𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖲𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗌 || 𝖣𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖬𝗈𝗆𝗌

Bye Bye Pittsburgh

There were so many changes going on during two-thousand ten, but moving into a new house was the biggest one, although it wasn't a personal experience.

After her divorce from Kurt, Melissa was finally moving in with her boyfriend, Greg, which meant that Mads and Kenz were going to live in a new place. Both of them were very excited, but when the time came to buy new furniture for the house ― courtesy of Greg ―, the younger Ziegler sister didn't seem that excited anymore. On the other hand, Maddie was ecstatic, and she was set on convincing her mom to buy the couches in a specific color-- If the prices weren't ridiculously high. Yes, my mom had offered to help Melissa, so Maddie and I convinced them to let us tag along.

It was now the third furniture store we entered after stopping at Taco Bell ― and it took us over an hour to be done because the employees were slower than turtles and Melissa really wanted to eat there ―, but we were still just as excited as the first one. The thing about furniture stores is that there are so many things to see, and if you're with someone else, it doesn't get boring. We could play hide and seek, I spy, or we could simply daydream of what we would want our bedrooms to look like.

Like we already knew what our mothers were looking for, we went ahead and did our own thing. This time, the first thing we wanted to check out was the couches ― Maddie really wanted creme-colored couches, for some reason ―, so we raced each other to the area.

Trying to not sound fatigued, I held my breath for a brief moment as I jumped to the gray chaise lounge ― basically a couch you can entirely lie on ― and laughed as Maddie was left the similarly-colored armchair to sit on. She stuck out her tongue as she sat down and I raised my right fist in celebration. "And I won again!"

"Yeah, yeah--" She looked directly at me with a grin. "But I'm winning next time!"

"Sure, Mads." I gave her a grin, clearly taunting her. "Now, aren't you gonna ask me how I'm doing?"

"Why?" I pointed down at the piece of furniture I was sitting on. "Oh." She sat up straight and laughed as I lay down entirely on the chaise lounge, still with the grin plastered on my face. "So, how did that make you feel?"

"I didn't even think of what I was doing-- but it was all done, right? I couldn't take back anything I said, but in a way, I didn't actually want to take it back."

I sat crossed-legged on the brown armchair, looking directly at Teagan, who was jotting down some notes on the sheet of paper that was clipped on the familiar white and turquoise checker-patterned clipboard. At any other time, I would have probably commented on it, and I did comment, but it fell flat. It didn't work because I didn't feel the way I would usually do.

I won last week. My solo was first place, beating Kenzie and JoJo, but I couldn't even bring myself to celebrate it.

"And what did you do after that?" Her brown eyes fell on me, and I couldn't help but sigh.

"I spent the rest of the night backstage, but I couldn't bring myself to sit down, so I paced back and forth," I explained, looking down at the floor, which was covered by a huge olive-colored rug. "The girls were also looking for me, and Kenzie was even crying. Something had happened that had scared her-- But I just assumed it had been everything in general. They told me that Holly forced them to get out of the room not long after I did, and no one really knew what happened after that. Nia did remember that the rest of the moms jumped into the argument to defend me, but Christy didn't do anything. She also said that Jill said something before Abby yelled at her to shut up, and she didn't say anything again. Again, that's according to her."