Battle of Hearts

Chapter 17- Dealing with Feelings

Chapter 18- Dealing with feelings.

The Saturday morning came with a thud as Alex Parker entered the house. Like a king he lifted his hands and shouted, "I'm back, peasants!" Her brother was the pure definition of an egoistic chauvinist spoiled brat. What they call the bad boy in today's times, safe to say he was the worst of them all.

Almost every two weeks he would come home drunk, sometimes he wouldn't even show up. Her parents forcefully sent him to college when he basically dragged through high school with just passing grades. The number of arguments and fights he was the reason for in the house had become uncountable since he entered high school.

Of course, the noise settled a little when he moved to college. But he was still a pain in the ass of her parents.

"What's up, Al?" He said messing with her hair. Although he was the cause of misery in her family, he still was a good brother and a good person inside.

"Eww, get away from me." He threw his bag on the floor and stretched himself on the couch. Her mother must have heard his loud arrival because she came with striding with a big smile on her face.

"How's my son?"

"Just fine, mum." He replicated the same smile her mother wore. They wanted to hug, she could tell, but they were reluctant. Her mother just stood there staring at her son. Even if he wasn't the best son of the world, but at that moment she was definitely a mother, who had not seen her son for months.

"You're here." Their father came with a slight shade of happiness mixed with resistance. The conversations between Alex and their father were very hard to remember for Ally only recalled their awful arguments whenever they came face to face with each other.

"Yes, dad." He said in a low voice. And they stood their foolishly until her mother interrupted the silence, "Did you have breakfast?"

"No, I just kind of rushed here. So didn't have much time." He replied with all the reluctance gone from his face and only enthusiasm left for which he was known. He was the family favorite. Everybody loved him since he was always very talkative and cheerful with his relatives, qualities that Ally lacked.

She was quiet and reserve kind of a person and only the favorite of her cousins. The older seemed to dislike her because their opinions never matched; or because she never seemed to laugh at one of their lame joke; or because they didn't like the way she talked. She had always been quite jealous of this quality of her brother; he could easily make people like him.

The breakfast was strangely peaceful. No bad comments and taunting came to ruin the wonderful breakfast her mother had made. She remembered this peacefulness only dawned when her brother came. On the first day they would all be friendly and joking, but the real problem always starts on the second day.

Fortunately the coming bad day could wait for Ally had the most important night. She chose to wear a tank top and a jacket with ripped jeans hoping to get Jake's attention. She let her hair open, something she rarely did; it was only a thing for special occasions and tonight was the most special of all.

Tonight was also the first date of Luke and Haley, but they were going to some romantic movie unlike Jake and her. Although she had no interest they were to an action movie that Jake had chosen. She thought she would pretend to like it. She just never liked any superhero crap so it was going to be hard to act like she was really seeing the movie, when all she would really see was Jake's handsome face and his beautiful hair.

They had decided to meet up at the food court. When she reached he was already present there, sitting at a random table. She mustered her courage and hurriedly fixed her hair. She rolled her shoulders back and reached him, "Hey! How long you've been waiting?"