Don't Give up on Me

December flew by in the blink of an eye. Zacky's birthday came and went, meaning we got shitfaced and then braved school the morning after. Finals lagged on, and then our break for Christmas came. Mine was spent with my friends, and then the day itself was spent at Serena's house with her family, our parents incredibly cozy on the holiday. She and I were still in an awkward stage of coexisting, since we both didn't want to get to know each other but also felt like we should, because of our parents' relationship. Still, we weren't attacking each other, so I guess it was as good as it could get.

She had become nicer, however, whenever I made Zacky apologize to her. She was finally done with her immature bullshit and so was he. I was just glad to see this all end, because it had escalated far too much before I arrived.

Ryan had decided that he was moving back in with us and transfer Universities to get away from the painful memories left in Texas, much like our father and I had. "California just feels... good. Like, this is where we all belong, you know?" he had said one morning over a plate of eggs. And I had to say, I agreed with him. Sure, I had been homesick for the first few weeks, and my start here hasn't been so smooth, either, but California had become my home. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. This little house was plenty for the three of us, and it didn't contain the awful memories of our past.

However, winter break was now pretty much over. Our qualifying competition was successful, our team in the top picks of our area. My freestyle, along with Violet's, Cara's, and Charlotte's were among the top ten girls that had received high scores, meaning we had a busy day ahead of us on the 12th, a week after school started back up. I was somewhat nervous, I mean, it was my first competition with a new team. But, I had a week and a half to relax until then, aside from practice.

As for right now, I was sitting in my art room on the phone, frustrated. All I wanted to do was hang out with someone on the last day of break, but everyone I tried was either not answering or busy. I spun around in my desk chair, the still-blank white walls the only thing in my sight. I was so utterly bored, and I grew tired of staring at these four walls.

I stop spinning and stand up, pausing for a second to allow my vision to go back to normal before walking out of the room and into the garage. "Where are you going?" Ryan asks when I step outside, where he was working on his car. He whipes the grease off of his hands and faces me, expectant of an answer. He resembled our father so much, it was scary; he had the same expression Dad used when he asked questions, and even stood the same way, if that made sense.

"Next door," I call over my shoulder, walking down the drive.

"Let me know if you go anywhere else. You're still technically on probation with Dad," he says as I cross the yard to the Baker's front door.

I don't answer, and instead knock on the door, where Zacky's younger brother, Matt, answers seconds later. His striking resemblance to his older brother always shocked me a little; the only true difference was their eye color. He lets me in and rolls his eyes when he says his brother was still asleep in his bedroom.

"I guess its up to me to wake him up," I shrug, taking the stairs to his room two at a time. I open his bedroom door and snicker at the sight before me. He was snoring lightly on his mattress, completely sprawled out on the full sized bed. The tattoo on his left arm that he recently got on his birthday was visible, and his face completely serene.

"This should be fun," I murmur to myself, making my way over to his bed. "Zacky," I call softly, nudging him. He doesn't even move, making me smirk.

"You're a fucking idiot," I say out loud when I spot the air horn on the top shelf of his closet. Thankful that his parents weren't home, I count down from three, turn my head, and push down on the little button, the piercing sound awaking him in a nanosecond.

"What the fuck..." he groans, sitting up and looking for the culprit. He finally focuses on me and sighs. "You fucking suck."

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for sleeping until three thirty on a Saturday," I shrug, putting the can down. "But hey, how'd you sleep?"

"Pretty good until you woke me up," he mumbles groggily. "Goddamn, my head hurts."

"Hungover?" I ask. He nods. "Poor thing. No wonder you were sleeping it off."

He rolls his eyes at my sarcasm. "I feel like I'm about to die."

I sit on the bed beside him, his head in his hands. "Get dressed. We're doing shit today."

He looks at as if I'm crazy. "Oh come on, you, Charlotte, and everyfuckingbody else can waltz into my house and wake me up anytime, hungover or not, and expect me to follow along without complaints. Now put some clothes on, I don't think the McDonalds would like to see you in your boxers."

