Two Stars- An Auslly Fanfiction

Chapter 9

"Aren't you cold?" I gasp and spin around. Austin is standing there. I thought I'd locked the door to my room...I guess not.

Maybe it's cold on the balcony, but I've never been a person who's easily bothered by climate. It could be snowing, and I'd still be out here, in jeans and a t-shirt.

"I'm fine," I mumble, turning back to face the city.

"So...how was your first week?" He asks.

"Fine," I repeat, this time a bit more forcefully.

"Really?" I don't say anything for a moment. Then I sigh, and bury my head in my arms, which are resting on the balcony railing.

"No. Nothing was fine. I was miserable, and I was confused, and nobody likes me. I just want to go home! I don't care why I was forced to come in the first place, I just want to get out of here!"

A tear drips off my nose, I hadn't even realized I'd started to cry.

But Austin notices. He gently guides me back inside, and sits me down on the bed. And he lets me cry. Everything I've been holding in since I first pulled away from home, in the stupid orange car, it all comes tumbling out of me ungracefully.

He puts his arm around me and pulls me closer, practically into his chest, and I sob harder, because I know he doesn't care. After what feels like a long time, Austin tries to calm me down.

"Ally, please stop crying. It's sad to see someone so beautiful cry." I catch my breath, and raise my head.

"What?"

"Never mind." I don't think I heard him right, not at all. My face is most likely red and puffy from all the tears, and the wind outside has no doubt messed with my hair. I shake my head a tiny bit. There's no way I heard him correctly.

I try to take a deep breath, but it comes out shaky, as I shift away from Austin, to lean on the wall the bed is pushed against.

I'm still upset, but the tears have stopped flowing, at least. I think Austin realizes that I feel the smallest amount better, because only now does he try to really talk to me.

"Hey, Ally." I'm pretty sure that he's only speaking to me out of pity, and that whatever he says next will be meaningless apologies. But I respond, anyways.

"What?"

"What's it like where you live?" A small smile naturally appears on my face, without me meaning to let anything show. But I like to talk about home. So far he's the only one that'll listen. I mean, sure, the girls a school know, but they don't really get it. Maybe Austin won't either. But it's still nice that he asked.

"Well, its me and my family, and a few employees. My grandpa owns an orchard, that's what the employees are there for. So it's me, Eli, my grandfather, and my mom."

"What about-" he cuts himself off. "Never mind." I know what he was going to ask about anyways, though.

"I don't know where he is now. I haven't seen my dad since I was six years old."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Ally," he murmurs.

"No need for an apology. I'm used to it. It's been ten years," I reply.

"Is that how long you've lived in the orchard?"

"Yes."

"Wow. Long time, no civilization. How do-what exactly do you do to pass time there?"

"It depends. Maybe I'll be in my room, practicing my guitar. I'm not that good yet, so..." I trail off.

"Hey, you sound pretty great to me," he compliments, smiling.

I kind of love his smile.

"I've not been playing very long, and I only taught myself. Some people are a lot better. Anyways, I'll help in the orchard with picking, or do other chores and stuff."

Just thinking about my orchard-and I call it mine because while I'm here, it's the only thing that I can think of serenely-makes me feel so much more at ease. My breathing is no longer coming out shallow and helpless,

"Is that all you do?" Austin asks, and I can immediately tell that he's unimpressed.

"No...and you can't just hear about it, you can't just listen to me talk about everything that makes it so amazing. You have to be there. But I'll try to sum it up for you. Look, my orchard is a place where nobody judges me or my life, no one is hard to understand, everything is just the way it should be. When I'm upset, I can be left alone, and when I'm happy, there's nothing keeping me from being that way." Austin nods.

"I get it. A lot different from here."

"Definitely. A lot."

And then he doesn't say anything for awhile, so I don't know if I should. I actually don't mind the silence. But what I can't stand is that I have no idea what he's thinking. I have no idea what he thinks of me. So I surprise myself by speaking up.

"Sometimes I can just escape. When I'm there."

"What do you mean? Do you escape here, too?"

"We'll...I can't, really. There's nowhere to hide. But when I'm there, I can just run far, far always and even then, I'll always know the way back. I'm never lost like I am here. I can just go to a place where no one cares, where there's no one to care. I could scream at the top of my lungs, though I don't, and it'll be fine.

Or, I could just be me, and I could sit under the trees, and listen to their music. I...if I sing, my voice will eventually rise up and disappear, and I know that my problems are small, compared to the world.

And...you know, I wouldn't mind if they called me "wild tree girl," if they knew what it was like. If they didn't mean it in a way that defeated the purpose of my entire lifestyle. I mean, I don't consider myself wild, but I could just sit in the forest for hours, listening. The problem is, no one understands the music but me." I haven't spoken this much to anyone the entire time I've been here, but I find that with Austin, it's not hard.

"They don't know what it's like. It'd magic, it really is. You just have to know what to listen for. It's speaks to you. Everything." There's a pause.

"That sounds amazing," Austin whispers.

It takes me a moment to comprehend, but when I do, my eyes widen a little, I'm so taken aback. For the first time in my life, here is the one person who does understand. He could find the music.

His face is kind of close to mine, I'm looking right into his eyes.

"Yeah. Amazing."