Good Love

Annie was pulled roughly from sleep as she heard a loud banging on her door. It was their second day back home; didn’t they know not to bother her? All she wanted to do was sleep.

She’d barely gotten any sleep yesterday, either. It was their first day home and Jared had made her run around the whole damn town with him. First they had lunch at Pizza Hut, then spent the day at Tessa’s, stopped by their parents’ house to say hi, then ended up at John’s house for dinner with his parents. Being invited to John’s was a shock to say the least; she hadn’t expected to be invited over, but he insisted.

She was also thoroughly surprised when she saw John’s childhood home and met his parents and brothers. Their house was impeccably clean, well-furnished, and tastefully arranged. They even had a vase of fresh flowers on the counter.

John’s mother was also one of the nicest women she’d ever met, his father proved to be an older but exact replica of John, and his two brothers were mature and funny. Seemed like he had the perfect family. Nothing like her own, which was shredded and strewn across the country. Her parents could barely be in the same room together, and they’d been that way since Annie was a teenager. Saying she was jealous of John was a severe understatement.

“Annie, wake up! We’ve got shit to do, and you can’t sleep all day!” her brother yelled, knocking on the door again. Instead of answering him, she groaned loudly and pulled the covers over her head. “Annie, seriously, it’s almost noon! Get up!” he tried again, jerking on the doorknob. Good thing she locked the door, because there was no way she was getting up.

“Fine, you brat. You leave me no choice!” Jared said, his voice fading. A couple of minutes later, she heard the doorknob twisting again and murmured voices on the other side of the door.

Suddenly, the door burst open, revealing John and Jared with victorious grins on their faces. Annie peeked her head over the covers, glaring at them. Jared flicked on the light, causing her eyes to burn.

After a couple seconds of her eyes adjusting to the light was when she noticed John coming towards her with a tall glass of water. It was too late to escape, and a second later she was soaked with ice water.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!” she screamed, jumping out of bed and chasing after the two boys, who were laughing and running out the door. “Get back here, assholes! Goddamn it, I’m soaked!” she screeched, her curses loud enough to wake the neighbors. That is, if they were lucky enough to still be in bed.

Jared and John kept running, easily dodging her with their long legs. Not fair. “You motherfuckers, I swear to god-”

“Not supposed to swear to god, Annie,” John called out teasingly, laughing as he stood across from her, he on one side of the couch and she on the other.

That only fueled Annie’s boiling anger, and she lunched forward, miraculously grabbing onto the front of John’s shirt before he could jump away, causing Annie to be pulled over the back of the couch as he tumbled backwards.

They ended up on the floor, Annie squishing John as she sat on him, her knees digging into his chest. Water dripped off of her face and onto his cheek. He shivered, and not just because of the cold water.

“Jared, I’m caught! Help!” he yelled, though still laughing because the girl barely weighed a hundred pounds. He could have easily pulled her off of him, but instead he played along, knowing he deserved whatever was coming. He had dumped water on her, after all.

“I thought you said the whole dumping-water-on-someone-while-they-sleep was an amateur move, O’Callaghan,” she growled. God, she was sexy when she was mad, he thought. He felt a little bad for thinking that about his best friend’s sister, but damn, was it true.

“It is an amateur move,” he said, out of breath from running. The girl sitting on his chest didn’t exactly help, either. “But it still worked. You’re up, and you’re pissed. It’s a win-win situation.”

“Really? ‘Cause I don’t think you’re winning right now,” she retorted, pressing her knees harding into his chest.

“Okay, fine. It doesn’t feel good with your knees flattening my lungs,” he groaned. “Lighten up, would ya?”

“Lighten up? You want me to lighten up?! You fucking dumped water on me! Now I’m soaked!” she yelled. He watched as her hands went to her dripping hair and gripped it in ponytail. She squeezed, and the excess water fell right on his face, sprinkling his nose. “How’s that for lightening up, JohnO?”

The two engaged in a staring contest, Annie’s eyes burning holes in his. Eventually he broke and started laughing, not being able to take it seriously.

“How’d you get my door open anyways?”

“I picked the lock,” he said triumphantly, grinning.

“You little shit, don’t even think about doing that again or-”

“Okay, okay! Annie, get off him. We’ve seriously got stuff to do. Sorry for pouring water on you, but we have to leave soon. Go get dressed,” Jared called from the kitchen.