"But-"

"You have fifteen minutes. Not a minute longer. I'll be waiting."

And with that, I walk downstairs and sit on the sofa in the living room beside Matt, who was watching a movie. "I'm surprised he didn't kill you," he comments as we sit. I smirk proudly.

"We both know I'd kick his ass before that happened. You want anything from McDonalds?"

He declines politely, then refocuses on movie. Fifteen minutes pass before Zack stumbles downstairs, yawning as he does so.

"Have I mentioned that I hate you?" he mutters when he climbs into the passenger seat of my car, his eyes closed against the bright sunlight.

I toss him my aviators. "Nut up or shut up, Zachary. You're such a girl when it comes to shit like this."

"You try functioning with a headache like mine!"

"See? You sound like a fucking girl right now."

He sighs. "Jimmy got me fucked up last night."

"I believe you," I grin at a stoplight. "Too bad I didn't go to that party."

"It wasn't that great, be grateful you didn't. All of the rich kids showed up and ruined it with a fight," he says, shrugging. "Jimmy shouldn't of given me my own bottle of vodka though... I feel like shit."

"Yeah, you've established that," I reply, laughing when he rolls his eyes. "You can't be mad at me, I am buying you the hangover cure, after all."

"Come on," I tell him when I park.

"We can't go through the drive-thru?" He asks, reminding me of a child.

"Do you want food or not?"

He sighs heavily. "Fine."

We go inside and order our food, then find a table in the back, away from the windows. He ate like he hadn't ate in years, scarfing down the meal in barely five minutes. "Better?" I ask, popping a cherry tomato into my mouth. Yes, I know the McDonalds salads are more unhealthy than a Big Mac, fries, and milkshake put together, but I hated ranch dressing, so I was at least saving a few hundred calories there.

He nods. "Thank you."

I shrug. "Not a problem. I needed some kind of bribery to get your help today."

"You could have just asked."

"Your hungover ass would have said no, no matter how much I begged, and you know it."

"What do you want me to do?"he asks.

"Oh, you know, help me paint my art room..." I say tentatively, trailing off and taking a sip of my water.

"Really?" he groans.

"Yeah..." I reply. "But its like, the tiniest room ever, you've seen it before! Its just bugging me that the walls are still white when they could be something better, like fuschia or blood orange or mint green-"

"What do I get in return?" he cuts off my rambling.

"My eternal gratitude?"

He sighs. "You're not gonna shut up about this until I give in, will you?"

"Pleeeeeeeaaaassseeeeee?" I whine, pouting slightly.

"Yeah, sure, I guess," he finally says, making me smile.

"Come on, let's go!" I say with pure excitement, running happily to my car.

*************

Zacky POV

"She did the pouty face, didn't she?" Andi's brother asks while I open the paint cans; she was busy putting all of her art materials away.

"Its her eyes," I grumble. "Its like if you say no, you'll destroy the whole damn world, man."

He laughs, whiping off a socket wrench as he leaned against the workbench. "Yeah, I know the feeling. That's how she got her nose ring, and her phone, and I don't know how many books, art shit, anything. And she knows it works, too."

"She's a girl, of course it does," I mutter, pouring red paint into a tray. The things I do for this girl, I think to myself, shaking my head. Get arrested with her, get her alcohol, get her cigarettes, paint her fucking room while I'm hungover. I just had to have a crush on her. I would literally do anything for her; I'm 95% sure that if she asked me to kill someone for her that I'd do it without thinking twice, that's just how deep she had me. When, in reality, it fucked me over in the end because I didn't have the balls to ask her out. I knew she still didn't fully trust me after all the bullshit with Serena happened, so I had become more hesitant with her since then. With good reason to, she genuinely hated me for a week, after all. I still just had to lie low, and give it time.

