21. Ruin My Life
RUIN MY LIFE
GRAYSON
I ’ve been hiding out at The Fortress for two days.
After the video Bea sent in aired, things got messy, and before Dad got the chance to come in and yell, hit, or throw things at me or Bea, I snuck us out of the house. To say my dad is pissed is an understatement. I’ve even stayed inside just so no pictures of me can be taken and sent to him, so he comes here. I did a big thing by leaving after he hit me, and heaven knows when I eventually have to return it won’t be pretty.
“Gray, you’re spacing out again,” Charlie says, waving his hand in front of my face.
“Sorry. Were you talking?” I ask, coming back to the fact I’m sitting at the kitchen island in front of Charlie, Shawn and Zara.
“He was asking, are you sure you want to go to the studio today?” Zara asks, reminding me.
“I have to. Emerson already told me they need me back,” I explain.
“I’ll drive you,” Shawn says.
“Can I come?” Charlie asks.
“Absolutely not. You wasted Root Beer in my car yesterday and I had to get a four hundred dollar clean,” Shawn says.
“Which I paid for!” Charlie pleads with puppy dog eyes. Those eyes work on everyone, besides Shawn.
“If you promise not to waste anything, you can come,” Zara negotiates, grabbing Shawn’s keys smiling.
“I never said that,” Shawn states, bitterly.
“But he doesn’t mind.” Zara smiles and kisses Shawn’s cheek before jumping out of her chair with the keys.
“And this is why I love her,” Charlie says and gets out of his seat, and follows Zara out of the kitchen.
“There is no fighting this, is there?” Shawn asks me.
“Nope,” I tell him and get out of my chair as well.
He wasn’t going to win anyways, that girl has him wrapped around her finger just as much as he has her wrapped around his.
The whole ride to Golden Star was full of Charlie and Zara singing Disney songs. I’ve worked on ignoring it and Shawn has groaned this whole time. “Are you ready to see Alexia?” Charlie asks.
“Yeah, she’s super worried about you,” Zara states. It’s only been two days.
“I am but she has nothing to worry about. I’m fine,” I say.
“Gray, the whole country and maybe the world saw that video and you shut yourself in your room till this morning and only let Bea in and us if we had an update on Alexia because you wouldn’t ask yourself,” Shawn explains.
“Okay, so I’m not great per se, but I’ll be okay,” I reply.
We pull up at the front of the building and I get out of the car then bid my goodbyes before walking inside.
“I’m so happy to have you back,” she says, coming over and hugging me as I enter the studio.
“Glad to be back,” I answer. “So why am I here for the last recording?”
It doesn’t seem very necessary for me to be here since this is Alexia’s song and none of the other band members are here.
“I just wanted you to see this, plus Charlie told me you’ve been avoiding talking to her so here we are and after we will all go to the production studio and shoot some scenes,” Emerson explains.
“So this was a setup.”
“Come on, we have a song to listen to,” Emerson says, pulling me by my hand. We enter the elevator and ride up together. Entering the studio, I make eye contact with Alexia for a brief moment before I’m dragged off to sit down on the sofa.
“Conner, Stacy, we’re ready,” Emerson calls over to them.
“Okay, everyone, please stay quiet!” Stacy says. I shift myself back onto the sofa and get ready to listen. Conner counts off and Alexia starts singing. Her voice is like music to my ears. It almost brings me peace to hear her voice.
I listen the whole time and I feel as if I’m staring at her, but I don’t really care, I love listening to her. I could listen to her sing all day if I had the choice to.
“That was amazing. We need to get one more take, and then we will be done,” Conner says. Alexia gives a thumbs up and Stacy starts the song again.
After recording the song is over, I walk over to Alexia to get water from the refreshment station.
“I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you these two days,” I whisper over to Alexia.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now.”
“Gray, Alexia, are you ready to go?” Emerson asks.
“Coming,” Alexia replies.
After shooting the scene where I find Alexia’s character in the tower is over, we go on break.
