My Words Are a Matter of Pride

When everybody got off the plane hours later, they were dead on they're feet. Avara walked through the terminal at the Perth airport and straight into her mothers waiting arms.

"Hi babe, how was it?" Mrs Law asked as she stroked Avara's hair. Avara mumbled something incoherent and hugged her father.

"Vara!" Her little brother screamed as he jumped into her arms. She kissed him on the head and smiled at her older brother.

"Get my bags will ya?" she smirked.

"Get your own bags," he smiled back, knowing that this was their way of saying they missed each other.

"Get your sister's bags," Mr Law said, nudging Anthony, Avara's brother. Her little brother, Matthew, hugged her closer and started talking about all the video games they would play when they got home. Avara looked up to the baggage claim to see the conveyor belt was already moving and bringing bags out with it. She started to worry that she may have missed her bags; She hadn't expected them to come out so quickly. Before the worry could get the best of her, Shaun ambled over with her luggage as well as his own.

"I saw you were busy, so I got these for you," he said, smiling nervously. He was even blushing a little. Avara thanked him and told him to just leave her bags on the floor in front of her, where Anthony picked them up.

"Who are you," Mr Law asked in that fatherly 'don't so much as look at my daughter or I'll get my shot gun' look. Shaun looked down awkwardly.

"Dad," Avara warned. She hated his over protectiveness. "This is Shaun, my -"

"Boyfriend?" her dad questioned. Everybody except Shaun, who blushed again, ignored this.

"So this is Shaun," Mrs Law said, sticking her hand out, "I'm Caz, Avara's mum." While they were shaking hands, Avara pulled her brothers away to introduce to everyone else.

"Andy, Bradie, Travis and Jake," she said, pointing to them respectively. Avara looked around to see that Harlee and Tadem were with their families, but Holly was looking lost. After a few moments, her face broke into a smile as she saw her parents running in, followed by her next door neighbour Jo, and her daughter Chloe. When Chloe saw Matthew she ran toward him, making Holly's jaw drop, and then close in annoyance at being ignored. Her mother ran toward her yelling her name.

"Holly!" Mrs Burming said, hugging her tight, "I made you a cake, but your father walked into it!' She said. Mr Burming followed his wife, grinning and licking his fingers.

"Dad!" Holly whined. Then she smiled and hugged him. "Hi Jo," she said to her neighbour. The two of them hugged and as Holly looked over Jo's shoulder, she scoffed in disbelief. "I can't believe he brought 'the girl'.

A few metres away, Tadem was with her family. She had her arms around her older sister and was talking to her parents.

"Ah, here he is," Mr Cefni was saying as he looked over to the doors. In walked Tadem's older brother, Paul, followed by his girlfriend, whom Tadem didn't like and referred to as 'the girl'. She frowned and caught sight of Harlee, who was looking at her sympathetically.

Harlee was standing with her mother and trying to get away from her annoying little sister. "Go away Lana!" she cried.

"Harlee," he step-dad shouted. Harlee made a face.

"Girls, can I talk to y'all for a minute?" Jake called, getting the attention of everyone. The four girls, Travis and Vanesse all crowded around Jake, while their families and Short Stack chatted idly. "So Vanesse and I are going to stay with Travis until we leave this time, next week." The girls nodded. "Holly, Vanesse will be at your house at noon tomorrow for vocal coaching. Harlee and Avara I want you to meet myself, and Travis just after 12 tomorrow at the shopping mall at a place Trav tells me is called Sandpiper? We're going to go through a bunch of people Pete and I thought would be good for your guitar technicians. You'll get one each, and while Holly's not going to be there, you can both help choose her guitar tech. Tadem, Bradie's volunteered to help you finish your drum design, and then he'll go with you to the store you'll be getting it done at. Comprende?"

"Why can't I choose my own technician?" Holly whined. Jake gave her a look that they'd all seen a million times, but still didn't know what it meant seeing as he used it for different things.

"Because you'll be with Vanesse."

"Can't I get up early and do my training then, and then come and choose my own tech?" Jake rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Fine. Vanesse, Trav will drop you off at eight tomorrow morning. You best be awake Holly." Holly grinned at Jake, and nodded her head. "Okay, see y'all tomorrow," he gave them a small wave, and turned to gather his belongings before he followed Travis and Vanesse out of the airport. Holly turned back to her family and grinned again when Chloe finally ran up to her and gave her a huge hug.

"I missed you Holly." Holly hugged the little girl back twice as hard and sighed.

"I missed you to C-Man."

"Bye Holly," Holly looked up as the three other members of her band enveloped her in a hug. She grinned and hugged them back.

"S'not like I wont see you guys tomorrow or anything," she giggled. Avara giggled back.

"I wanna join in the love-fest!" They heard Tadem's sister Sarah shout as she dived into the middle of their hug.

"Hi Sarah," Holly wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, then laughed at how funny she thought she was. Sarah wiggled her eyebrows back and made the girls burst into fits of laughter.



Three hours later, Holly found herself laying on her fold out couch with Chloe watching the Lion King 2, and eating mini marshmallows. Chloe had fallen asleep a little while ago, and that left Holly staring absent mindedly at the wall while she thought of everything that had happened since they'd first gone on Warped Tour.

"Holly, did you want to take Chloe home? Amy, Shannon, Kade, Kris, Kelly and Summer will be here soon, so you'll have to get ready to go out," Holly's mum said through the door way of the lounge room. Holly looked over at her mother and nodded.

