Holding Onto You

Chapter seventeen

Audrey's POV

We're all sitting around in the living room together. My mom, my dad, my sister and her man thing whatever. And All of the puppies, of course. 

We're all just laughing, making jokes together, telling stories. Having fun. This is what I miss. I miss my family being together. The only ones missing are my brother and his family, but he's working so I can't really blame him.

It's been such a long time since I've just seen my dad, my hearts overjoyed.

After all of the excitement dies down a bit, we're all watching old Christmas movies that we recorded months ago from the hallmark channel.

Everyone's on the couches and chairs except for my parents, who are in the kitchen cooking together happily. Just as I mentioned before.

It's always heartbreaking every time my dad leaves, I mean sometimes whenever he doesn't have work for a while, we wish he'd leave. But that's always half joking, half. But just an hour in and we start missing him. Especially my mom.

I don't know how she does it, I know I couldn't. Being in a relationship and only getting to see your significant other through video chats, hearing their voices through phone calls, seeing them through pictures, it must be miserable.

Especially after being married for so long.

*11pm

My parent to bed about an hour ago, my sister went home earlier, and I'm just up in my room.
I haven't touched my phone since i got home this afternoon and I don't really plan on it.

Instead, I'm trying to occupy my mind.
I've tried reading one of my favorite book series, Percy Jackson and the olympians.
I've tried watching  one of my favorite binge shows, supernatural.
I tried drawing and painting, but none of it is working.
Finally I turn to writing, I don't really know what to write about. But I give it a try.

after writing countless pages full of sad poetry, and a random story about a fish who wants to adventure to the Great Barrier Reef, I finally put my notebook away and settle into bed.

It's been such a long day, I almost fall asleep immediately.
Almost.

I decide to look at my phone once, just because.

Nothing's too unusual, pretty much what I expected.

Except for the bunches of calls and texts from Lucas.
I don't even read the texts, I just decide to call him back. I know he probably got worried, I told him that I'd answer later when he called. It's been hours upon hours since I said that and he's tried to call a lot. I can see why he'd be at least a little worried.
He answers almost immediately.

"Audrey!! What the f-"

"calm downnnn"

"CAlm DoWn? Are you okay?"

"I mean as okay as I can be, yes"

He sighs and shifts around. As he's moving, I realize that I hear cars passing by and dogs barking loudly.

"Where are you?" I ask out of curiosity

"Outside"

"Why are you outside"

"Because all of Anthony's family are asleep and I didn't want to wake them up""

"So you went outside just to talk?"

"Yes, yes I did."

'That's so sweet' I though to myself. Its 11:34pm for me, which means it's 12:34am for him because of our time zones. I can't help but smile a little at that.

"Thank you..I'm sorry I didn't answer you earlier"

"It's okay. Just as long as you're okay Audrey"

We talk for a while. By a while, I mean until 4am my time. And for those few hours, I forget all about the reason I was sad in the first place.

Honestly, maybe he's right. Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about Zach anyways. There are more guys in the world. This is not the end of the world. And besides, what if they don't last forever? Things can always change. Feelings change. Change is always an option.

I'm feeling happy and a little more confident in myself and my feelings right now.

"Audreyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
He says while dragging my name out for about 2 minutes.
"Whatttttttyyyyyyyy?"

"Were gonna hang out one day"

He says his words with such simplicity, as if there are no limits to anything.

"Well yeah we are"

"I know we are. And when we hang out we're gonna watch anime and I'm gonna take you Pokémon go hunting"

I giggle at the last of that sentence. He always says that he's going to take me Pokémon go hunting someday because I don't have any cool or rare Pokémon near me. He says that he's gonna just kidnap me for an hour and we're gonna drive all the way to Georgia to Pokémon go hunt in his park, and then come back to my house and eat my food.

He always says he wants to eat food at my house because it "sounds amazing." I'm assuming he means all of the Louisiana cultured food that I eat at least 3 times a week. Like gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish, stuff of that nature.

I promised him that one day if he ever came, I'd cook any "louisiananiananananananann" food (as he calls it) that he wants me too make.

"I can't wait to go Pokémon Hunting with you amigo. We should watch a bunch of avengers movies too."

That's also a love we both share.

Except his favorite movie is guardians of  the galaxy (which I haven't seen), and mine is Captain America: the winter soldier. We argue over which movies are better all of the time. And although I usually win everything else, he always beats me in any kind of marvel argument. He's in love.

I hear the excitement in his voice as he says "um absolutely" even though he said it with his Weird Lucas-ness.

"Audrey I can't wait, it's gonna be so fun. When do you want to do it?"

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah seriously. I'm starting work like next week, I can save up a little money. It can't cost that much."

So for the rest of the phone call, we figure up all of the prices.

"Um Lucas"

"Yeah?"

"Try $1,225"

"Well fuck."