“Listen, Lina, you just got here,” my dad reasoned. I placed my final bag down beside the bed and continued on with my packing. I didn’t have much stuff – just some clothes and a few other necessities. It was all I came back to Long Beach with. “Please, don’t go. Whatever it is, I-I can help!”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said as I continued to scurry around the room. “My plane ticket has already been purchased. I’m leaving in a few hours. I’ve made up my mind about this.”

“Can you at least tell me what happened?”

I continued to ignore him as I double-checked my bags, making sure I didn’t leave anything at Jane’s or Austin’s. And even if I did, I was sure that I would never see it again. After being rejected – turned against – by so many people that I thought I could have considered my friends I knew that I could never show my face around there again. I knew that I was stalling after I opened one of my duffel bags for the third time to check it over. My mind was made – I was going back to England, but I just needed to fathom my thoughts a bit.

“Lina,” my dad pressed again. He placed his hands on my shoulders and forcefully turned my body to face him. It wasn’t violent, and it didn’t hurt, but it did catch me by surprise. “Tell me what on Earth is happening! You’re never like this.”

“Like you would know,” I muttered. I shook my head, though. I knew that I was trying to take my emotions out on him, so I quickly said something to cover it up. “I’m sorry. I just…no, I don’t want you to know what I did.”

“Why? Did you kill someone?”

“No,” I chuckled.

“Rob a bank?”

I laughed again and the tears began to gently pool in my eyes. “No.”

“Then I don’t see a problem here,” he said as he laughed a bit. “Nothing will make me think less of you, Adelina. You’re my daughter, and although I haven’t been around in your life as much as I should have, I still love you more than anything. You and your sister mean the world to me.”

I cringed when he mentioned Jane, and I know that he saw this. “Well, at least I have one family member who still cares about me.”

My father furrowed his eyebrows. “Tell me what happened,” he said. His tone was more demanding this time.

I figured that there was no harm in telling him. He would surely find out sooner or later through Jane. “You know Alan, Jane’s boyfriend?” I began. He nodded. “We…I…”

“Oh, no…” My father’s face fell.

“Wait!” I said, quickly stopping him from jumping to too many conclusions. “You see, when I was in England, I met a boy. And I…we fell in love. That boy was Alan. But it was before he was with Jane! But yeah. He was passing through on tour, and when he left we just kind of ended things because I had no plans of coming back to Long Beach then. But then I come back and find out that Alan is with Jane, and we just…we’re still in love…but now Jane is pregnant. And then I unknowingly started to date Jane’s ex and meanwhile Alan and I couldn’t stop seeing each other. And yeah, Jane found out and now I’m the bad guy because nobody believes that Alan and I knew each other. And nobody stood up for me. Not even the other band members, and they all know. They all met me in England. Not even Alan.”

“But why are you running away?”

“Because I’m clearly not wanted here. Nobody stood up for me when I told them about our relationship in England. Now Jane and all of her friends think I’m a psychotic bitch who slept with her sister’s boyfriend. Not to mention, the father of her unborn child. Oh, and Jane spread rumors about me to her friends saying that I only came back to live with her because I wanted money from Alan. I had no idea that she was even dating Alan when I asked her if I could stay at her place.”

My dad was silent for a moment, processing everything. “Wait a minute…you dated Adam?”

I laughed a bit at how my dad had to backtrack in the conversation. “Yeah. We weren’t serious or anything. It’s kind of messed up, really. He still loves Jane and I still love Alan.”

“I always liked that guy,” he commented a bit. “Wait so, you and Janey have been with the same two guys? Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah, it is,” I laughed. “I tried not to think about it when we were…you know…”

“Okay! That’s enough, stop, don’t, ew.” My dad raised his hands up in front of him, holding his palms out to me while turning his face away from me and making gagging noises. “You’re my daughters. I don’t want to know about that stuff.”

“What do you expect, Dad. Jane’s freaking pregnant,” I said with a laugh.

He just shook his head and cringed. “Anyway,” he said while bringing himself back to the conversation. “I still don’t think that leaving is the right thing to do.”