“But I’m tired,” she whined, still irritated that they dumped freezing water on her. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to cooperate. “I just want to sleep all day. I need to recover from being on tour.”

“I’ll let you sleep all day tomorrow, Annie. But for today, get your ass up.”

“Yeah, Monaco,” John said, smirking at her. “Get your ass up.”

She glared at him as she got up, flipping him off before she grabbed her things from her room and went into the bathroom to shower. Even though she still shared the bathroom with two boys at home, it was hell of a lot cleaner than the bus’s tiny bathroom, and it felt like heaven to her. Cleanliness was something the boys seemed to... lack, while on tour. Surprise, surprise.

She let the water run hot, scrubbing at her skin and scalp, using her favorite shampoo that she’d missed terribly. Once she showered, she pulled the shower curtain back and stepped out of the tub, revealing the steamy mirror. She wiped away the condensation and looked at her body, noticing it was free of bruises. Her entire body still ached now and then, but it’d become normal to her now. Just something she had to live with.

And then there were the scars. The permanent reminders of what had happened; permanent reminders of the evil that existed in this world.

Most weren’t visible to someone who didn’t know they were there. Sometimes she caught Jared and Tessa staring at her arms, seeing the little white and pink lines, but the rest of the boys never noticed them. Or if they did, they never said anything to her. Luckily, the scars on her arms and thighs weren’t the worst. No, the worst ones littered her bikini line and stomach. There was a long white line, going from underneath her bellybutton to the start of her ribs. If she touched it, she could still feel the remains of the dissolvable stitches the doctor in Chicago had given her after Macy rushed her to the hospital. Though, most of what happened afterwards was still a blur. All she remembered was Macy finding her, crying, and the sound of sirens before waking up in a sterile, white bed. Once the hospital discharged her the next day, was when Annie had packed her bags and left.

Annie pushed the flashbacks into the recesses of her mind and dressed herself, knowing Jared was waiting on her. She slipped a simple but slimming black tank top over her head and shimmied into her skinny jeans before applying minimal makeup, something she hadn’t done all tour, and finished with blowdrying her hair. It felt nice to take care of herself again; she wasn’t materialistic, but she loved clothes and having her own sense of style.

Once she was done in the bathroom, she ran to her room, putting on a button up denim longsleeve over her tank top and tugging on her white converse. Standing in front of her mirror that she’d bought at Ikea, she clasped the seashell necklace she’d bought in San Diego around her neck. Finally, slipping her camera strap over her shoulder, she was ready to face the world.

***

“Someone please tell me why the hell it was so important for me to be here?” Annie groaned. She’d been sitting on the couch in 8123 Offices while the boys did band-things. Was watching them talk to their managers that important of her? Because she just wanted to go home. Nothing more, nothing less.

“We wanted you to download your pictures that you took on tour. Do you have your memory card with you?” Max asked.

“Yes, duh. Why didn’t anyone tell me that’s what I was supposed to be doing? I’ve been dying of boredom,” she mumbled, walking over to one of the many computers in the room, pulling her memory card out of her over-the-shoulder bag, and plugging it into the monitor.

After uploading the 800-some photos that she’d taken and burning them onto the hard drive, she slipped out the door of the building, navigating successfully through the confusing hallways now that she’d done it plenty of times, and started walking on the sidewalk. There was an ice cream parlor a few blocks down, which was what she was aiming for.

She’d made it one block when she heard someone yelling her name from across the street. Turning, she saw John waving at her as he crossed the road, not bothering to wait for the crosswalk to allow him to go.

“You just broke a law,” she smirked. “No jaywalking, O’Callaghan.” He rolled his eyes and bumped his shoulder into hers playfully. “What are you doing out here, anyways? Don’t you have important shit to do?”

“Nah, they don’t need me. I’ve just been, uh, sitting around on my ass all day, so I decided to see what trouble you were getting into.”

Annie scoffed, seeing right through his lie. “Jared sent you after me, didn’t he?”

“Noooo, why would he do that?” John asked nervously, his voice raising. After she sent him a glare, he cracked and smiled at her. “Yeah, he told me to go with you.”

“Ugh, I’m an adult. I don’t need a fucking babysitter! When’s he going to realize that?”

