Just Al

-three-

-three-

My room looked like a tornado had hit, boxes and clothes littered the floors. The only thing that seemed to be in an orderly fashion were my books and my cds. Yes, I know, I live in a world with iTunes and Spotify so why have a hardcopy of an album? There’s something about having a physical thing in your hands that makes the whole music experience so much better. Plus, at least half of the cds were signed by the artists which without a doubt made the whole thing so much better. I even had a One Direction cd of their newest album that had lovely comments like “you’re a poop” all over it. Harry drew a mustache on Louis, Louis drew an inappropriate picture of something that I would rather not mention, Liam gave Niall glasses, etc. It was literally a cd covered in weird sketches that you wouldn’t give to a nine year old who decided that one day she was going to marry One Direction. Poor child needed to be spared from their shenanigans as long as she could.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly down there and help you move into your dorm?” Liam offered again. I didn’t even bother looking towards my computer where his face was plastered on Skype. Instead I was calculating exactly how many of my cds and books I could fit into a 228 square foot room.

“If you joke about that one more time, I will turn my computer off.” I threatened, knowing I would never actually do such a thing. Liam got really hurt when you ended a conversation without saying goodbye and would give you the puppy dog face anytime you saw him. He’d also tweet pictures of him being sad with hashtags #rejected and #brokenhearted. It was so annoying that I avoided it at all costs.

“I’m just saying. I still think it’s hilarious that you’re going to New York for college.”

“It’s all so I shave off two hours for the flight time to London, I’ll be closer to you, babe.” I said with great sarcasm, plopping two more books into my basket marked College Things.

“You spend too much time with sarcastic people,” he whined and I looked at the computer. He was doing his famous pout again.

“No, see, I’m the original sarcastic person. Everyone else just copies off of me.” I grinned widely.

“Yeah, okay. Alright I gotta head out, my date won’t be happy with me if I’m late picking her up.” Liam said as he scooted back in his seat.

“Have fun. Don’t scare her off. Don’t do drugs. Don’t drink so much that you do dumb things. You look hot.” I shot out without taking a breath, all while he was shaking his head and laughing at me. He mumbled a goodbye and just before he shut off his Skype I yelled once more “MAKE GOOD CHOICES!”

Once again I was confronted with the choice of what to bring to school and I just about threw in the towel. My mom had made me three lists of things to bring, things to buy, and things to not bring at any costs. She had spent way too much time on Pinterest. There was obvious things that I was going to bring, like a toothbrush, bathroom slippers and clothes but other than that, I highly doubted I would need all the things that she said I would. I would, however, be most definitely bringing a coffee maker, a mini fridge and a microwave. There was no way my eating hours were going to be cut off because the caf was closed.

“Knock knock. Heard you were driving Mom nuts.”

“Ugh, I get rid of one loser and I gain another. What do you need Nick?” I sighed, glaring at the sandy haired boy who had a knowing smile on his face.

“C’mon, you don’t leave until tomorrow. Let’s go, I’m kidnapping you.” Nick grabbed my hand and started to tug on me, and reluctantly I let him pull me off the bed.

“What do you want?” I asked as he yanked me out of my room.

I managed to kick his shin so he let go of my wrist, and he started groaning in annoyance. “Coulda just asked me to let you go.”

“And would you have?”

“Nope.”

“Exactly. Where are we going?” I repeated myself.

“It’s your last night in town, you didn’t think we’d let you go without a proper goodbye, right?” He chuckled as we went towards the front door.

“Here I was thinking I escaped all sorts of parties and goodbyes,” I groaned as I settled myself in the passenger seat of Nick’s Camaro. It was his pride and joy and usually got cleaned every other day. It was a graduation present from his parents that he got six months before he graduated. His dad thought that by giving him the car and not giving him the keys, Nick might manage to actually graduate on time. They did not plan on him finding the keys and taking it out whenever his parents were gone, which was majority of the time. That’s what happens when your dad is a CEO of a company and your mom is his secretary. They were never home, which is why Nick referred to my mom as his mom and our guest room had a drawer of his stuff. He always complained about being lonely in their huge house – but he would never complain when it came to one of his ‘radical parties’.

“Ha, yeah right.” Nick grinned, speeding up. I grabbed hold of the handle, knowing that if I said anything about his fast driving, he’d only drive faster. “Hey, there’s this chick I met and I told her you could hook her up with One Direction tickets and backstage passes when they’re here in September.”

“Are you serious?” I asked in total shock, trying my best to not slap him across the face. I’d save beating him up for when he wasn’t in total charge of my life.

“You should see her, she has the best body.” He chuckled as he took a sharp left. I rolled my eyes.

“What happened to ‘you’re the only girl for me, Al’?”

“Yeah, that was before you declared that you were boycotting dating until all the boys in your life stopped treating you like a girl. You’ll never change, will you?”

“Probably not. But hey, I let Lou do my hair, sometimes I put makeup on, and sometimes I let you hug me. Sometimes. Maybe when I meet guys who aren’t complete brickbrains then I’ll start dating. Hm?” I retorted.

“Sure. How about them tickets, though? That’s all that really matters here.”

“I’m not going to ask any of them to give your free tickets and backstage passes. You wanna impress the girl? Don’t use guys who are hotter and richer than you are. She’d totally forget you even existed within two seconds of being in the same room as Harry Styles.” I advised as Nick pulled to a stop (a rather jolting stop) in front of a Go Kart track.

“You’re a jerk, Al.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

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Things pick up soon, I promise. Like I said, they're random one shots so they're not necessarily in time order. This takes place two months after the last update.

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-katie-