California Sky

Chapter 3

-Maria-

We got back to the house and I plopped myself onto Alex's bed.

"You wanna watch a movie?" he asked, while taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

"Sure, why not," I said while checking my phone.

"What movie?" he asked, while looking through movies on Netflix.

"TANGLEDDDDDD!!!" I exclaimed, while sitting up and looking toward the TV.

He chuckled at me. "Of course! You've watched it a million times already!" he said.

"But it's freaking amazing!" I exclaimed.

He clicked on Tangled and moved up on the bed, taking a seat next to me.

I adored this movie and loved it with a passion. It was definitely one of my top favorite Disney movies. When the movie began playing and I started squirming from excitement. Alex looked toward me.

"Would you calm down?" he asked, while laughing at me.

I laughed and focused my attention back to the movie.

We got to the part where Rapunzel's mother first shows up, and I started yelling at the TV.

"Look Rapunzel, sweetie! SHE IS NOT YOUR MOTHER!!!! If I were you, I'd just run now! Don't you dare listen to a word she says!"

Alex started laughing at me. I threw a pillow at him and loudly replied, "Stop laughing at me!"

"Stop yelling at Rapunzel! She can't hear you! And she doesn't know any better! I'm trying to watch the movie!" Alex exclaimed.

I managed to keep quiet after that point, and we sang along to the songs together as they came along throughout the movie. As it progressed, I grew more and more tired and began to doze off. The lack of sleep I got from traveling this morning was getting to me.

-Alex-

A little over halfway through the movie, Maria began to fall asleep. She grabbed onto the pillow sitting next to me, the sound of her breathing increased, and eventually I could hear her snoring. It was pretty late already, and she normally fell asleep around this time anyway. I was sitting next to her at the head of my bed, and so I slipped the covers onto her and placed a pillow beneath her head and by her arms for her to hold onto later. She was literally the heaviest sleeper I knew and didn't move a bit. It's funny, because so many books and movies make girls seem like the cutest, most peaceful sleepers. Meanwhile, there's Maria, who wasn't a very cute sleeper at all. She had her arms spread out in different directions and her mouth was open while she snored loudly. It was pretty funny.

I was originally going to finish the movie, but decided it would be a good time to finish writing some songs I started writing a while ago. One of the songs I was working on is called "It Could Be Love". It was about how a guy knows he's fallen for a special girl. I got the inspiration for the song when I fell for a girl I met last year, but I never got to finish it because she led me on and ended up telling me that she didn't like me in that way. The song so far sounded good though, so maybe I'll finish it one day.

It's actually been quite some time since I've been in a serious relationship. It probably was when I was 18, working in New York to record my music. Her name was Carla and we tried long distance for a year, with me traveling back and forth from California to New York. She was absolutely amazing, but the distance limited us, and at the time we were going in completely different directions. My career was launching, and she was heading off to a college in Wisconsin. She was too focused on school, and I was busy with music, and eventually we both decided it would be a good idea to split. I haven't heard from her in over a year, and that was the end of us. I've tried to get in a relationship after that, but it just never worked. So here I am at 20, writing and recording music only in California so I can have time to myself without having to worry about always traveling and being away from my family.

I met Maria three years ago, when I was 17. I was opening for a concert in Chicago, and from there she became my biggest supporter. Upon meeting her, there was something about her that I absolutely loved. The positive energy and spirit I felt from her was what drove us into becoming actual friends. She was the only fan I ever let into my personal life, and we've become so close over the past three years of knowing each other. Her dad worked for the airport in Chicago, and so she was able to fly wherever she wanted in the country, for free. She flew out to visit me on my 18th birthday, and that was the start of her weekend visits to the Aiono household.

Now, I'll be completely honest. I developed feelings for her probably about 2 months after meeting her. It was a few months after I had gotten out of my relationship with Carla. Maria and I openly admitted to each other that some sort of feelings were present between us, but I wasn't quite ready to move on, and she was afraid of a long distance relationship after hearing about me and Carla. Since then, the thought of dating her became strange because she essentially became the fifth Aiono child. It was like having yet another sister around the house. My three sisters all love her, and everyone treats her like family. So I began treating her more like a sister and a best friend, and the feelings kind of faded away from there. It only seemed like the right thing to do.

While looking over my song book, I heard Maria's phone go off, and I read the text message that popped up on her lock screen. It was from Drew.

Hey Maria, what are you up to? :)

I didn't want to wake her up, so I turned off the screen. I'll just tell her later when she wakes up. I looked up at the clock, it read 12:37 am. I took the extra blanket off the foot of my bed and spread it out on the floor next to the bed. Then I took two pillows off the bed and tossed them onto the blanket. Whenever Maria fell asleep on the bed, which was pretty often, I slept on the floor.

I got out of the bathroom and checked on her one last time before going to sleep. She was now hugging the pillow I put next to her, and was still snoring. I chuckled at the look on her face, lied on the floor, and got on Twitter like I did every night.

@alexaiono tweeted -- Goodnight my beautiful #aionoarmy! <3 <3

I love my Aiono Army so much, and greeting them every now and then was the least I could do. Knowing that I make them happy puts me at ease. I favorited a few of their responses to my tweet, and eventually fell asleep.