My anger bubbled back up and I quickly turned away from him before I had the urge to blow up. My emotions were far too sensitive and I needed to try to get them under control before I went back to work. The thought of work instantly relaxed me and made me happy. I missed work.

“I have to go, Dad,” I said quietly as I picked up my bags. “Natalie and Austin are bringing me to the airport. They should be here any minute.”

I picked up my bags and walked up the basement stairs with my Dad hot on my trail. He continued to voice his opinions on the matter, trying to get me to stay. But I tuned him out and focused on the floor as I watched myself walk. I needed to keep moving forward. I didn’t have time to be stuck in Long Beach, trying to get my love life together when I had a career that was waiting for me to begin.

I opened the front door and saw Austin’s car sitting at the curb. But instead of just two bodies in the car, there were three. I peered through the car and saw Adam sitting in the backseat, smiling widely as I walked toward the car. Austin popped open the trunk and I shoved my bags inside while my father helped. I stepped away once I had fit my final bag and watched as my dad closed the trunk.

“I still don’t think-“

“I know, Dad. I get it. I shouldn’t leave, whatever, blah blah blah,” I said, mimicking him half-heartedly. “I just have to. I don’t belong here.”

I quickly wrapped my arms around my father’s middle, just barely squeezing him. I let go before he could even react and slid into the backseat of the car. It was the first time that I had actually wanted to hug my father in years. It was the first time I had actually bonded with my father since I was a pre-teen and now I was leaving him. The first time I felt like I actually had a father that I could call my own and I was pulling away with my back turned to him and leaving to get on a plane and head to another country.

If there was one thing that I would stay in Long Beach for, it would be him. But even my father’s love couldn’t outweigh the horrible feeling of rejection that I felt when in the city.

The car was silent for a long time. I was sure that they had said hello to me and maybe even tried to lure me into a conversation, but I muted them over and listened to nothing but the faint beating of my heart. It felt so weak, and listening to it only hurt me more. But then I thought about England and my friend and roommate, Jelina, and work, and it slowly started to pump faster. Yes, England was where I belonged.

We arrived at LAX in a short thirty minutes and pulled up to the front. We all got out of the car and they helped me with my bags. After my final bag was out of the trunk, I went to shut it, but Austin stopped me.

“Woah, we need to get our stuff,” he chuckled as he reached his hand in and pulled out two bags. One was a pink suitcase and the other was a black duffel bag with tons of travel tags collected on the handle.

“What?” I asked, confused.

Austin parked the pink suitcase in front of Natalie, leaving the handle up so she could grab it easily to wheel it along. Austin held onto the duffel bag with his left hand as he slammed the trunk shut with his right. “We’re coming with you.”

“What the hell?” I asked. I wanted to be angry, but my excitement was shining through by the way my lips curled up into a smile.

“Take care of my car, Adam,” Austin said as he tossed the keys over to Adam who was walking toward me. Adam quickly caught the keys and chuckled before he shoved them into his pocket.

“Come here,” he said to me as he draped an arm over my shoulders. I immediately accepted his embrace and dropped my bags so I could wrap my arms around his skinny body. We hugged for a long while, and it felt nice for someone to want to hug me so eagerly after all of the rejection I had been facing. “I’m going to miss you a lot, Ads,” he said into my ear.

I squeezed tighter after he said that. The tears were daring to fall, but I made sure to blink them away. I felt horrible for thinking that I was completely rejected in this entire situation, because I still did have Natalie, Austin, and Adam. But they belonged to Jane’s little world. Of Mice and Men was Jane’s territory, and that was clearly established the day before when nobody stood up for me.

I slowly pulled away from Adam and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, picking up a few tears that had managed to slip out and wiping them away. I sniffled a bit and then laughed and how ridiculous I was being. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m pathetic for crying so much. My emotions are all over the god-damn place.”

“Don’t apologize,” Adam said with a smile. “Call me and text me a lot, okay?”

“I will,” I said with a nod. “And you better let me know if you’re ever in England. Even if it’s just passing through. I’ll make sure I get to see you.”

“Of course,” he smiled. “Now go before you miss your flight!”

