Age Of Innocence (AOI) [Sequel To IR]

Chapter 85 } Loved And Betrayed

Part 2:
Ala's POV

I woke up completely confused of last nights events. I wasn't really sure necessarily what was fact or fiction. Or if I'd imagined it all. I decided everything actually happened when I saw Tessa sound asleep in my bed. I sighed stressed out with everything happening.
I walked down the stairs, being careful not to wake Tessa as I exited my bedroom, and decided to make breakfast. Only to see my mother currently doing just that.
"Mom?" I asked, wondering what had encouraged her to do this.
"I figured you might want to take it easy, I know things have been stressful lately, and with all these people here I thought I could help." She smiled flipping the eggs. Something not even she could screw up.
"So, Matthew came over here last night." I started sitting at a bar stool, knowing she would want to hear this story.
"Did you have a makeup-make out? Does that mean he could be my son-in-law after all!?" She asked excited. I knew she's always liked Matthew, he was polite and not super dumb. And compared to everyone else I dated, a great boyfriend.
"No Mom. He actually came and asked if it was okay that he asked Bailey, that girl he slept with, to be his girlfriend." I finished. She gave me a disgusted look.
"What is this Reba?" (A/N if you've seen that show, you will get the reference.)
"Apparently she wanted to make sure I didn't still love Matthew, or that I wouldn't approve." She still had the disgusted, confused look on her face.
"It almost sounds like she's more worried that you'll steal him away from her." Mom admitted cracking another egg.
"Who knows. I've never really met her, just seen her at that restaurant we went to with Matthew's parents. I couldn't really tell you what type of person she is. But Matthew seems to be very infatuated with her." I told.
"So what'd you say?" She seemed nothing less of intrigued, which is part of the reason I tell her everything, she always seemed so interested, that and the fact that we're really close. She tells me American teenaged drama is somewhat different than South African teenaged drama, at least for her it was. Apparently things for her as a teen were not so easy as well.
"I told him to go ahead. Who am I to tell him who he can and can't date. I don't control him." I shrugged.
"You used to. You could make him do anything when you were dating."
"When, not anymore." She shrugged this time and continued to make breakfast, the only meal so far that she's learned not to mess up terribly. Baby steps.
"Dausonns! I've arrived!" I turned to see Nash waltzing through the loft, a devilishly handsome smile plastered on his face as he sang his words.
"Good morning Nash." Mom smiled turning from her cooking.
"It is isn't it Ms. Dausonn." Nash gleamed so brightly I was scared I might need sunglasses to tone down the brightness.
"Okay, I'm sorry. But why the hell are so happy at eight in the morning?" I asked.
"Why don't you come outside and see." He smirked.
"I'm not dressed."
"So, you look beautiful in whatever you wear, or don't wear." He smirked coming closer to me.
"Nashley Grier I haven't had my coffee this morning, I am not in the mood." I warned, not really appreciating his attempt to flirt and be funny at the same time.
"Just come on." He grabbed my hand obviously anxious about showing me whatever was waiting outside. A new car maybe? I walked outside and gasped at the site in front of me.
"What idiot parked their hot air balloon outside of my building." I pouted knowing this was the doing of Nashley Grier.
"That idiot would be me. Do you not like it?" I could tell he was getting sad.
"No, I was kidding. I love it. But I just don't really understand why?" I questioned him.
"Well you said you couldn't decide whether you wanted something like a picnic or a hot air balloon, for our first official date. So I decided to grant you a picnic in a hot air balloon." I couldn't help but smile with him this time. He was truly trying hard, to get me to like him. I enjoyed the refreshing amount of effort, I almost wanted to act like I didn't like him so it would last longer.
"Nash, you really didn't have to give this much effort. This had to have been nearly impossible to set up." I couldn't stop smiling, and it felt amazing.
"Well, I guess I'll always make things work for us." He paused coming incredibly close to me, cupping my cheeks with his hands. "Nothing will be impossible for us. You can do anything you want, I'll make it happen." He whispered.
"What if I asked you to take me to the moon?" I asked almost feeling as if I'd ruined the moment. But Nash swooped in and made everything even better, if that was possible.
"Then I'll call NASA, and I'll make it happen." He continued to whisper as he held my face in his hands slowly leaning in more and more and more. Until finally our lips were grazing each other. We sat like that for a few moments daring each other to make the first move. It felt like we were still and the world was simply spinning around us. I couldn't name this feeling, but it was something, something special.
"You're amazing." I whispered still not giving into his pink, plump lips.
"It's what I do best." He smiled his cocky smile and waited one more second before giving in and closing the tiny gap between us. It felt like we'd been waiting years to do this as we kissed on the balcony.
