The next day, Gus and I are practically dragged from our beds by a still-moody Val so we can eat before we meet the rest of the guys at the mall. You’d think that, after the last two days, I’d be at least a little calmer at the thought of spending the day with my favorite band – but no; sadly, my nerves are at an all-time high, and I feel my stomach churn violently as we pull into the mall parking lot not an hour later.

Gus can practically sense that I’m so anxious – he always could, really. He swings his arm around my shoulder carelessly. What seemed like such a simple gesture was really my anchor to my sanity.

The guys are already waiting for us in a semi-circle in the mall cafeteria. Right away, Brian smiles when he sees us. Zack copies his friend’s actions when he notices, and Johnny just sends me a curious look. I notice that Michelle has also decided to tag along; she hugs her twin sister tightly as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

After a few minutes of discussion of how we intended to split up, it was agreed that Val, Michelle, Brian and I would go together, while Gus went with Matt and the rest of the guys. I watch over my shoulder as the four of them go off, Matt ruffling Gus’ hair in a fatherly manor. I feel a small twang of jealousy, but I try to keep it to myself.

As Michelle pulls me enthusiastically from department store to department store, I can’t help but feel slightly bad for Brian – he had lucked out on being forced to carry bags upon bags of clothes that I might never even get to wearing, since most of it was made for the California weather. However, although he looked completely out of place in places like Aeropostale and Forever 21, he didn’t seem completely uncomfortable; he simply seemed to go along with it.

“What do you think of this?” Michelle exclaims enthusiastically, holding up a light-pink crop-top for both Val and I to judge. Val frowns skeptically at it.

“I don’t think Matt would really like his fourteen year-old daughter wandering around in that,” she points out. And while she’s right, I can’t help but think of how much I really want that top – which was strange, because I normally didn’t like things like it.

“I can just wear something over it,” I tell her. She turns towards me, shrugging.

“If you’re willing to risk it.” Michelle narrows her eyes at her sister; I can tell that Val is still sort of out it from her argument with Matt – the looks her sister keeps shooting her says it all.

“Why don’t we let Autumn choose where to go next?” Brian suggests as we finally walk out of Forever 21. I can tell he has higher hopes for me – that maybe I’ll choose somewhere where he’ll feel less out of place.

Almost instinctively, I think Hot Topic, but I still wasn’t sure I wanted them to know the undying love I had for that band. In fact, I had been avoiding wearing any band shirts since I got here, instead managing to make something out of the very few “normal” articles of clothing I had brought with me. If anything, today’s shopping spree was actually rather helpful.

“I thought the main purpose of this trip was to get stuff for our rooms?” I finally say after thinking for a moment.

“I might have gotten a bit carried away,” Michelle admits, shooting an apologetic look first to me, then to her husband, who has been stuck with the unfortunate task of carrying all the bags of clothing. I laugh to myself at the sight.

“I can go drop this stuff off in the car,” he mutters, feigning annoyance at his wife’s shopping habits. “I’ll meet you back here in ten.” Michelle pecks him on the cheek, and he rolls his eyes playfully before walking off towards the parking lot.

“You guys really didn’t have to do all this,” I say, scuffing at the ground. “I honestly didn’t need that much…” Michelle just laughs lightly and shakes her head.

“Honestly, hun; it’s not a big deal.” I give her a shy smile and she hugs me into her side. For some reason, it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable, even though I had only known her for a couple days. Instead, it feels warm and motherly – it makes me miss Rhonda. It makes me miss my mom.

Tears fill my eyes, and I try to blink them away.

“Are you okay?” Val asks, concern filling her eyes. I blink, not having expected her to be so concerned for me, as she had been rather hostile since we first ran into each other the other day. But I can only assume that she’s still a little ticked about Matt; plus, it must be awkward for her to suddenly be the step-mother to two teenagers whom she’s never met.

“I’m fine,” I squeak. Michelle squeezes me reassuringly before letting me go. “I just miss my mom, that’s all,” I all but whisper.

“Oh, honey; it’s okay – you’ll see her again soon,” Michelle tells me. I nod, knowing she’s right and that it’s pointless to cry about it.

Right then, Brian appears behind Val, frowning when he sees me.

“Is everything alright?” he asks, raising and eyebrow at us.

“Yes, everything’s fine,” Val snaps, and I flinch slightly. I notice Michelle glare at her, but she ignores it. “We should get going. We’re supposed to meet the rest of the group in a little less than two hours.” Michelle nods, trying to look past her sister’s moodiness, before leading us off in the direction of a furniture store.

~

“Brian! What the hell are you doing?”

I can’t contain my laughter as Brian flops carelessly on one of the beanbag chairs, face-first. Even in the furniture store he still managed to seem so out of place, simply by not acting his age. This was the third one we visited so far (the malls in Southern California are huge) and he has already managed to make a fool of himself in all of them.

“It’s comfortable,” he whines, his voice muffled by the fact that he was lying face-first in the beanbag’s thick fabric. He looks up at me. “You should get this for your room.”

“That’s what you said about the last four,” Michelle says, rolling her eyes.