I nodded and turned around to join Natalie and Austin. Natalie was clutching onto Austin’s arm and ranting about how excited she was to finally be able to go traveling with him. I ignored their conversation and decided to suck myself back into my little bubble of silence. The only time I tuned back into the world outside of my head was to listen to the directions from those working in the airport.

-

“This is your apartment?!” Natalie squealed as we pulled up to a large, brown building. It was older and detailed with baroque-esque sculptures and large, narrow windows. “It looks like something from a movie!”

“It’s probably been in a few backgrounds of movies, actually. They used to film a lot around this street before they refurbished all of the apartment buildings,” I said, matter-of-factly as I happily hit the buzzer for Jelina to answer. Before I could ever say anything, the door chimed and clicked, signaling that she had already unlocked it for us.

We walked up the two flights of stairs and I saw Jelina standing just outside the door. She had her cat in her arms and a huge smile on her pale face. Her slender looked to have grown a bit more plump and I smiled at how healthy she looked. When I left just a month or so prior, she was going through a really tough break-up and had stopped eating because she was slowly becoming depressed. I felt horrible to be leaving her during that time, but seeing her now, I was certain that it was the best thing for her to be alone.

“Jelina! You look amazing,” I said as I gave her a hug, careful not to crush her cat that was in between our bodies. “Hey scabby,” I said as I rubbed the cat’s back. I trailed my hand all the way down his back and to the tip of his tail.

“His name is not Scabby! Don’t be mean to him,” Jelina pouted as she jerked him away from my grasp and turned around.

“I’m confused,” Austin said softly from behind me. Jelina quickly whipped back around to look at the couple behind me.

“Oh my! I almost forgot! Jelina, this is Austin and his girlfriend, Natalie. They’re the only nice people I met back in Long Beach. Would it be okay if they vacationed here for a bit?”

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Austin said quickly. “We could easily go get a hotel if you’d like-“

“No! Of course they can stay! I could use the company. Scotty and I would love the company.” Jelina sent me a death glare as she emphasized her cat’s actual name.

“Wait, why did you call him Scabby?” Natalie asked as she looked at the cat with confusion.

“Once he got into a horrible fight and came home all scabbed up after being missing for a few days. So I started to call him Scabby,” I explained with a smile. I looked over the cat who was purring happily in his mother’s arms.

“I got him fixed,” Jelina said with a pout.

“What? Poor guy!” I said as I went to pet him again. “Did mommy ruin your life? She’s horrible, isn’t she?” I cooed as I rubbed behind his ears. He let out a small meow and I gave him a small smile. “I know, I know,” I said.

“Oh, knock it off,” Jelina said as she rolled her eyes. “He’s still the same. He just doesn’t run out and get in fights anymore. Or impregnate Ms. Kelly’s cats.”

“He got another pregnant?” I asked as we began to lug out suitcases into the apartment. “What a stud.”

“Yeah, and this time Ms. Kelly wanted me to pay child support.”

“Child support? For a fucking cat?” I questioned.

“Are their other cats in the area?” Natalie asked. “Maybe they’re not his this time.”

“I guess that’s a possibility,” Jelina shrugged as she seemed to think about it. “Actually, that could definitely be it. I stopped letting him out for as long, so it could have been that stray that likes to hang out around here.”

“I guess we’ll find out when she has her kittens,” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, if they come out scrawny and half-hairless we’ll know they belong to that stray,” Jelina joked.

We all continued to share a few laughs as we grew acquainted with the living room. I left to my room to bring my things in, showing Natalie and Austin the office room where they would be sleeping on the way down the hall.

“We’re probably going to go ahead and try to take a nap,” Natalie said as she yawned. “Do you have an air mattress or something?”

“The air mattress is in the closet in the office!” Jelina called from the kitchen.

“Apartment’s small,” I explained. “You hear everything from every corner. But yeah, it’s in the closet. Do you want me to get it for you?”

“Nah, I got it,” Austin said as he waved me off.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “It should be on the left side. Just dig around for it.”