“What if we go camping? Only for a weekend. Just to get away,” Emerson suggests.
“I’ve never camped before,” Alexia says.
“I don’t do outside,” Aaliyah says. I was hoping she wouldn’t be here, but Alexia talked her mom into allowing her to come to set after we recorded some of the song.
“We will be in cabins the whole time,” Noah says.
“Who all is going?” Alexia asks.
“The band and me and Noah plus you, Aaliyah and maybe Nevea,” Emerson answers.
I haven’t heard her name in a while. Kenan doesn’t even bring her up anymore. He hasn’t even mentioned going to her apartment since the last time she was with us all which has been almost a week and he’s usually always going to see her at least once a day. I find it strange Emerson wants to invite her but as long as she stays away from me, I’m okay.
“I’m in,” I say.
“I guess I am too,” Alexia agrees.
“As long as I get a comfy bed and face masks,” Aaliyah says.
“Yay, we leave after filming is over,” Emerson cheers.
I definitely did not expect us to be leaving so soon.
I cut off the lights in my dressing room for the night before going out into the hall to find Alexia leaning on the wall. She looks absolutely perfect, like always. I take a deep breath before walking over to her. I need to make sure I don’t stutter on my words when I open my mouth.
“Good news, our mom is okay with me and Lia going and brought our clothes by,” Alexia tells me. I wait a couple seconds before responding,
“Do you wanna ride with me?” I hope she will say yes.
“I’ll ride with you,” she answers and I nod. Great, now that I have placed myself in a car with her, I have to figure out how to use the time.
“Hey, there you are, everyone is waiting at my house,” Emerson tells us as we come out.
“We are going by Walmart also,” Noah tells us.
“Why?” Alexia asks.
“To get some stuff.” Noah shrugs, which I know means alcohol and maybe some snacks, but mostly beer.
We all get in our respective cars, with me and Alexia in one and Emerson, Lia and Noah in the other.
“So did you have a good day?” I ask Alexia, trying to start a conversation.
“I did,” she replies.
“How about you?”
“I had a decent day,” I reply. I have no idea what to say. I want to talk to her but how do I go about it? I think right now, the crush tally is higher than the non-crush one, and if I bring that up, how will it affect things?
Will she not believe me?
Will she like me back?
With my mind swirling, I end up not talking anymore, and she turns the music up. I completely failed at small talk.
Everyone makes it to Emerson’s house, and she does a head count, of course, and talks about the plan for the night, which consists of going to Walmart, then heading to her cabin, and we will settle in, play games, watch a movie, and then go to bed.
On the land, there is a luxury cabin that we are staying in, in total there are six rooms total. Having been here before, I know five of them have their own king-size bed, and one room has two queen beds.
“Alright everyone, time to pick rooms,” Noah says, getting out of his truck.
“I call sharing with my girl,” Charlie announces.
“Me and Noah will share too,” Emerson says.
“I got Z,” Shawn says.
“Then I take Nevea, and Kenan will share,” Emerson says, and Kenan nods. I grab some of the bags out of my truck while Emerson walks up to unlock the house.
“I’ll share with Lia,” Raven says, pulling her to her. Odd, I would think she would rather take the sofa than share a room with her.
“I guess that leaves you two to share,” Charlie says, raising his thick brows.
I feel like this is planned. “I promise to stay on my side,” Alexia says, grabbing her bag from the backseat and following everyone into the house. In our room, I take the side of the bed by the window, and Alexia takes the side by the bookshelf. I never thought I’d be sharing a bed with her but here we are. After I unpack in silence, only listening to Alexia move around the room, I lay down on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
Before too long Alexia lays down beside me. “Do you wanna talk?” she asks me. This takes me by surprise as I’m not expecting her to try and talk to me, but I open up.
“I don’t know what to do now.” I sigh.
“Do you want to leave for good?” she asks.
“Yeah, but he’s my dad and he controls part of my career,” I tell her.
