Always and Forever

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yes,”

“Sure sure?” I asked nervously.

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Holly! You’re not intruding.”

I didn’t go to school the next day, I had to find a new place to live and I did, no, not with Brendon but with Carla and Frank.

I moved into the spare room. It was smaller than my previous one and received much more light. The walls were painted a pale blue at the carpet was white, there was a bed in the middle of the room , a bedside table next to it and a dresser in the corner.

“I’m really really sorry about this” I said quietly as I sat down on the bed with Carla.

She wrapped a warm arm around me “Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is.”

“Can you shut up, I’m trying to make you feel better here!” she laughed.

“Don’t pay me anymore okay?” I said quickly “Honestly, just use my pay and photo sales as board.”

Carla rolled her eyes “Holly, I don’t need to do that okay, you’re staying here because I want you to.”

“I don’t care okay, I don’t want any pay.”

“Holly, I’m still going to pay you.”

“No you’re not” I hissed beginning to get frustrated.

“You’re getting the pay from you’re photos okay, but I won’t give you wages, that’s the furthest I’m going!”

I sighed dejectedly “Fine, but I’ll start looking for houses soon okay?”

I sat down in my new room but it didn’t feel like my room and this didn’t feel like a home. I felt like an intruder and like I was imposing on Carla and Frank’s lives. This might sound like I’m a stalker but I loved watching the was those two interacted with each other, the mutual respect, the teasing and joking with each other and the little things, the passing hug, the small peck that would make anyone’s heart warm. It made me smile, it made me wish that I was like them with Brendon; it made me hope that me and Brendon would one day be like that.

At first I got scared when I realised that, I was in the same position as I was just over a month ago, unable to imagine my life without him. Brendon noticed my fear well, not my fear but he noticed my change in behaviour, he asked questions at first but then left me alone when I told him nothing was wrong.

My Yiayia came over on the third night, trying to force me to move back home, or at least move in with her, but I knew the things that everyone else had turned a blind eye to over the years. I knew what she was like; she was conniving, crawling to me until she had me wrapped around her finger that I listened to every word she said. She also came around to snoop, to see where I was living, to see how I was living, to go back to the rest of the family to gossip. I know she’s my Yiayia and I know she loves me but she loves to gossip just as much.

“Holly,” Brendon sat down next to me on my bed after another day which I hadn’t been to school “When are you gonna come back? I want you back at school.” Brendon had a way of speaking; it was demanding and bratty yet endearing at the same time.

“Yeah yeah I’ll come back soon” I shrugged as Brendon lay down and pulled me on top of him.

“Holly?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I the reason you got kicked out of home b-because if I am I-I really don’t think we sho-”

“It’s not because of you” I snapped, as soon as he began to suggest us breaking up I felt my whole body seized up and almost be ripped apart.

Brendon sighed and kissed me lightly “When are you gonna come back? Skipping this much school isn’t good for you PR.”

“You skip that much school” I said quietly.

“But I don’t have an Ivy League uni to get into.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I-I wanna move to California a-and try myself out in music, y’know get signed hopefully.”

I nodded “I’m not going either.”

“What?” Brendon sat up making me fall backward on the bed.

“I’m not going to university” I said sitting up.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I am not going to university” I said slowly.

Brendon sighed “Holly, you are going to university.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You have to” his voice rose slightly.

“No I’m not!”

“So what are you going to do with your life? Sit around like a poor version of Paris Hilton?”

“I’m moving to Cali with you.”

“Holly,” Brendon sighed desperately “You can go to university; you can make thousands and thousands of dollars as a doctor or a lawyer. Please, you need to go to university, make yourself something good, get a good lawyer husb-”

“Don’t break up with me again” I said softy feeling myself being torn apart again.

“I don’t want to mess up your family.”

I began to cry again “You don’t mess it up you make it bearable.”

Brendon sighed “Holly, you’re gonna go off to uni on the other side of the country a-”

“No I’m not” I said hitting him on the chest as hard as I could.

“Holly” Brendon tried to reason.

“Shut up,” I hit him again while trying to pull him closer to me at the same time. My body was beginning to feel overwhelmingly heavy and I couldn’t think straight “Please... don’t do this okay, you can’t I-I’ll kill myself if you go I- I will-”

“Shh” Brendon said quickly “I was just saying that if you move-”

“I’m not moving!”

“Okay okay” Brendon said softly “But Holly, you need to get some sort of education apart from high school. What do you want to do after high school?”

I wrapped my arms around Brendon and sat in his lap resting my head on his chest “Open up a shop like Carla.”
I could feel Brendon nodding his head from above me “You need to do a course in business management to do that.”

“Really?” I glanced up at him feeling stupid.

Brendon left a little while later, after I forced him to promise (multiple times) not to leave me, call it crazy and I’ll admit it, I don’t think I would survive it...fine, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but still, I was sure I’d end up in hospital again.

The girls came over later that night, they had found out about Brendon again and they’ve given me an ultimatum again they and also told Aaron what was going on and passed on the message that we had now broken up. I was devastated...yeah...unfortunately you can’t type sarcasm. But on a more serious note I knew I had decision to make, it should’ve been easy by now but it wasn’t. I went to bed, a frown on my face and worry on my mind.