“Addie? Why are you so quiet?” Jane asked.

I looked up from my plate and tried to give her a smile. “I’m not,” I said softly.

“Yes, you are. Five minutes ago you were stuffing french fries up your nose!” Jane laughed.

I blushed as Alan turned to look at me with an interesting expression. “Really?” he asked softly.

“She’s the retard child,” Jane explained with a laugh. “So, babe, how long before you leave for tour again?” she asked, thankfully changing the subject.

I tried my hardest not to listen to the conversation. Everything I had been thinking about earlier – about how my memories with Alan were happy memories were now touring sour and old. Hearing his voice continued to bring back my memories, and I really just wanted them to disappear.

“We’re home for a while now. We’re working on our new album,” Alan said with a smile. I couldn’t help but feel his eyes shift over to me every once in a while. I could almost hear the frown on his face every time he would sneak a look over at me. I never looked at him though – I couldn’t return the look. I knew that I would just melt into his eyes and my memories would get the best of my heart.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute,” Jane said after a couple minutes of silence. Alan let her out of the booth, and as soon as Jane had turned around, Alan slid back into his booth and immediately pulled my hands into his.

“Addie,” he began. “I-“

“No, Alan,” I pulled my hands away. “Don’t.”

“Listen, I had no idea you’re her sister. I swear it. Jane and I didn’t start dating until after I had left England, I swear it,” he spoke. “Would you please look at me?”

I looked up and immediately regretted it. I got lost in his eyes, only seeing ocean waves and love in them. “Alan, stop. Let’s just pretend like we don’t even know each other, okay? We need to forget about everything that happened… I-it’s for the best…”

Alan sat back a bit. He blinked a couple of times before averting his eyes. “Y-yeah. You’re right.”

The fact that he was able to agree with me so easily killed me, but what else would I have wanted? It’s not like he could just up and switch sides at the table. He couldn’t just leave Jane and decide to be with me. Why would he dump a four month relationship for someone he only knew for a week in another country? It wasn’t every going to happen, and I needed to encode that into my brain now before I tried to convince myself otherwise.

Jane came back and took a seat next to Alan. “Did you guys talk a bit?” Jane asked with hope in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Alan said with a happy smile on his face. The way he could act like nothing happened hurt me. “She told me a little bit about England. We swapped a couple stories.”

Jane looked at me and I sat up a bit straighter and gave her a reassuring smile. I knew that Jane just wanted me to get along with Alan because he was her boyfriend, but I wished that I could just decide to not be around him. But now that I was living with Jane, that was going to be nearly impossible.

“Ready to go shopping yet?” Jane asked as finished off the last of her soda.

“Sure,” I said as I picked up my purse and slid out of the booth. “Just let me use the restroom.”

I hurried away and entered the restroom quickly. I placed my hands on the edge of the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. “Relax, Adelina,” I said to myself. “You can do this.”

But could I do this? Could I spend the entire day with my sister and my ex-lover? I could already feel myself becoming over-whelmed with so many different emotions: love, anger, sadness, and jealousy.

I splashed a little bit of water onto my face and took a couple of deep breaths. If Alan could put on such an amazing act, then so could I. I lifted my head up from the sink with the most convincing smile on my fact – I looked like I was really smiling and actually happy. I wasn’t going to let Alan ruin my time with my sister. I wasn’t going to let him change my decision on coming back home instead of staying in England.

“Okay,” I said as I exited the bathroom. “Let’s go!” I exclaimed at I approached the booth. I called shotgun on our way out of the restaurant, linking my arm with Jane’s. I was going to make the best out of this, and I was not going to let Alan take anything away from me.

We got in the car and as soon as it turned on, the radio started up.

“Oh my god!” Jane and I squealed at the same time. Miley Cyrus’s new song came on the radio, right at the beginning. “You love this song, too?” Jane asked in excitement.

“It’s my guilty pleasure!” I admitted.

Alan groaned from the backseat, mumbling something about how he didn’t like the song. Miley started off the song and I immediately turned up the radio, Jane and I singing along to every word.

“Red cups and sweaty bodies everywhere. Hands in the air like we don’t care!”

I threw my arms in the air and closed my eyes as I gently swayed my body to the beat. It was difficult since I was restricted by the car. Jane pulled onto the freeway and rolled the windows and the sun roof down, so the wind was blowing through my hair. I continued to sing along and dance, completely forgetting that Alan was in the backseat. Jane and I would turn to each other and sing, laughing like crazy as we did so. Right after the song ended, I pulled down the visor to check myself in the mirror.