I headed down the hallway and locked myself into my old bedroom. Everything was still in place. My diploma was hanging on the wall along with a few posters and a calendar that was behind on its duty. I smiled as I traced my fingertips over the electric blanket that was folded up on the corner of my bed. I missed the cool, England weather.

I slowly began to unpack my belongings into the empty dresser. As I approached my final drawer, I noticed a picture shoved in the back, face-down. I set down my stack of shirts and reached into the drawer to pull out the picture. A part of me already knew what it was going to be, but I still couldn’t bring myself to stop from turning it over. I wiped the dust from it and looked down to see exactly what I expected it to be. The only picture Alan and I took during the time where everything was perfect between us. We were sitting across from the table in my dining room.

I collapsed back on the bed and stared at the picture as my eyes grew heavy with sleep. I went to England to escape my feelings for Alan, but this was the place where it all began. That’s when I realized that no matter where I went, I wouldn’t be able to shake him.

My eyes closed and my grip on the picture slipped, causing it to fall onto the pillow beside me as I fell into a dream-heavy sleep.

“Smile for the picture, dammit!” Jelina cursed as she held the camera up toward us. “Alan! Can you stop for a second?”

“Wait!” Alan shouted through giggles. “Take a picture of me feeding Addie the cupcake!”

“What?” I asked through my laughter. “No, way! You really think I’d trust you with that?”

Alan faked a pout. “Yes,” he said through his plump, pouty lips.

“Then you’re insane,” I said with a laugh.

Alan leaned forward. “Do you love me?” he asked softly so Jelina wouldn’t hear.

I felt an eruption of happiness take over my body and cause my heart rate to accelerate. I looked over his pale face and faint freckles before focusing my gaze in his gorgeous eyes. “Yes,” I said as I tried to bite back my smile.

“Then you’d trust me with this cupcake,” Alan said with an adorable wink. “Plus you trust me with your cupcake, if yanno what I mean?”

Jelina let out a loud gagging noise and leaned forward to pretend she was vomiting. “Yuck,” she said after her fit of pretend gagging.

“You’re so lame,” I said as I rolled my eyes.

“Let’s take the damn picture already! Addie, just let him feed you the fucking cupcake!”

I sighed in defeat and turned to look at Alan. I opened my mouth, ready for him to feed me, but instead a mischievous look took over his face and I felt the frosting of the cupcake being smothered over the tip of my nose. “Alan!” I squealed as I pulled back.

“Are you kidding me?” Jelina groaned in frustration. “I give up!”

I ignored her and continued to stare at Alan. He was a mess of laughter as he used his right hand to clutch his stomach while his left still held onto the cupcake. He continued to laugh while I just glared at him. He finally calmed down and leaned his face toward me. He connected our lips and I made a point to rub my nose into the side of his cheek as we kissed. I felt the vibrations of his laugh against my lips as it bubbled up from within his throat. I couldn’t help but shiver at how arousing the sensation was.

“I love you,” he murmured against my lips.

I pressed my lips against his quickly before smiling widely. “I love you, too.”

There was a bright flash from where Jelina stood and we quickly pulled away from each other to look over to her.

“This is gonna be one to frame,” she said as she looked at the screen of the camera to review the picture. “You guys are kind of perfect.”

“Yeah,” Alan agreed. “We kinda are.”

He looked deep into my eyes with his alluring smile on his face.

“Well,” I said in a joking tone, as if I was going to disagree. Alan mocked hurt by dropping his jaw and furrowing his eyebrows. “Okay,” I gave in with a smile. “But only kind of.”

Notes

I am SO SO SO SO sorry it took so long for me to update this. I have just returned back to my second year of college and it's already been pretty time consuming even though it's only been a couple of weeks. I'm taking ancient Greek as my language and so it requires a lot of studying and homework to be done. But it's all good. I have 100% even after our two quizzes and homework checks :) woo!

I can't promise you when I will update next, but I really hope it won't be as long as the wait I just had to put you through! I will try to update again this weekend. Key word being TRY. I'm really sorry I can't update very frequently. I feel horrible, but I really hope you will all understand. :/

Thank you for still reading and sticking around! I love your comments and stuff so much. I also really love this story and can't wait to show you guys what I have in store! :)