Heart of Glass (A Pierce the Veil Fanfiction)

XXII

Anne's POV

My life was very boring at times. The most excitement I've ever had was being kidnapped and that's not really a good thing. So I texted Tony.

"Let's hang out :)"

"Sure. You can come over, I'm cleaning my room though. :p"

I smiled at my phone and rushed to fix my hair and makeup. It was Monday so Mondays had to be boring or dreadful. I slipped on a pair of shoes and rushed out with a smile on my face and Yellowcard blaring through the car speakers. When I got there, his mom answered the door.

"If you're here for Tony, you can go on up. He should be in his room." I thanked the woman for letting me in and she closed the door behind me. When I got upstairs, Tony wasn't in what I assumed to be his room. There was stuff all over the place and piles upon piles of just... items. I stood and looked around his room. I was analyzing all the stuff in there. I saw a picture frame on a desk holding a picture of a baby and a man holding him. There were math and science papers scattered about as well as his backpack that was unzipped and slumped against the wall with a broken skateboard next to it.

One thing that held my attention was a small black journal that was peeking out from under his bed. I picked it up.

"Memories." I spoke the word lightly when I saw it written on the front of the journal.

"I see you found my memory journal." My head shot up and my fawn eyes looked back at his. His hair was wet and he didn't have a shirt on. I couldn't help but check him out, it was a habit I had from going shopping with my female friends. No one really knew I could be so girly because I was always so rough around the edges but that was just fine with me. He hadn't caught me staring at his body but he did sit down next to me with a shirt on and a towel now drying off his hair.

"Come on, are you gonna open it or not?" I looked at him a little suprised about how open he was with something so personal and cherishable as the towel fell around his shoulders. He motioned toward it like he wanted me to so I did.

Opening to the very fist page, you could see he wasn't one for arts and crafts. Sure, it was all organized in chronological order, but there wasn't really anything to the book. Just pictures with captions and dates written under them in sloppy boyish handwriting. No colors or anything, just the blue or black ink of a pen with the colors of a photograph. But I guess you didn't need anything special to go with a memory book.

The very first picture was of a young newborn in the arms of a crying woman in a hospital bed who was smiling warmly at the face of her baby. I recognized the woman as the one who answered the door and read the caption aloud.

"Mom holding newborn me at the local San Diego hospital."

Tony had gotten up to finish cleaning his room and the next page was similar to the first. The only difference was his father.

"Dad holding newborn me, local San Diego hospital." I looked to the picture frame that had the same exact picture, then up at him and he looked a little saddened.

"That is the only picture I have with him. My mom doesn't know where he is now, and neither do I. I sorta wish I did but at the same time, I hate him for walking out on us." I felt horrible for bringing up the past and apologized repeatedly.

"Anne, it's fine. It really is." Silence. "If you really wanna make it up, help me clean this room." There was laughter I scrunched up my face at how unkempt his room was and he pretended I had offended him somehow. I closed his book and laid it down on the bed and helped clean his room.

Halfway through, we were side by side on the floor just sorting through a pile of anythings that sat in front of us. Cleaning Tony's room was becoming a process I no longer felt like going through so I stopped and laid my head down next to his knee. I reached for my phone that was in my pocket and slid it out, texting Valerie. She was saying something about Vic and her troubles with him.

"I seriously like him but... I don't know if I should date him yet. He just broke up with Jennifer, if we go out now that's way too sketchy and it just looks bad."

She had a point and I didn't want to steer my best friend wrong so I just talked about it with her. It was opening both of our minds and Tony sat, still going through his pile but I wanted to have a real conversation.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever wish all the answers would just come to you?" He stopped doing what he was doing and put down whatever object he had in his hands. He got down so that we were at eye level and laid flat on his front side with his arms to cushion his head.

"What do you mean?"

"What's two plus two?"

"Four."

"That's what I mean. How that just comes to you and everybody else for that matter. Why can't real solutions come to me like that?" He understood what I meant and I turned my head, our brown eyes meeting one another.

"Yeah, but if the answers came that easy, what would be the point in living? Isn't life all about finding an answer?" I thought about it but couldn't grasp the concept.

"I mean, just think about it. People need food to live and the answer to that is money and the answer to that is education and the answer to that can also be money but you get what I mean. But it goes beyond that even." I raised my eyebrows.

"It does? How so?" This was turning into a good coversation for me. Not because I love his voice, and I do, but because this was opening my eyes.

"Yeah. I like to think that everyone lives for a reason. A reason they decide, a reason that no God can decide for them and that fate cannot touch. A reason they're around and their purpose for living. My reason is my pursuit of happiness. My pursuit of happiness revolves around me, but I want everyone to be happy so I try my best to bring others with me." There was a pause and I took a little time to soak in what he said.

"The answer to me crossing the finish line of my pursuit of happiness would probably be to surround myself with things and others that make me happy. But what about you?" I thought abou his question. What was my purpose? Why exactly do I live? Then it came to me.

"I live for others. I live to help other people, I love to see people get the answers they deserve. I would rather spend my lifetime solving one random stranger's problem instead solving a million of my own." That was the truth. I liked to help people whenever they needed it.

"And what would the answer to that be?" His voice was low and quiet. It was so hushed that I barely made out the words he said.

"To always be there to lend a hand when someone may be needing an extra. To be there for those who may not have anyone else." My voice trailed off at the end of my sentence and we just laid there facing each other. It was like I was forced into some kind if trance and I hadn't noticed us leaning in...