"Okay." She got up slowly, and gently lifted the sleeping child up off the lounge chair. "Could you open the door please?" Holly asked her mum. Her mum nodded and opened the front door so that Holly could go through it and take Chloe next door to her house. When she got back home, her brother and sister were at her house with their partners and their children. She rushed into her bedroom and got ready to go out to dinner with them.

Meanwhile, back in Adelaide...

Kyle sighed and put his face in his hands as he sat down on the end of his bed. He had just gotten off the phone with his girlfriend, Mindy, and was filled with relief as he hung up. Ever since he got to Australia, he hadn't wanted to talk to her. The only reason he did was that he thought he was more of a man than to break up with a girl over the phone while he was in a different country. He curled up on the bed and started thinking about Holly and how he hadn't seen her since he gave her the letter he wrote. After a few minutes, Jonathan walked in with a burrito.

"Yo," he said as he sat down on his own bed. He looked at his burrito thoughtfully. When Kyle didn't say anything in the way of a greeting, Jonathan looked up. "You know, apparently chicken's explode if you feed them burritos."

"Where the hell did you hear that?" Kyle asked, finally acknowledging Jonathan's presence. Jonathan shrugged.

"Holly tweeted about it." Kyle frowned.

"Have you talked to her?" He asked.

"Nope," he said, taking a bite out of his burrito. "Not at all."

"Oh," Kyle sighed.

"I've talked to Avara though," he said.

"Cool," Kyle said, obviously not interested.

"About you. And Holly."

Kyle looked up again. "Go on."

"Well, she just kinda complained about how you broke her best friends heart, yadda yadda," Jonathan said, "And by that, I mean I wasn't listening."

"Why weren't you listening?" Kyle asked.

"Because I just kept wanting to kiss her." Jonathan shrugged as if it was no big deal.

"You still like her?" Kyle asked.

"Dude, I love her." They were quiet for a few minutes.

"You know Caleb loves her too."

"Yes, I've always known that. Where were you on Warped Tour?" Jonathan said. He pulled a packet of tomato sauce out of his pocket and squeezed some on his food. Kyle looked at him weird.

"No, but I mean 'still'. And I'm pretty sure that that Shaun kid has a thing for her too."

"What's your point?" Jonathan asked, suddenly annoyed. He didn't like thinking this himself, let alone being told by someone. Being told made it that much more real. Kyle shrugged.

"You have competition." Jonathan's annoyance turned to anger.

"And look at me, I'm happy touring and eating burritos. You just cry all the time and you're only competition is yourself."

"I have Mindy, that makes it kinda hard to fix things will Holly."

"Dump her. Duh." Kyle looked at Jonathan in disbelief.

"I can't do that while I'm on the other side of the world," he said.

"Do you love her?" Jonathan asked.

"No."

"Do you even like her?" Kyle thought for a few minutes and was surprised at how the answer to that question hit him.

"No."

"But you're in love with Holly. I know it, you know it, Mindy probably knows it. Holly's probably the only person who doesn't know it."

"She's never going to forgive me."

"She's friends with Alex and Caleb again," Jonathan pointed out. There was silence again.

"What are you going to do about Avara?" Jonathan thought as he finished his burrito.

"I have a plan," he said slowly. "To win her back. To show her that I'm the one, not Caleb and not the stupid Australian lesbian."

"What's your plan?" Kyle asked. Jonathan got up and went over to sit next to Kyle and told him his plan.



"So," Holly's older sister asked after before she stuck a fork full of pasta into her mouth and chewed thought fully then swallowed. "Tell us about your music and your band and stuff. How come Kris and I never knew you wanted to be a musician?" Holly stared at her sister while she finished eating her cheesy garlic bread.

"What do you wanna know?" She asked. "About the music that is."

"Well, what sort of music do you play, and your albums and shit like that."

"Oh. I'm lead singer, and bass guitarist. Avara and Harlee do backing vocals and play guitar. Tadem does percussion. Uh, we're releasing our first album uh, I don't know when, ask Jake. Our first video clip will be Avara's song Picking Daisies. We're doing the Soundwave Festival, and then heading over to California for some shizz, then doing our second stint of the Warped Tour. What else?" She asked, picking up another slice of cheesy garlic bread.

"I've been using my computer to see what you've been up to." Holly groaned and lifted her right eyebrow.

"And?"

"What happened with your bus arrest or whatever?" Holly's parents exchanged confused glances, her sister-in-law looked curious and her brother and brother-in-law laughed.

"What about it?"

"What happened?"

"I punched Alex Gaskarth in the face... Several times." Most of her family stared for a few minutes, looked down, and then awkwardly continued eating.



While Holly sat eating her dinner, Tadem sat beside her sister at the Cefni's dinner table.

"Tadem, pass the salt," Sarah asked while she laughed at Tadem's joke.

"Get it yourself, slut," Tadem laughed.

"Tadem!" Her mum exclaimed. Tadem shrugged her shoulders and put more of the mash potato into her mouth. "So you haven't really told us what you've been doing."

"We toured with Short Stack, I'm getting a new drum kit tomorrow, Holly and Avara are as destructive as ever, Harlee's just as loud and dopey. We got signed to Pete Wentz' record label, we'll be going to California next week to talk with him about shit. What else? Uh, Dunno what else."

"You busy little bee," her mum laughed.

"Good on ya's," Mr. Cefni nodded happily.