Well...Alright | Buddy Holly

Changes (V.H)

July 19th, 1959. 4:02 pm. The Nowak Household

"So!" Ania exclaims as we all sit around the living room. "I was thinking that we visit France all together as a family!"

I glance at Buddy. "We're a family?" I whisper to him.

He looks over at me. "I guess?" He quietly replies.

"I don't think they're really my family..."

"It'll be okay doll. Only a few more days and we'll be back home."

I purse my lips. I really don't like these people. They're all so overbearing but rude, as opposed to Buddy's family that's overbearing but nice.

"Oh, uh, I don't know about that," Koch says. It'd be a hassle with so many people..."

"Oh hush, Wilhelm. I'm sure the triplets would love to travel with us!" Ania smiles. "Right triplets?"

Juliet, Vincent, and I all sort of side glance to each other.

"Um, I don't know..." Vincent trails off. "I miss California and my steady,"

"I miss my babies!" Juliet exclaims. "I miss them so much and I miss my husband!"

"Reasonable, but Violet, how about you stay for a little while? We haven't spoken to you nearly as much!" Ania says.

I look down. "I'm shy," I mumble.

"You're shy?! You're a performer!" She replies.

"I'm shy around you,"

"Oh it's just because you don't know us!"

I shake my head. "No, it's because I don't know how I feel about you. I feel obligated to love you, but I don't."

"Wow, okay, that was shockingly honest," Mina laughs. "But I don't really blame you. This is probably a lot to take in,"

"It is! It's so much to take and none of you seem to understand!"

Buddy places a hand on my thigh. "Doll..."

"I get thrown into seeing people who I believed were dead, I find out I have a little sister and brother, my birthday isn't even my birthday, I'm not French, my name wasn't Violet, and there's books written about me!" I go on. "But none of you seem to understand how much that is to bear!"

"Jani- I mean Juliet and Vincent are going through the same things!" Ania rolls her eyes.

"But we aren't the same people! You don't know them at all, you have no idea how they're feeling about this. They're better at hiding emotions than I am, they're far more mentally stable than I'll ever be and they have definite futures! They know what this means to them in the future!"

"Definite future?" Antoni asks.

"They know what's going to happen next. Juliet is going to raise her kids and have more on the way. Vincent is going to graduate and get a career somewhere. This won't really change their lives, but hell, it could change mine. I have no idea where this music is going. I know it's a definite fixture in my life, but I don't know what's next. I don't know where in the world we'll be sent next, I don't know how well the next record will sell, I don't know, and I can't possibly know. I don't know what these...revelations mean for me."

"But that's so exciting!" Vincent says. "It's spontaneous and you travel! You're married, you're so, so passionate about music. Vi, your life is what you were always meant to do, and I think you know that."

That's the most I've heard Vincent talk at once in about four years.

I look at my lap. "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't make it any less scary, you know? Don't get me wrong, I'm so very happy with the life I have, but right now it's so hard. So ridiculously hard. It feels like the only things I knew for sure were simply tossed out the window. I thought my parents were dead. Nope. I thought Koch was dead. No, he's very much alive. My birthday? Actually a day later than I thought. My brother and sister? Scratch that, I have two sisters and two brothers. French pride? No, I don't even get that, I'm Polish born and bred. My presumed dead parents? Spies!" I gush