Weight In Gold (Brendon Urie)

The Snow Day

4 MONTHS LATER

I've grown apart from the gang. I still see Ryan in the mornings, and of everyone I'd say I talk to him the most, but even him I've grown away from. I don't eat lunch at our lunch table anymore, instead I eat alone in the girl's bathroom or out on the bleachers. Brendon and I usually only talk when necessary, mostly because he's always busy working, but partially because of how different the dynamic of things are now. He's been saving up as much money as possible for the baby, which by the way, Aunt Jodie and Uncle Rick were not pleased about. They were enraged when he told them what happened, and they said that if he was going to have the kid he was going to have to provide for it. They did start teaching him what he needs to know about having a baby, though.

Liz's baby bump is now unmissable, and she loves taking any chance she can to tell people about it. It's a girl, and she decided to name her Sabrina although Brendon wanted to name her Aubrey. Liz hasn't done a single thing to help provide for the kid. She doesn't have a job, and she has no intention of getting one. All she plans on doing is using it as something to show off about. She's due in the next 4 months which she is awfully excited about, but she's the only person who feels that way.

Today is Wednesday, I think, I kind of stopped keeping track a while ago. Days are monotonous, wake up, get dressed, go to school, go home, go to sleep, repeat. I don't have anything left to keep track of or anything to look forward to anymore. It's currently January, and freezing cold. I wake up to the sound of my alarm and open my eyes slowly. When I do, I first see that my clock reads 6:48 A.M. then I notice that the trees outside my window are tilting dangerously to the side. I can hear wind howling in my ear. I stand up and look outside and see that we got a good two feet of snow last night. Most people would be overjoyed at this because school is almost definitely cancelled, but I just sigh knowing that I have to spend more time just thinking about things.

I walk back over to my nightstand and look at my phone, where my suspicions are confirmed. I see a banner running over the middle of the screen alerting me that school is cancelled. I immediately crawl back into bed and drift back to sleep. I again awake at 9 and see that now the sun is fully raised and the wind has stopped. It's now more apparent that it's still snowing out.

I get out of bed and wrap my blanket around me as I walk down stairs. This house gets awfully cold since it's so big and most of it is hardwood. I walk down the staircase slowly, listening to the steady thump as each of my feet hit the steps. When I reach level ground again, I immediately go to the kitchen to make some tea. As I walk in to the kitchen, I see Brendon typing away at his computer, looking very frustrated. "Want some tea?" I ask him out of courtesy, taking note that I barely have any voice right now. "Sure," he replies, looking up from his computer for a second. Things have been especially awkward between us considering that only moments before Liz appeared, Brendon was going to ask me to be his girlfriend. We haven't talked about it since then, and now definitely isn't a better time than earlier. Brendon and Liz picked right back up on their relationship when she returned, although the only one of them who is invested in it is her.

I put the kettle on the stove and sit in the stool next to Brendon, still wrapped in my huge blanket. "What are you working on?" I ask him, referring to whatever he's doing on his computer. "I'm trying to find a stroller, but all of these are so damn expensive." he responds. "Maybe you could add it to a registry and ask some extended family to help out?" I recommend. Brendon thinks for a moment, then nods. "That's a pretty good idea. Thanks, ash." He says. "No problem, Beebo," I respond without thinking. I regret it for a second, but then he laughs a little and I figure that it's fine.

After making my tea, I settle in on the couch and turn on a movie while Brendon remains on his computer, shopping for baby items. At first I think that I'll spend the whole day watching movies, but after two I get pretty bored and decide to dye my hair again. The last time I did anything to it was when Ryan helped me add more blue, so at this point it looks pretty awful. I decide that for now, I'll dye it black which is pretty close to my natural hair color, just because I don't know when the next time is that I'll be able to dye it again.

I want the black to last as long as possible before the blue undertones pop out, so I decide leaving it in a while is the best idea. I put a shower cap on when I finish putting in the dye and set a timer on my phone for 3 hours and 30 minutes. I then walk downstairs just as the doorbell rings. I look outside to see that it's still snowing, and wonder who could possibly be at our house in this weather. I open the door to reveal Liz. I refrain from rolling my eyes and invite her in, letting her know of Brendon's whereabouts. Instead of going to the kitchen, where I told her he was, she walks in to the living room, plops on the couch and flicks on the tv as if she owns the place. A second or two later, Brendon walks out of the kitchen and sees her. "Liz, what are you doing over here?" He asks. "I missed you." She says, without even making eye contact with him. Brendon goes and sits by her, and she leans her head on his shoulder. She then takes of her jacket revealing a thin strapped tanktop and lifts the bottom so her belly is popping out. She lays a hand on her stomach and rubs circles on it, which is making me, and from the looks of it Brendon, pretty uncomfortable. We don't say anything though, because Liz has a habit of crying and throwing a fit if someone acts like she's anything less than perfect. She then goes on to blame it on her hormones.

I sit on the leather lazyboy to the right of the couch and watch whatever Liz turned on, which happens to be Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Why am I surprised? A few seconds later, Liz turns her head and looks at me for the first time since showing up here, then looks at the shower cap protecting the dye on my head and says, "That's a nice look on you Ashley, it distracts from your face." My jaw drops at how rude she just was and Brendon looks shocked as well. "Elizabeth!" He says in a manner that only he could get away with. "Oops, did that sound rude? Sorry, it's the baby hormones talking. They make me brutally honest." She then diverts her attention back to the tv and doesn't give me another look. I get up from where I'm sitting and stomp upstairs. I don't come back down until my hair is rinsed and blowdried and Elizabeth is finally gone.