I just lay here in bed, comforter pulled up to my ears, and stare out the window. I woke up almost three hours ago, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to move. I just keep running my mind over what happened last night. The karaoke, the hookers, no more Ed, Niall taking care of me. Bella’s already been in here this morning, wondering what the hell was going on with me, but I just shrugged her off and continued to stare out my window. I know I still have two more hours before I have to go to class, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull myself from this state.
It takes me a minute, because I’m so out of it, to realize that there’s a knocking on the door. It’s persistent, and unrelenting. Eventually, the sound annoys me so much I decide to go open the door and see who the hell it is. I stand up carefully, my balance is suffering along with the rest of me, and I pick up my comforter and wrap it around my body and pull it up over my head, but not covering my face, and walk to the door. There’s still knocking as I reach the door and pull it open.
“Rachel, dear lord, you were scaring me.” Louis says and pulls me into a hug. I don’t hug him back, I just fold my arms back inside my blanket and allow him to hug me. “Niall told me what happened, and seeing as I am one of your best friends, I came over.” He says as he realizes me and pulls back to look at my face. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a bag of smashed assholes.” I say without emotion and he laughs.
“I don’t want to say that’s great, but you’re still talking the same.” Louis says with a small smile on his lips. “Come on, let’s go eat.” He says, and I look down at myself.
“Louis, not only do I feel like a bag of smashed assholes, I look like it too. Plus, I have class in a couple of hours, and I need to get ready.” I say, not really willing to leave the apartment yet. He gives me a knowing look, and steps inside the apartment and closes the door behind him, then leads me to the living room and seats me on the couch with him. I just sit there, in my near comatose state as he says, “Ok, Rachel, tell me what happened.”
“But you already know.”
“No. I know what I was told, I want you to clarify.” I just look at him and I can feel the tears starting to build, but I shove them down.
“After karaoke, Niall walked me home because Ed would rather start walking to his hotel than walking me home, and once here, before I even got inside, I got a text from Rebecca telling me that I needed to get to their hotel now. So I grabbed Niall and he lead me to the hotel and I saw-“ I cut off because the tears I shoved down now come out with a vengeance and start to flow freely down my face, I clear my throat and try again. “I saw Ed, with hookers, dancing around drunk and I-I-I just couldn’t handle it. It was too reminiscent of everything I’ve gone through, but no, I decided to be brave and stand up for myself and my integrity, and look where it’s gotten me. Alone in my apartment, crying over someone who I thought was going to care of me, and didn’t and now… I just… I can’t even…” I ramble out and by the end, my tears are coming so hard and so frequently that I can’t even finish a sentence. Louis just listened the entire time I was talking, and as I shove my face in my hands to try and stop my crying, he reaches out and holds me, which doesn’t help stop the tears.
Finally, when I stop crying enough to look up Louis just looks at me, and he doesn’t look happy.
“You’ve had alcoholic boyfriends before, luv?” He asks me, and I shake my head no, and a confused look crosses his face. “Then…?” He asks.
“My father was an abusive alcoholic who thought of no one but himself and tried his hardest to screw over my future.” And there it is. That’s why I hate alcohol and everything related to getting drunk. The smell makes me nauseous because whenever I would smell it, I knew something bad was going to happen or that there was going to be yelling. Finally, my mother got a divorce when I was 12 and we were basically free from his tyranny, well, we were when we weren’t with him for visitation. It was only once a week, twice every other, but soon, it became only once, and by the time the divorce was finalized, and he didn’t have to play the caring father role, he stopped showing up. For me, this was a blessing, for my father was nothing other than half of my creation to me, but to my sister, who still loved him, it was a devastating blow to the heart. She would cry and I would have to sit there and comfort her as best as I could, simply because we have a horrible father, and it just cemented my hate for him even more. Regardless, I am here without him, and I don’t need another one to deal with. I remember something I heard once, and laugh a little to myself.
“What?” Louis asks, very concerned.
“You’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I heard once that girls chase after men like their fathers.” I say, smiling a little.
“And you’re happy about that?” He asks, oh he probably thinks I’m having a mental breakdown.
“No, but I always thought I would be an exception to that, how could I like someone like that when I’ve grown up with it? But no, apparently, I’m no exception.” I say, and look down at my hands as my sentence turns more depressing. That gets me another hug from Louis, and this time I actually hug him back.
“Rachel, I believe in you, and I believe that you are going to be ok.” He says into my hair.
“I know, I know.” I say, gripping him, glad that I’m not alone anymore.
“Do you really have a class later?” He asks as he realizes me.
“Yes.”
“I’ll wait here, you go get ready and I’ll walk you.” He says, and gives me a small smile. Relieved in the change of subject, I simply nod and walk to my bedroom so I can grab an outfit before getting in the shower.