“It’s just because he cares about you, Ann,” John reasoned as they continued walking. “He just doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I know, and I appreciate him taking care of me. He’s my big brother, after all, and he’s always been protective of me.. but it’d be nice to have some space once in a while,” she said, kicking a rock on the sidewalk.

“I could talk to him for you, try to get him to lighten up?”

Annie looked at him in surprise. He was such an odd boy; one day he was bitching about her, and the next he was doing all kinds of favors for her. “That’d be really nice of you, John. But I don’t think it’d work.”

He shrugged, smiling. “It’s worth a shot.”

Annie didn’t argue with him, appreciating the gesture but knowing it’d be useless. There was no stopping Jared. It annoyed her, sure, but inside she was grateful that her brother cared that much to protect her.

“So, uh, where exactly are we going?” John asked, scratching his chin as they walked slowly down the road.

“I’m getting ice cream. You can do whatever you want.”

“Then I guess I’m getting ice cream too,” he laughed, giving her a cheeky grin.

She rolled her eyes, turning a corner on the sidewalk and revealing the ice cream parlor. She vaguely remembered going there as a child with her parents. Back in the good old days.

The two entered the store, the door ringing a bell as they opened it. The sound brought back memories of Chicago, and Annie shivered in surprise. The most random things unsettled her, it seemed like.

She peeked up at John, hoping he hadn’t noticed her weird behavior, but of course he had. He noticed everything.

Annie ignored his questioning eyes and stepped up to the counter to stare at all the different flavors of ice cream. In the highly air-conditioned room, she could easily feel John’s presence next to her; heat practically rolled off of his body.

She ordered and reached into her bag to pull out a couple of bucks, but John beat her to it, dropping a five-dollar bill onto the counter.

“I’ll have a scoop of rocky road too, please,” he added, smirking down at her. The girl behind the counter immediately moved to get John’s ice cream, and he took the opportunity to lean down and whisper her Annie’s ear, “My treat. For coming on tour and putting up with me -uh, all of us, I mean.”

“John, really, it’s only a couple of bucks-”

“Exactly! It’s only a couple of bucks. No harm done. Now eat your damn ice cream before it melts, blondie,” he chuckled.

She sent him a scowl and a mumbled thank you as they walked outside to find somewhere to sit once John got his ice cream.

“So do you really not have anything to do, or am I making you miss out on work?” she asked, situating herself on an old picnic table outside. Across the street, a few kids were laughing and running around with a soccer ball as their dog chased them. It looked like a view straight out of a movie, and she was instantly envious.

God, how low had she sunk? She was jealous of a few little kids? What happened to her?

“There’s probably something somewhere that I could be helping with, but eh,” he answered, distracting her from her self-analyzation. “I was in dire need of a break,” he added, winking at her from across the table. Annie made a show of rolling her eyes at him, naturally, but bit back a smile. When John O’Callaghan grinned liked that, it made smiling easier for her. Just talking to him made smiling easier.

“So are you coming to our welcome-home party tonight?” he asked. She raised her head to look at him, and instantly started laughing. She couldn’t even get words out past her laughter. “What?? What is it?” he asked. “What’s so funny?”

“You have ice cream all over your nose,” she giggled, handing him a napkin. “You look like an albino rudolph!”

John grabbed the napkin and quickly wiped at his face, making sure he got it off as the blonde girl across from him continued laughing. “An albino rudolph? Really, Ann, that’s the best you could come up with?”

“Yep,” she answered, grinning widely. Nothing’s funnier than watching boys act embarrassed, right?

“Whatever, blondie. But you never answered my question. Are you coming with us tonight?”

She shrugged, licking at her ice cream. “I dunno. Maybe. I didn’t even know there was a party going on. Am I even invited?”

“Ann, it’s at Halvo’s house. Of course you’re invited.”

“I don’t know John, I’m pretty tired and I don’t want to have to drive myself home, since Jared’ll be at Tessa’s all day and then he’ll probably stay the night with her.”

“Uh, hello! Are you forgetting someone?” he joked, motioning towards himself. “You can hitch a ride with yours truly. We do live together, remember?” John could tell she was about to protest again, so he kept up with his persuasion. “Come on, Annie! It’ll be fun. All of our friends will be there!”

She let out a reluctant sigh. “Then I guess we’re partying tonight, JohnO.”