"Aw." I turned to the door to see Kassie and Mom standing there smiling.
"Please go away." I whined.
"I guess Nash would be a good son-in-law." Mom smiled looking over at Kassie.
"If you don't mind Ms. Dausonn, I'd like to make it through the first date before I decided on any wedding venues. It may turn out she's a total nightmare." He joked.
"It's what I do best." I mocked repeating the same cocky smile he recently sported.
"You're such a dork." Nash laughed.
"You're the dork." I said pulling away from him. "Just think about it, we could be Mr. and Mrs. Dork Grier." I gleamed. "Or we could name our kid Dork, and he or she could be Dork Grier for us."
"Once again, let's get through the first date."
"Okay. Bye Mom, we're going to eat in a hot air balloon." I called to her running down the stairs with Nash.
"Ala Renaia Dausonn, what'd I tell you about running down metal stairs." Nash scolded following behind me.
"I'm sorry, Dad." I replied.
"Very funny. But when you break your head, I will not pity you." I only gave him a baby glare as I reached the bottom of the stairs. The balloon amazed me with its ability to fly.
"So do you know how to fly this thing?" I asked noticing there was no one inside to drive us.
"I watched a YouTube video." Oh great, we're going to die.
"That's reassuring." I joked standing under the tied balloon. "I wonder how strange this looks to someone in the building."
"Probably pretty strange." Nash laughed grabbing the rope of the basket and pulling the balloon down. Once it was fully touching the ground, Nash opened the door to the basket. My nerves grew at how easy it would be to fall out of this thing. I saw a table covered in the classic picnic cloth and breakfast food all over it. I almost felt bad that Nash went to all this trouble for me. He got in and to my great happiness the balloon stayed tethered to the ground. Once we were high enough in the air we started eating. I figured he'd made the food as well because Nash is a breakfast person, he loves to cook and eat breakfast. After eating and drinking our orange juice out of the fancy champagne glasses, we sat back in our seats talking away. "So, Matthew has adopted a fourteen year old." Nash started.
"What?" I was beyond confused by this.
"Apparently Fulton had sent out one of his new recruits in a car-." I cut Nash off, actually interested in this story. A new recruit for what?
"He's only fourteen?" I stated confused by how he was driving at that age.
"I know." I didn't know this Fulton guy. I was only familiar with him from that text, the text where he threatened Matthew. "Basically he was sent to interrogate Matt, but I guess he saw the kid was really convinced Fulton actually cared for him. So Matt talked to him and made him realize Fulton is an ass hole. Then Matthew brought him back to our place because the kid didn't want to go home. His name is Sawyer, and he really trusts Matt, and now we have one more person living with us." What the hell?
"Well I'm glad Matthew is becoming more responsible. But I don't understand who Fulton is."
"You know, he's the leader of the gang that Matt screwed over or something."
"What?" My heart started pounding rapidly at the thought of Matthew messing around in gangs. He could get hurt. Really hurt. Nash didn't answer in my preferred time frame which made me all the more anxious and worried. "Nash? What gang?" I asked more stern.
"Oh shit." Nash muttered. Which again only made me freak out more. "I forgot." He kept whispering to himself and I was beyond scared at this point. "Uh, look at those clouds up there aren't they nice?" He tried side tracking my attention and although the clouds did look quite nice, that wasn't what we were discussing.
"Nash, let me down." He knew I meant business and started directing the balloon back down the the ground. We got down there and a guy was waiting for our arrival. He took the balloon from us to fly it back to the shop. "Tell me, everything, now." I demanded
"I-I can't really do th-."
"Nash Hamilton Grier, I said now!"