Once out of the shower, I towel dry my hair and do all the nessicities, brushing my teeth and hair, putting on deodorant and makeup, etc. And I, finally, put on my outfit for class today:
http://www.polyvore.com/untitled_160/set?id=61756477
Normally, I wouldn’t be wearing a skirt to an acting class, but this teacher is VERY gender specific, and he requires the girls to dress, “Gender appropriately.” Whatever, it usually doesn’t bother me, but today I’m really not in the mood. I sit on the toilet and shove my shoes on before going back out to the living room and joining Louis.
“A skirt?” He asks me, disbelievingly.
“Long story.” I say as I pick up my backpack from behind the couch. “Ready?” I ask.
“What time is your class?” He asks.
“2.”
“You still have 45 minutes!”
“We’re walking Louis, it’s going to take about 30 minutes.” I say and he sighs and gets up from the couch.
“Ok, let’s go.” He says as we set out from the apartment, and we walk all the way there without Louis getting noticed. Probably because he’s dressed in baggy jeans, a hoodie (with the hood up!), a beanie, and aviators. We walk slowly, but still make it to my class with about six minutes to spare. I hug him and thank he for walking me and he just squeezes me back and whispers,
“Don’t let this get you down Rachel. Things are about to get a lot better for you.” And walks away.
“What do you mean?!” I call after him, and he turns and starts walking backwards as he shrugs, then walks correctly again. That was confusing, but I push it out of my mind as I walk into AMDA and class begins.
* * *
I walk out of my four hours of classes and leaning against a wall is no other than a blonde band member.
“Waiting for someone?” I ask as I walk over to him.
“Oh just this girl, I don’t know if you’ve seen her, but she prefers pants.” He says with a small smile.
“Oh hush up, it’s a long story.” I say with a smile, my Texan accent prevalent. He smiles a tad and I take in what he’s wearing. He’s dressed as Louis was this morning, sunglasses, hoodie, beanie and jeans. He extends his arm to me.
“Ok, let’s go get ice-cream.” He says as I take his arm.
“Ice cream at 6 at night?!” I ask him, quite astounded and he shrugs.
“Why not?” He asks with a smile, looking down at me. He’s so goofy I just laugh at him and we begin walking. We walk to this Ice cream parlor that is on the top floor of an office building and it overlooks some of the city. We get some ice cream and choose a table, one next to the large window and we sit and talk.
“So, how were classes?” He asks me before shoving ice cream in his mouth.
“They were good, I had two today. The first teacher is really attached to gender roles, so the girls have to wear skirts to his class. Then I had a voice lesson, technically, it was a choral group and learning how to sing in a choir, but being an alto who has troubles with harmonies, I get a lot of attention.” I say, looking down at my ice cream.
“Don’t stress too much about harmonies, you’ll get them.” He says nonchalantly, and I look up at him only to see he’s not looking at me, but down at his ice cream. Because we’re inside, he’s removed his beanie, sunglasses and hood. His blonde hair is sticking up in random directions and his cheeks are slightly flushed from the sudden change in temperature, his Irish features even pinker than normal. I just wanna reach out and smooth down his hair, but I know that it’d be considered a gesture that a girlfriend would do, but he only thinks of me as a friend. I sigh slightly and look back down at my ice cream.
“What?” He asks me, and my head jerks up to look at him again, and this time, he’s actually looking at me.
“Oh, nothing… I’m just thinking.” I say and direct my attention more out the window.
“Oh, about what’s happened lately?” He asks, and I don’t look at him.
“Yeah, about that.” I say, still looking out the window.
“The city is beautiful at night.” He says, obviously looking out the window too. I know notice that I can see our reflections in the window. I see the two of us. Me sitting here, one hand holding up my chin, the other resting on the other side of my almost finished ice cream, across from me, an adorable blonde member of a famous boy band, and he’s not looking out the window, as I had thought earlier. He’s looking at me, and when I see that, I turn to look at my reflection again. I don’t see anything special about myself. My hair is the same, if not a little more messed up than it was this morning, my make up has faded a little bit, and my face is set. I look back to him, and I see that his eyes are now focused on his hand, which is slowly starting to slide its way across the table towards mine. He’s biting his lip with concentration and he suddenly shakes his head and retracts his hand resting it in his lap.
“So,” He starts then clears his throat, “you ready to go? It’s almost seven and Bella and Jared will be worried.” He says and I turn to look at him.
“Ok.” I say and force a smile, my hand suddenly feeling colder than it was before. We throw our things away and we get our jackets and things back on and we leave. We awkwardly walk back to my apartment and we’re in the elevator I try to strike up a conversation.