“I get that,” Alexia says, trying to sound understanding. I’m not sure why but I feel safe opening up to her.
“I don’t want to make Bea come or ruin her life because of this. This will make my life really hard,” I say.
“Then let it. Anything is better than what you are going through,” she tells me, reaching over and holding my hand. I let her, intertwining my fingers with hers.
“I will be here if you want to talk, always,” Alexia says. I flip over to face her.
“How do you know it will be okay?” I ask her.
“I have faith. You got away this time, you can do it again and take your dad down,” Alexia says. Alexia turns over to face me.
“You think so?”
“Yes, and you can stay at the fortress while Beatrix stays with your mom.”
“I’m scared.” Alexia moves closer to me and puts her arms around me, holding me. Without saying any words, I know she’s trying to say everything will be okay. I place my arms around her as well. This is comforting. I let myself relax as we just lay here.
“Wake the fuck up, love birds!” someone shouts while the bed shakes.
“Whoever the fuck is jumping on the damn bed, get off,” I say to the person.
“Then get the hell up!” they yell. I groan and open my eyes to find Raven jumping on the bed like an idiot.
“Why the hell are you waking me up?” I ask her.
“You two fell asleep and it’s time for trivia, hide- and go- seek and then the s’mores fire pit,” Raven says.
“Fine, just get out and we’ll be up soon,” I say, waving Raven off.
“What is going on?” Alexia moves around in my arms, waking up.
“We have to get up,” I whisper to her.
“We’ll leave you two; by the way, I have the cutest picture of you two,” Raven says before getting off the bed.
“I’m going to kick your ass once I’m up!” I yell to Raven. I hear the door close, and I go to remove myself from Alexia.
“Come on, we have to get up,” I tell her.
“I don’t wanna,” she groans, pulling me back into her. I would love to spend my night with her wrapped up with me, but I have a feeling if I do Raven will only come back.
“If we don’t get up, Raven will come back and probably pour water on us next,” I tell her and Alexia groans but gets up.
“Fine, let’s go.”
“Finally, you join us,” Charlie says as we come downstairs. I ignore him. First, we play trivia and the theme is bands. Alexia somehow wins knowing more about our band and the history of bands in general than we do. Lia says it’s because she’s our biggest fan.
Next, Scarlett explains the rules for the hide and seek game just saying two people are it and everyone else hides after taking a shot and once everyone is found we will go to the fire pit and have s’mores before going inside and watching horror movies. Nevea and Kenan are going to be the chasers for the game.
We all down a shot of alcohol and run. Since we are in teams, me and Alexia run off down the trail we parked the cars on, and it leads to a fountain. We hide in a fountain that is out in the woods near the cars. It may not be the best idea, but it works. The bottom is slightly full of water, but the bowls are close enough to hide us as the water pours around us.
“So we are hiding in the dark at night. In water. What could possibly go wrong?” Alexia says, tossing her arms up.
“It’s fun,” I tell her, hoping she will calm down. This is fun, although I wouldn’t be mad if the water was a bit warmer.
“No, it's creepy and cold,” she responds.
“You’ve never played games in the dark before?” I ask.
“No, I don’t really get invited to things like this back home,” she answers. That would explain the freaking out.
“Have you done this before?” Alexia asks a few seconds later.
“Yes, and if you keep talking, they will find us,” I tell her.
“I’ve never done anything like this. I’m a relatively good girl. I don’t go camping in the woods, especially if I school or work the next day. I don’t play games in the dark. I don’t sit in water in the middle of the night. Or play hide and seek in the dark with a boy and definitely don’t get involved with alcohol or drugs,” Alexia rambles.
I forgot all about Raven bringing weed, but she always says horror movies are more fun when you are high. I plan not to smoke. “What if something happens? What if an animal comes and attacks? What if someone gets hurt-” Alexia continues to ramble while looking between me and in front of her. I have no idea what I could do in this moment, worry floods though me and the only possible thing I can think of to do to shut her up, I do it.
I kiss her.