My Gorgeous Nightmare

A lot had changed in the past year. Max and I had gone on a couple dates but he moved to L.A. to be closer to the music scene and neither of us wanted to be in a long distance relationship. Ronnie wanted to get away from Vegas, so he and his band also moved to L.A. Dianna and I got an apartment together, and my mom and Ronnie’s dad moved to some small town in Missouri. I still talked to Max and Ronnie almost every day, and I kept in touch with the rest of FIR, but I rarely talked to my mom. Not that I minded.

But right now, I was waiting for Dianna to get home from work. She’d called me earlier to tell me she had some important news. According to her, it was both good and bad. She normally got home around this time, which was convenient because this was the time everything on tv sucked. But I still flipped through every channel in hopes of actually finding something to watch.

Right on time my roommate came in. She was smiling, which was weird because she didn’t normally come home from work with a smile. This must be some really good news. She jumped onto the couch next to me, taking the remote from me and turning the tv off.

“So…” she trailed off. The smile never left her face. “I went to the doctor this morning, and I’m pregnant!”

“That’s great!” I said, tackling her in a hug. “But what’s the bad news? It is Matt’s right? If you say there’s a chance it’s not, I will kill you right here, right now. And you know I’ll get away with it.” Matt was Dianna’s boyfriend, who I actually liked. And if she cheated on him, there was no way she was getting away with it. I’d watched enough of those true crime shows to know what to do. But judging by Dianna’s face, I wouldn’t have to do that.

“It is Matt’s; there’s no doubt about that,” she said. “The thing is, you know how he has a one bedroom apartment?” I nodded. I’d been to his place once; it was the size of my closet. “Well, I was talking to him today, and he’s going to move in here.” I didn’t like where this was going. “We want to make your room the baby’s room. The doctor said I’m only a month along, so you still have eight months until it comes, which is more than enough time to find somewhere else to live.”

So basically, I was getting kicked out of the apartment I’d been paying half of everything for. Great. I put on a happy face and told Dianna congratulations again and said I’d take her out to celebrate another night, but I needed some time alone right now.

I locked my bedroom door behind me and opened my window. Our apartment was on the second floor, so I’d pulled my screen out so I could sit on the windowsill. This way, I could smoke when I needed to without having to go somewhere or have Dianna bitch at me. And my room wouldn’t stink. Or what was my room. Now, it was the baby’s room. With my stuff in it.

I called Max, needing someone to talk to. He didn’t sound too happy when I answered, most likely because he was with his girlfriend. He’d told me he didn’t like her that much, and yet he was still with her for some strange reason. Max promised to call me back later when he could talk, so I tried Ronnie instead.

He was able to talk, so I told him about what was going on. “You can move in with us!” he shouted when I finished.

“I think I’m now deaf in that ear,” I whined. “But wouldn’t it be kind of crowded? I mean, you already have five people living in one apartment. And I’m not sharing a bed with any of you; that would just be weird.”

“We don’t really spend much time here, so it wouldn’t be crowded. And we can figure out sleeping arrangements. If we have to, someone will sleep in Terror’s bed,” Ronnie said. “And I can get you a job so you can still earn money.”

“Ok, ok. I’ll move in with you guys. But only if everyone else is ok with it.” I could hear Ronnie yelling at someone and the five male voices talking at once. There was some shuffling before Ronnie said he put me on speaker so everyone could hear.

“So who agrees that A.C. should move in with us?” Ronnie asked. All I heard after that was cheering. “I guess it’s settled then. You’re moving in.”

“Thanks guys. I need to go for now though so I can start going through everything and figuring out how to pack. I’ll talk to all of you later though.”

I went through my clothes, pulling out things I never wore, and went through some papers I had, but that was all I needed to clean out. All I needed now was to find enough boxes to pack everything, including all my books, and figure out how I was going to get all it to L.A. I still didn’t have my license, so I wasn’t going to be driving it down on my own, and I didn’t want to pay someone to do it for me. Besides the fact that riding with a random stranger through the middle of the desert in a U-Haul was not something I really wanted to do. But since it was currently 3am, there wasn’t much I could do about that.

I’d talk to Dianna later, when she was up, since she wouldn’t appreciate me waking her up now. I’d find boxes later, and start packing later. But for now, I wasn’t tired at all so I got out my notebook to write while watching late-night tv.