Love With Abandon

Ready for Love

My dream with Bryan was gone, dead. But the end of something means the beginning of something else. Sometimes, it's good. Sometimes, it's bad. Sometimes, it dies out, and sometimes, it lasts.

Now that something had ended, something else had come to rise. A certain boy with warm, yet somehow piercing eyes, soft brown hair and a gently and bubbly personality was constantly on my mind. He was always there with me. When I had a nightmare, his prescense in my mind was comforting me.

I couldn't deny that I was unfamiliar with these feelings. They had hapenned to me with Bryan. And I was terrified of these feelings.

The last time this had happenned to me, I was in the land of the walking dead for months. I wasn't sure if I was ready for something like this again.

I didn't know if that fear would ever go away.

***

I awoke with a horn blowing into my ear.

"AAAHHH! What the hell!" I screeched in my hoarse, morning voice.

"Happy Birthday!" I turned to face Variations, Taylor, and Liam.

Wait... Liam was here? Seeing me in my bedhead, hearing me in my morning voice, and smelling my morning breath.

Another realization hit me.

"How'd you know it's my birthday? And what day is it?" I demanded.

"You wrote it on your X-Factor registration form," Taylor responded simply, "and today is October 22."

"Get up! You're going skating today," Brad commanded.

"Skating? Where? It's not even winter yet," I stated.

"In a rink, silly."

I felt stupid.

Back at Accord, the lake just a short walk out of our city limits served as our ice rink. During the winter, everyone went there to skate. Of course, I stopped after my first time on the ice, as I was not coordinated on ice, and I had no one to go with.

Our area was so deserted that there was no ice rink within an hour long's drive.

"Do I have to?" I whined.

"Yes. Now get up," Liam said, helping me up.

Oh, crap... I don't wear a bra to sleep.

I didn't know what it was about this man. I always noticed all of my flaws around him. I tried to hide those flaws, which didn't always work, and often resulted in me thoroughly humiliating myself.

I didn't want him to see me skate. I didn't want him to laugh at me just like all those people at Accord.

"I'm going back to bed," I stated, falling backwards.

"Come on, on you eighteenth birthday? That's like, the most important one!" Taylor exclaimed.

In the end, Taylor and the girls from Variations dragged me out of bed, chose out some clothing for me, and put on my makeup, while Brad and Liam sat there laughing and joking.

I went outside, and stared at two pairs of wide, petrified glares.

"What?" I asked, almost accusingly.

Taylor, proudly like a mother hen, handed me a hand mirror.

I touched my cheeks in amazement.

Her handiwork transformed me from an plain girl into one that even I could see myself drooling over. The carefully placed smoky green eyeshadow brought out my now bright hazel eyes, and the concealer made my skin glow with perfection. My blush brought out my high cheekbones, my somewhat natural lipstick perfectly accented my lips, my eyebrows were a perfect shade of brown.