to say it and she told us it wasn't Cricket, and ever since I've been calling her Cricket.
Brennan shifted on the couch, breaking me out of my thoughts. "I don't" I started "I believe that people love the idea of another person. They love the idea of finding a fairy tale. Of going on long walks down the beach during a sunset, spending every hour of everyday with a person, going to bed every night with the same person and walking up to breakfast in bed. They want to be kissed at the top of a Ferris wheel and be proposed to in Disney World. I think people are too caught up with idea of love, that they don't realize that the person they 'want to be with' is actually a terrible person. But they still want the person because they want their fairy tale ending. But the reality is that they think they love someone that makes them happy, until realizing that that person is the reason they put on makeup in the morning, lose weight, lose friends, and end up losing themselves. But they don't know how it can happen to them, because their grandma always told them that good things happen to good people and they've always been a good person but then again everyday good people in our country go and risk their lives and sometimes lose them, everyday people die, everyday people get divorced, and everyday stupid teenagers think they have fallen in love and then question 'was it all worth it?'" I finished my rant, aiming the last part of the rant at myself.
I glance over at Brennan and he looked confused by everything I just said. "Looks like you've experienced this first hand" he questions, more like a statement though.
"Sadly... yes" I say looking down.
"Since hearing what you said, I actually kind of agree with you. But I also believe" Brennan glances down before reaching his hand down and grabbing mine, lacing our fingers together "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
He looks back up to me, and smiles. Making the butterflies in my stomach explode and my hand tingle from his touch.
(A/N Sorry about the rant and the little spoiler, I feel like the rant fits her character so I added it. Also I'm sorry about spelling and wording mistakes, I'm waiting until I finish writing the book to edit.)