As soon as I looked into it, I saw Alan sitting in the back, staring right into the mirror. Our eyes met in the mirror and for a moment my heart rate accelerated and my eyes grew wide with admiration. I quickly shut the mirror and flipped the visor back up.

We arrived at Bed, Bath, and Beyond so I could pick out some things for my bedroom. I needed a bed-set for the naked mattress and I also wanted to pick up a couple of decorations for the bathroom. I was a materialistic girl – I adored shopping and having nice things.

Jane skipped off somewhere as we were browsing, leaving Alan with me. I tried to walk quickly to try and lose him, but he followed behind me casually, stopping to look at various items on the shelves and stopping to check his phone when it would ding from his pocket…which was at least ten times a second.

“Can you like silence that thing? It’s distracting,” I said after five minutes of constant alerts ringing from his phone.

“Oh, sorry,” he said softly. He flipped the switch on the side of the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. “I didn’t know that picking out bed-sheets required so much concentration.”

“Yeah, well, it does when you’re a girl,” I mumbled as I read over the thread counts on the package of brown sheets I had in my hands. “Especially when you’re a girl who spends most of her time in bed.”

Alan paused for a moment and gave me a confused, yet amused look. A small smirk came onto his lips, and before he could say anything I sighed. “That’s not what I meant,” I clarified. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Alan chuckled a bit and pulled his phone out of his pocket when it vibrated loudly. He quickly typed away at his phone and then shoved it back into his pocket only to have it vibrate the second it was put away. He pulled it back out again, and typed something up.

“Why don’t you just hold the damn thing?” I said when he went to shove it back into his pocket again. “It goes off every second. Stop putting it away.”

“Rawr,” Alan laughed, “someone’s cranky.”
“I’m not cranky. I’m concentrating,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Since when are you so popular, anyway?” I asked. The week that Alan and I had spent together, Alan hardly ever touched his phone. In fact, the only time he did touch it was when he took a picture of a meal that I had cooked for him in my apartment. Other than that I never saw him texting or anything.

“I’ve always been this popular.”

I rolled my eyes and let out a huff to tell him that I disagreed.

“You wouldn’t know anyway. We don’t know each other, remember?” His words were nearly rude. Venomous, almost. They sent a pain through my chest that I had never felt before. A pain that I would assume to be heart-break.

But Alan was right, and he was only using my own words against me. I was the one who had said only thirty minutes ago that we should pretend that we didn’t know each other. I was already regretting those words. But what else was there to do? Come out and tell Jane: Hey baby sis, while I was in England I actually fell in love with someone. Had sex with him. Spent an entire week in his penthouse. Funny story, actually, because that boy is now your boyfriend. Small world, huh?

I cringed at my thoughts. Alan opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Jane came walking down the aisle holding a new blanket and a desk calendar in her hands.

“Look babe,” she said with a proud smile. She held the items out to Alan. “I found a desk calendar for my office slash guest-bedroom. And this nice throw blanket for the living room. What do you think?”

Alan looked at the two items and I could almost hear the boredom that was radiating from his facial expression. “Yeah, cool,” he said with an encouraging smile that never met his eyes.

Jane seemed satisfied with his answer and tossed the blanket over her left shoulder to hold onto it better. I frowned to myself and couldn’t help but wonder if this was the Alan that she knew – the bored, unentertained Alan that just agreed with fake smiles and lame, encouraging words.

“Find anything you like?” Jane asked me.

I sighed and went back to the brown sheets that I was looking at earlier. “I think I want to do neutral colors. Like browns and beiges. Mostly because I really love these sheets.”

Jane laughed and rolled her eyes. “You’re so weird,” she said.

“No, I’m just thorough about my choices,” I defended.

“Isn’t that called being picky?” Alan retorted.

I lifted my right fist and coiled it back, threatening to hit him in the arm. He immediately grabbed onto his arms and took a step back.

“Two for flinching,” I said as I hit his arm twice.

“Aw, look at you guys. I’m so glad you’re getting along!” Jane exclaimed happily.

I quickly looked away and walked straight down the aisle, trying to find the bed spreads, and trying to get away from the awkwardness of that conversation that Jane was trying to start. I found the bed spreads and right away my eyes landed on the perfect one. It was a plain, muted white color with embossed detailing around the entire comforter. It was more of a quilt than a comforter, actually. And it was just my style. I quickly picked it up in the proper size and hugged it close to my body.

