It's not just complicated, it's a disaster

Disaster (Chapter Twenty Four)

Chapter Twenty Four

Alex’s P.O.V

“Alex, wake up,” someone said, hitting me.

“I’m not asleep,” I murmured, hitting them back.

“You are trying to sleep.”

The next thing I know I go flying off the chair and land on the hard floor of Harriet’s kitchen. I stood up quickly, flicked my hair back and gave her a look.

“Claire wants you to plan this wedding, not sleep while I plan it,” Harriet told me.

“I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” I said, running my hands through my hair and then collapsing in the chair.

“Would there be a reason for that?” Harriet asked me.

“No,” I said, in the same taunting voice she used on me. “Can we just focus then?”

“After we talk about a tradition of mine,” she smiled.

“Oh, God what would that happen to be?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer. “My new years-eve party.”

Ever since I had known Harriet, which wasn’t a long time, she threw a New Year’s Eve party, one of the biggest to be in fact. Last year I kind of did nothing to plan it so this year she was going to make me help her plan this.

“Kane promised to let me use the cafe, and since it’s remodelling the top deck is amazing to see the fireworks,” Harriet blabbed on.

“Yes, yes,” I muttered, moving some of the cake designs and colour schemes and what not out of the way so I could rest my head on the table.

“You’re not even slightly interested,” Harriet said.

“Probably because I’m not,” I told her.

“Oh come on, Alex,” Harriet complained. “You didn’t help last year.”

“You never need my help. It’s like your life to plan things, it always works out for you,” I said.

“Why are you so upset?” she asked me.

“I don’t know... I guess the more I think about it, the more I realise nothing come out of this year,” I said.

“You mean other than having sex with Zeke,” Harriet muttered.

“Will you get over that? Yes, it happened, we’ve established that, you don’t need to keep reminding me,” I muttered annoyed.

“You won’t tell me what happened,” she almost yelled at me.

“Sex maniac,” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes at me but smiled slightly.

“What?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she shook her head. “Right... so I was thinking guest list.”

Harriet’s extended version of planning a party was something I hated to be part of. It made me wonder exactly how us two were as close friends as we were. I mean for one, we both dressed completely different. Harriet would take forever to get ready and even once she was done she would obsess over the fact that she didn’t look good. As for me, I just chucked a pair of skinny jeans on and a t-shirt and was cool with it. Harriet had the whole boy thing on, where as I obviously did care, just not as much.

“You won’t kill me if I invite Zeke, will you?” Harriet asked.

“No,” I said immediately. “He’s best friends with Kane, he’d be there whether I like it or not.”

“Why can’t you just talk to Zeke properly? Maybe talk to me... tell someone why you broke up with him?” she said hopefully.

I don’t know why I felt so angry at that point. Maybe it was just the way I demanded I tell her about Zeke.... I just kind of... snapped.

“Because my life doesn’t revolve around, Zeke? It doesn’t revolve around the past.... around him. I have enough to worry about without each one of you jumping down my throats every five seconds. I have stupid Austin breathing down my neck, just waiting for the chance when I’m venerable enough to grab me... my stupid exams, which I don’t even know if I’ll pass right now... and to top that off, I still have college to worry about,” I basically spat at her.

Harriet sighed and sat back slightly on her chair.

“You haven’t heard back from the college in England yet?” she asked.

“No,” I answered her.

“You want this one badly, right? It’s why you stress about school?” she guessed.

“Yes,” I muttered. “This college is everything I need. It focuses on the areas that are most important to me; it’s away from home... I can definitely afford it.... I want this more than you can imagine.”

“When do you expect to hear back from them?” she asked.

“Some time next year. They said to me something about using my pervious exam results to get a temporary place, and then my final ones to give me my place,” I shrugged. “It’s hard to get in there... what about you? You thought about it yet?”

“A bit, yeah,” she muttered. “Kane and I talked about it, and we reckon that if we have to go to separate colleges so we can get what we want out of it, then we might... I was just thinking NYU.”

“Come on, Harriet. When you moved here, you went on and on about the fact that because you now lived in America you could go to some fancy ivy league college... what happened to that?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I... I don’t know what I want to do. And I know you do, which sucks.... but I just don’t know what I meant to do.”

“I don’t know what I want to do,” I told her.

“Yes you do,” she insisted. “You even have a fall back option. You plan to try get somewhere with your acting, maybe just some random TV thing... and if that doesn’t work, you want to right music reviews in a magazine. I can’t even pick one subject in which I excel in.”

“You don’t need to do fabulous in a subject for that to be what you do. We both know I do pretty badly in English, yet for some reason I can write reviews... and that’s because I love it. If you love something and you try hard enough, you can make it work,” I told her.

“That will come back to bite you one day,” she whispered.

“Probably,” I agreed. “But look... right here. You’re planning a party, a wedding... you’re good at that.”

She smiled slightly. “Yeah... heaps of people would pay for that kind of thing. It’s probably my fall back, but you know...”

I laughed slightly, glad that my little advice had distracted her from the original topic and before you know it, we’re both back onto planning stuff.  No one other than Harriet knew about my plan to go to school in England. It was something that my music teacher thought of, and Harriet (since she is originally from England) helped me out with. I mean my Dad knew since he had to sign the form, but he was totally supportive of it, since it was probably the most responsibly I had shown for a while. It was a long time after I had broken up with Zeke, so he didn’t even have a clue, and I planned to keep it that way. Besides, moving might actually be a good thing for me... if it actually happened.