***

“John, come dance with me!” Annie giggled as she and the rest of their group stood on the makeshift dance floor of Halvo’s apartment. Bodies were crowded everywhere and he could barely hear, let alone see, Annie. Whenever she wasn’t in sight, it was an itch in his mind to find her and make sure she was alright. Jared hadn’t told him what happened to her in Chicago, but the fact that something had happened was enough to bother him.

John left his spot where he’d been leaning against the wall and talking with Tim, Austin, and Halvo and headed towards Annie. He chuckled as she squealed in delight when she saw him, and it made his heart stutter even though he knew she was a bit intoxicated.

She threw her arm around his neck, using her free hand to take a sip of John’s drink. Within ten minutes of dancing, the drink was gone.

“How many drinks have you had, Ann?”

She laughed and pulled herself closer to him. “No idea!” she said in his ear, having to yell over the pounding music.

“I think you’re drunk.”

“No way,” she giggled, continuing to dance and grind on him. If she kept this up, he was going to lose his fucking mind.

He rolled his eyes, not able to keep the smile off of his face when he talked to Annie. He hated how much power she had over him, but he still couldn’t stay away.

“Will you go get me another drink?” she asked sweetly, using her puppy-dog eyes on him. He didn’t want to leave her alone, not in this huge crowd where she could easily get lost.

“Yeah. If you, uh, wait for me over there by Tim and Austin? That way I won’t lose you.”

He sighed in relief as she nodded, laughed, and headed towards their friends. John started walking the other way, pushing through the crowd and giving a quick hello to friends he passed. He finally reached the kitchen where all the drinks were and grabbed a couple of plastic cups for himself and Annie. He was promising himself to convince her to quit drinking for the night, since it had probably taken quite a few drinks to get her that drunk, when he heard a voice call his name from the kitchen door.

“JohnO, come here for a second, man,” Halvo said, gesturing for him to follow him to the privacy of his bedroom.

John did, both his and Annie’s cup in his hands. “What’s up?”

“How long have you liked Ann?” Eric asked bluntly, catching his friend off guard.

“W-what? What do you mean, I don’t, uh, like Annie? She’s m-my friend.”

The other boy laughed. “Yeah, and I’m a wizard, John,” he said sarcastically. “I know you, man, and you’ve totally got a thing for her.”

“Ugh,” John groaned. “How did you know? Am I making it too obvious?”

“Nah, I’ve just had my suspicions for a while, so I was watching. And so I noticed you not taking your fucking eyes off of her all night. And dancing with her. And answering her every command, basically.”

“Damn it, Halvo, I don’t know what to do! She drives me crazy. She is crazy, and I love it.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“No man, just you. So keep your fucking mouth shut.” He really couldn’t afford for anyone else to know; he’d just barely accepted it himself.

Eric stared at him for a second, before he burst out laughing. “Jared is so gonna kill you, dude!”

“Why is that funny?! I’m freaking out!”

Eric only kept laughing. “Ah, I’m sorry man. You gotta admit, though, this is pretty ironic. At first you two hated each other, and now you’re all mushy for the girl,” he said after a few minutes.

John just shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“I want to run inside and take her home because she’s drunk as hell. And then when she wakes up in the morning I want to make her breakfast. And I want to kiss her.”

“Wow, you’ve got it bad,” Eric said, grinning. “Are you gonna tell her?”

Tell her? Was that even an option?

“No. No no no no nooooo. Definitely not.”

“What, why not?”

“Well, first of all, there’s no way in hell she likes me back, Halvo. And, I want this to end well, not with her avoiding me like the plague because she thinks I’m in love with her.”

“Maybe she does like you back, you never know, man.”

“And if she doesn’t, which is most likely the case, I’ll just be a huge joke.”

“So what? You’re just going to sit and wallow in your self-pity? You can’t do that, John, and you know it. I’m not saying you have to tell her soon, but you have to do it at some point. It’s not fair to either of you if you keep it a secret.”

John sighed. This was why Eric was his best friend; not only did he keep John in line, but he also was the big brother he needed. He trusted Halvo with his life, and his love life too. If anyone’s advice was good enough to follow, it was his.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right.”

“So now,” Eric said, a mischievous grin growing on his face, “We make a game plan.”

“What’s that?”

“We get her to fall for your sorry ass.”