“But this one is different!” he insists. “It’s the most comfortable beanbag ever.” He pulls on my arm, which is just within his reach, so I can test it out for myself. He rolls over onto the floor so I can have my space.

I have to admit, it is pretty comfortable – and it would match my room in a sort of bizarre way. The bright purple fabric would definitely stand out, giving it a more artsy feel; I loved having funky furniture to throw people off. There was something about the unorganized-ness that just made it seem… right.

“Earth to Autumn?” Brian waves his hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You alright there, kiddo?” I nod, shooting him a believable smile.

“Yeah, just thinking about what I want to do with my room.” The words, though I had only thought them moments earlier, seemed foreign on my tongue, since I had never referred to any room, other than mine back home as “my room”.

“What were you thinking?” Michelle asks, sitting on a chair across from the beanbag. She kicks Brian’s shoe; a silent gesture to get up off the floor.

“I don’t know,” I tell her, watching out of the corner of my eye as Brian gets to his feet and sits on the chair next to Michelle’s. “I don’t want to paint my room; I have other plans for the walls…”

“Like what?” Val asks, narrowing her eyes slightly. I shrug.

“I don’t know. Posters, maybe. Pictures…” She doesn’t seem too satisfied with my answer, but she doesn’t press any further. “I don’t really want to follow a specific theme; I just want to have a bunch of random stuff that kind of throws people off… in a good way, of course.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stick with some sort of color scheme?” Val questions, her calm tone sounding a little forced. “Don’t you want it to look nice?”

“It can still look nice even if there isn’t a real theme,” I reply, trying not to sound too much like I’m talking back. It was her house, after all.

“This is only your room for the summer – do you really need to personalize it that much?” Before I can reply – something along the lines of how I am way out of my comfort zone by simply being here – Michelle cuts both of us, quickly getting to her feet.

“Val! Can I talk to you for a moment?” she asks, though it’s pretty clear it’s not a question. Reluctantly, she steps out of the department store after her.

Once they’re gone, I let out a long sigh. “Val doesn’t like me, does she?” I ask out loud. Brian sends me a small, yet slightly nervous, smile.

“It’s not that she doesn’t like you,” he explains. “It’s just that she’s not sure what to think. I mean, what would you do if the guy you’ve been in love with your whole life never told you that he had two kids with a woman just a little while before her?”

“But does she really have to be so rude to me? It’s not like it’s my fault Matt decided to get some girl pregnant…” Brian snickers in amusement. “I thought Val was supposed to be the nice twin…” I mutter, thinking I’m the only one who can hear. However, I am dead wrong when Brian suddenly bursts out laughing.

“When did you get that impression?” he manages to ask me between laughs. “I mean, I’m not saying she’s not nice, I just mean you don’t even know her…” My face immediately heats up and I burry my face in my hands. “Wait a minute… Oh my god!” He jumps up, excitement crossing his face. “You listen to Avenged Sevenfold don’t you?” I don’t say anything, as I am concentrating too hard on holding in my tears of embarrassment. “Awe, no wonder you were so fucking petrified the first day!”

“Can you stop?” I say weakly. I look up at him pleadingly, and his face falls when he sees how mortified I am. He sits back down, now in front of the chair so he’s at the same level as me. He places a comforting hand on my leg.

“Hey,” he whispers. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“You don’t get it,” I mutter, sniffing slightly. “I pretty much knew everyone when they first walked in the door – at least, from what I’ve heard on the internet. But I didn’t want to look like a creepy stalker, so I didn’t say anything…” He laughs.

“Hey,” he says, nudging my shoulder with his knuckle. “At least you’re a cool stalker.” This makes me feel a little better, and I even manage to smile a little.

“Brian?” Michelle calls out, finding us on the floor. “Are we buying the beanbag or not?” He looks over at me expectantly, and I shrug.

“Sure. Why not?”

~

“Successful day?” Matt asks us two hours later, as we gather in the mall parking lot. Gus looks rather tired, but also really satisfied with how his day turned out. Brian shrugs.

“Yeah, I would say so,” he replies, smirking down at me. I feel my face turn pink slightly, so I concentrate on watching a centipede crawl across Johnny’s shoe.

“Where’s Val?” He looks around, as if expecting the blonde to step out from behind one of the surrounding bushes.

“She went off on her own,” Michelle explains, and he frowns. “We had a bit of a falling out, so she decided to go cool down. She texted me about ten minutes ago saying she’ll meet us at the car.” He sighs, but nods anyway.

“Alright then.” He begins leading us back to the car.

I am all but shocked when I see how much is already loaded into Matt’s car, and some into Zack’s car. I hadn’t realized how much we had gotten – until I realized that most of it was probably for Gus.

When I look over at him, I notice that he’s grinning at me sheepishly. “They insisted I go all out while I can,” he explains, rubbing the back of his head. I just laugh and roll my eyes.

“If we want to get the TV set up,” Zack calls, “we better get going now.” I raise an eyebrow at him.

“A TV?” I laugh and he shrugs.

“What? I’ve always wanted a TV in my room…”

Notes

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed. Please comment and tell me what you think =)

~WOLFY~