I didn’t know what it was about this blanket, but it made me feel so at home. It reminded me a lot of England, because, quite frankly, that place was my home. Not here. Not Long Beach.

“You already found one you like?” Jane asked as she came up from behind me.

I whipped around and held it out to her. “It’s perfect,” I said with a large smile.

Jane looked at it and scrunched up her nose. “It’s alright, I guess.”

“Shut up, it’s perfect and I love it,” I said, pulling it away from her quickly. “I just need to grab some towels, a shower-curtain, and maybe a rug for the bathroom. I won’t be took selective with these, promise.”

Jane and Alan each chuckled a bit and followed me over to the bathroom section where I picked out a simple, dark brown cloth shower curtain that had vintage detailing stitched into it and a dark brown rug to match. I grabbed golden brown towels along with a few regular brown ones and decided that it was a good enough start to calling this place home.

I headed over to the checkout and placed all of my things on the counter.

“That will be five-hundred, thirty-two dollars and sixty-four cents please,” the cashier said.

I sighed and reached into my wallet for my credit card. By the time I had pulled it out, the cashier was already sliding a card through the machine. I looked at the card in confusion and watched as she handed it back over to Alan along with a receipt for him to sign.

“Wow, seriously?” I asked both in anger and in appreciation. “Um, thank you.”

Jane’s jaw was hanging down to her knees as she watched Alan hand the receipt back over to the worker. “Babe,” she said in shock. “That was so nice of you. You really didn’t have to do that.”

Alan just shrugged and told her to put her items on the counter. Jane did as she was told and watched as Alan handed his credit card back over to the cashier, paying for her items as well.

“Aw, you’re the best boyfriend ever,” Jane gushed as the cashier handed her over the two bags.

While we loaded up the trunk, Alan was typing away on his phone in the passenger seat of the car. Before I could push the trunk shut, Jane grabbed my arm.

“So, what do you think?” she asked with a large grin.

“Huh?”

“Oh you know! About Alan? He’s a total babe, right?” Jane’s eyes were hopeful, and I really wanted to just smack the look right off of her face. My jealousy was boiling my blood, and causing me to become angry at the situation. But it wasn’t Jane’s fault.

“Yeah, Jane,” I said as I gave her that same fake smile I had practiced earlier in the bathroom. “He’s great.”

“I know,” she smiled as she bit her lip.

“What’s taking you guys so long?” Alan called out the window.

I hurried and closed the trunk before heading over to the backseat and climbing in. Jane got in the car and we started off in the direction of the freeway. It was a lot easier to travel by freeway in Long Beach since the regular streets were always so narrow and crowded.

This time instead of listening to the radio, Jane popped a CD into the player. Metal music began to blast through her speakers and Alan immediately responded with a huge grin. I watched as the two of them sang along to the harsh vocals. Alan was whipping his orange hair around in a flurry as Jane was bobbing hers slightly, careful not to lose sight of the road.

I looked between Jane and myself. Jane’s hair was a lot darker than mine and thinner. Her hair hit just below her shoulders and was cut with many layers and side-bangs that swept across her forehead, just barely missing her left eye. Her skin was lighter than mine giving her blue eyes much more of a pop than mine. She dressed in tight jeans and casual shirts. Her eyes always covered in dark make-up, but not enough to swallow up their shape. She was perfect for Alan, really – she was the perfect punk-rock girlfriend.

And who was I to think that Alan and I could have ever worked. I knew hardly anything about modern music. All I knew was classical music and whatever came on the radio. I didn’t know any rock music; I hardly even knew the difference between a bass and a regular guitar. I dressed in skirts and dresses, sometimes shorts, but usually never jeans. My hair was thick and dirty blonde with only two long layers to add shape. I didn’t line my eyes in black, in fact I hardly wore any black make-up at all besides my eyeliner and mascara. And even then it wasn’t much. I didn’t have any tattoos or interesting piercings. I didn’t wear band shirts or have rips in my clothes.

I sunk lower into my seat when the harsh reality washed over me – Alan would never be mine again. He should have never been mine to begin with. Because he did, in fact, belong with Jane.

Notes

Addie's Bedding

What do you guys think about Addie and Alan keeping things from Jane? What do you think is going to happen next?

The rest of the band will be introduced next chapter along with some more drama! :) Comment, rate, and subscribe please :) Thank you! xoxo.