I hear her drop a box onto the concrete floor, grumbling about something. "My acrylic paints are all dried out," she pouts as she carries a tray of paint into the room. "Do you know how expensive that shit is? That's fifty bucks, gone! Poof! Goodbye!"

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure you're okay?" I ask, pointing to her temple. She rolls her eyes at my joke, snatching the paint roller out of my hand. "Kidding. I'm sorry about your precious paint, Andi."

"You think I'm kidding..." she shakes her head. "This is like you breaking all the strings on your guitar and replacing them all by taking the guitar to Guitar Center and hoping for the best."

Its my turn to roll my eyes. "You're being overdramatic."

"When isn't she overdramatic?" her brother mutters as her walks past, earning a glare from Andi. He chuckles before rolling underneath his classic red Mustang.

"Come on, before I hurt you both," she grumbles, pulling me into the tiny room.

"You'll never take me alive!" Ryan calls from under the car, making her kick the door closed angrily.

"Well. Let's get started," she says, dipping her roller into the dark red paint and painting the back wall.

"What made you decide that today was a good idea to do this?"

"The fact that there is literally nothing else to do," she replies in an obvious tone.

"You're an odd one," I tell her, starting on the same wall as she.

"Haven't we established that?" she murmurs, reaching for her stereo's remote and turning the music on loudly, making conversation nearly impossible.

Her sudden mood swings annoyed me. Sure, she was temperamental, and extremely sensitive, but one minute, she's all smiles and laughs, the next, she's angry and shuts everyone out. She was utterly complicated, and I hated it. I hated myself for liking it. She was always changing, always something new with her. She was unpredictable, which was more than I could say about someone as boring as myself...

"Are you even listening?" she asks, shaking me out of my thoughts. "You keep painting the same spot, Z, and I'm already halfway done with the wall..."

"Oh," I say awkwardly, dipping the roller back into the paint.

"You seem distracted."

"Headache," I half lie.

"Ahh, still?" she asks, then pulls open her desk drawer. "Take two."

I catch the bottle of ibuprofen and sigh in relief. "Thanks."

We get back to painting, the sound of blink-182's Enema of the State playing in the backround. She quickly skips Adam's Song when it does come on, and the look of sudden pain on her face said it all. Obviously, the song was about suicide, and even though she says she's past that time in her life, I could tell that this still triggered those memories. She shakes it off, then stands on her toes to reach towards the ceiling, which was too high for her 5'3'' frame. I roll my eyes and nudge her aside, easily reaching the wall unpainted.

She pushes me back, still on her toes. "Don't start this with me, Dawson," I warn her, making her grin.

"What are you going to do?" she challenges, dipping her roller into the paint again.

"Watch your back," I tell her before she pushes me again.

I shake my head, re-dipping my roller in the paint, then slyly marking her pale arm red. "Shit! I'm sorry. I guess I got confused with the wall's color and your arm..."

She gasps. "You're terrible," she says, then paints my arm as well.

And then all hell broke loose. We're soon covered in red, purple and blue, the three colors she had chosen to paint the room itself, only now, it was on us. When she realizes that she was out of paint, she drops the brush, a look of defeat on her face as I held up my paint soaked one, backing her into the wall.

"Stop, you've won," she says quietly.

"What's that? I've what?"

She narrows her eyes. "You heard me."

"I don't think I did," I say, stepping impossibly closer. We were nearly touching, her eyes bright and looking up into mine. I could make out her light patch of freckles on the part of her nose that wasn't covered, her near-translucent skin reacting with the bright red of the paint. I couldn't help but look at her lips; they looked soft and full and they were right there for shit's sake; I could easily kiss her and she probably wouldn't fight it.

"You've won," she whispers, her breath catching as I leaned in instinctively. There was no backing out now. If I didn't do this, I'd lose my chance.

I close the short distance and kiss her anyways, forgetting about "laying low" and "taking it slow" and being hesistant. All I could think about was just her, and only her, and how incredibly soft and light her lips were against mine.