"Yes ma'am." His voice cracked and I knew I scared him with my sternness, but if he wouldn't voluntarily tell me, I would get it out of him some way or another. "It all started sometime in the beginning of summer I think, or it was the ending of the school year, one of those. Matthew met a guy named Fulton Brookes. This Fulton guy made Matthew seem like he belonged with him and his friends. They all lived out here in L.A but Fulton was there visiting. Fulton got Matthew so drunk I'm pretty sure he told me he puked eight times during the night, and three the next morning. But apparently Fulton was the leader of a gang, that Matthew had gotten himself mixed into the night Fulton almost killed him with alcohol. Then Matt did something that nobody knows about, it was apparently something super terrible, but he escaped the gang." Nash stopped a moment to take a breath. I'm glad because it gave me time to process all of this insane information. Matthew was in a gang. "Do you remember when Matt took you to the beach once and you guys had lunch and went to a book store?" Nash asked seating us on the bottom steps. I nodded wanting to hear the rest of it. "Does it feel like there's a whole portion of that day missing, like just completely gone?" I nodded again. The feeling I felt the morning after that day was indescribable. It was as if I'd been high the night before. My brain hurt like it was rearranging things. "Thats because there is a whole portion of that day missing." I stared at Nash more confused than I'd ever been. "The truth is. Matthew drugged you that night, to make you forget what happened the last three hours of that day." My heart stopped. It actually stopped, to the point where I had to lean forward as I clutched onto my chest unable to breath. Out of all the low life, retched things Matthew has done to me, or anyone has done to me for that matter. This one had ranked itself number one. "Fulton showed up with his whole gang, a guy named Devin distracted you in the ocean by kissing you under water making you think it was Matthew. But it wasn't, Matthew had disappeared. You got away from Devin and found Matthew being brutally beaten by Fulton while his whole gang stood and watched, you too terrified to make things worse by showing up, hid behind a dumpster. When Devin said you'd gotten away they all started looking for you. Grayson found you, Grayson Taylor." Grayson was apart of the gang? How many people have betrayed me. "He told you a plan to help you and Matt get away. The plan was to let Fulton find you so Matt would get all outraged and go hulk on them. Fulton kissed you to purposely hurt Matthew. But he broke free, knocked Fulton out and escaped with you. He drugged you that night, because he didn't want you to remember that awful experience." I couldn't say a thing, I didn't dare to say a thing. "Cameron and I knew, but we also knew it would keep you safe. That's why we came the next morning, and Cameron asked you all those random questions. We were making sure the drug didn't hurt you too bad or anything." I was shaking, literally shaking. Like a wet chihuahua. "I'm sorry, please don't hate me." I knew I was crying, there was no way I couldn't be.
"Don't be sorry, you told me the truth." I hugged him knowing that's what I needed right now, comfort. But as the time ticked by, I grew angrier, at Matthew. When it finally settled in that he had drugged me, I was outraged and ready murder him. "Let's go." I said angrily wiping my tears.
"What?" Nash asked seeming confused.
"Let's go." I ripped the car keys from his hands and rushed to the car. I sped all the way to the apartment and ran up the stairs to the door. Nash opened it for me staying back as far as possible. "Where is he?" I asked angrily to anyone who could tell me. I noticed the new face and figured he was Sawyer.
"Ala? What are you talking about?" Cameron asked coming over and rubbing my shoulders knowing how stressed I was, he could read me so well.
"Where's Matthew?" I asked still angry.
"In the shower. What's wrong?" Cameron was being so calm and I almost felt bad about being so rude.
"Get him down here right now." I demanded.
"Ala he's in the shower." Cameron restated.
"You either bring him down here, or I go up there. I don't care if he's showering or not, I've seen him naked." I was growing beyond impatient, and everything was annoying me.
"Okay." He said calmly to me before turning to Sawyer. "Sawyer go get Matthew, say Ala is here to see him."
"But he's in the-."
"Go. Get. Matt." Sawyer obeyed and walked up the stairs. Cameron relaxed me some, but I was still pissed beyond belief.
"Hey Ala. What's up?" Matthew came down the stairs rubbing his hair with a towel while only wearing his boxer shorts. If I wasn't about to kill him I would've found it hot. I walked up to him closely and delivered a large forceful smack in his face. He turned away by the force of it and stood there for a second. Nobody moved, and the room fell dead silent. "What the hell?" He asked growing angry with me.
"You asshole! You drugged me! You're such a bastard! I should've broken up with you sooner!" I screamed and cried like a baby as I hit his chest wanting to bruise him, wanting to hurt him, wanting to pay him back for all the times he hurt me. I wanted to kill him. I sobbed and sobbed as I realized I was scared. It made me mad that I was scared for his safety after what he did to me. But I still was. And it pissed me off even more.
Finally after having enough Matthew grabbed my wrists but I continued to kick and scream. Occasionally trying to hit him, but his strength was overpowering mine and I finally stopped trying to hurt him and only cried as he held my wrists.
"I'm sorry Ala. I'm so sorry." I think it was the most genuine sounding thing I'd ever heard him say. Which only made me hate him more. He pulled me into a hug, I kept my arms smooshed in between us, as he embraced me in his warm naked arms. He sshhed me every now and then to let me know I was okay. Although I hated him right now, no one could calm me like him, no one could make me feel more protected. "I'm scared too Ala. But we'll be okay, I promise. I won't let anything happen to you again. I'm sorry." I cried and cried and cried. Until finally I felt like I had run out of tears. Matthew looked down at me with the hazel eyes I can't help but fall in love with. As much as I hate to, I fall in love with him completely every time I see him.
He kissed my forehead reassuringly and I'd never felt more protected. I'd never felt more loved. And i'd never felt more utterly betrayed.

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Who do you guys ship in the story? Nash and Ala or Matt and Bailey?