“So, when do y’all leave?”
“Friday morning.”
“That’s the day after tomorrow!” I say, I wasn’t expected them to leave so soon.
“Yeah.” He says, looking down at his Supras.
“But y’all just got here!” I say, upset as the elevator doors open up on my floor.
“When you’re upset, your, ‘Texan’ comes out. You’ve said y’all two times in the last two sentences.” He says, finally looking up at, with a smile. I smile softly.
“Y’all are leaving and I haven’t even spent enough time with y’all.” I say, pouting as we reach my door.
“Make that four times.” He says, smile growing a little more. I laugh and put my head down, a couple strands of hair falling in my face. I keep looking at my shoes and I feel his hand brushing the hair out of my face, and I slowly look up at him. His hand is cupping my cheek and I smile brightly. He’s going to kiss me, I can feel it. He’s looking at me a small smile on his face and he leans in slightly before something in his face changes. He moves his hand away from my face and takes an awkward step backwards.
“Bye Rachel.” He says and turns and runs. He burst through the door to the stairwell and starts to run down the stairs. I follow him and yell after him.
“Niall! Come back! What the hell was that supposed to be?!” I yell after him, not even attempting the stairs. He looks up at me from about a floor down, but he doesn’t smile and he just looks at his feet and keeps running. I look after him and frown as I watch him go all the way down the stairs. He looks up at stairs from the bottom, and I can barely make out his figure, that’s a long way down, and I think he waves, but I can’t be sure. Well, that hurt. I’m not even sure what to be hurt about, the fact he was going to kiss me and didn’t, or the fact that he felt as if he had to run away from me.
“THAT’S COOL TOO BRO.” I yell even though I know he can’t hear me. Slowly, I turn back around and walk out of the stair well. I turn to go to my apartment, but I really don’t want too. I look down at what I’m wearing, I’m not too trashy, I could go for a short walk. I just walk to the elevator and step inside. I don’t have my IPod, but I guess that’s ok, I’ll just listen to the sounds of the city. I get out of the elevator and walk out onto the street. I walk with my head down, and because I don’t have my headphones, I can hear the grumbles coming from above me. I look up and I see that clouds have rolled in, and I bet they’re threatening to rain. I could turn around and go back, but I’m sure it won’t rain. I’m all the way to the café before I feel a drop of rain. I just duck into it and order a hot tea. I wait for a moment before realizing that they’re doing karaoke night. I pull the sign-up sheet towards me and write down my name and a song that stuck in my head. I grab my tea and go and sit down at the same table I had sat at with Ed and Niall. But now it’s just me, and a tea in a pretty ceramic mug. I examine the mug more thoroughly now, it’s a light blue with pink polka dots on it. The same announcer is calling people up, and I realize that I don’t know how many people are before me, oh well. My tea’s almost gone when my name is called.
“And now, as a return from last night, we are very excited to have Rachel!” He announces with a huge grin, and I just have to smile. I walk up to the stage and take the mic from his outstretched hand, I sing the first note and hold it as the songs starts.
“A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather I was praying that you and me might end up together it's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert. But I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my heaven.” I sing and prepare for the first verse.
“I don't wanna waste the weekend, if you don’t love me, pretend. A few more hours, then it's time to go. As my train rolls down the east coast, I wonder how you'll keep warm. It's too late to cry, too broken to move on. And still I can't let you be, most nights I hardly sleep, don't take what you dont need from me.
It's just a drop in the ocean, a change in the weather I was praying that you and me might end up together, it's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert. But I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my heaven.
“Misplaced trust and old friends, never counting regrets, by the grace of God I do not rest at all. In new England as the leaves change, the last excuse that I'll claim, I was a boy who loved a women like a little girl. And still I can't let you be, most nights I hardly sleep, don't take what you don't need from me.” I sing and I begin the last chorus.
“It's just a drop in the ocean, a change in the weather; I was praying that you and me might end up together. It’s like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert, but I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my… Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore no no. Heaven doesn't seem far away… Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore no no, Heaven doesn't seem far away…
“A drop in the ocean a change in the weather, I was praying that you and me might end up together. It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert, but I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my heaven.” I sing with gusto, but add more softly, as I think about the words.
“You are my heaven…” And there are applause, but I don’t really hear them. I hand the microphone back to the announcer and walk solemnly back to my table, and just sit there for a moment. I stare at the almost empty mug, and think, there’s not even a half… It can’t be half full because there is no half, just empty. At that, I stand up and walk out. I just walk, and the rain is pouring. Apparently, it started while I was in there, I just didn’t notice.
The great thing about walking through the rain is no one can see you cry.