All I Ever Wanted

Jack opens the front door 5 full minutes after I knock on it.

“Hey Jack.”

I walk inside and put the paper bag I was holding on the kitchen table. I pull out everything Luke bought for me and then look over at Jack. He’s just staring at me, eyebrows raised in confusion.

“I thought,” he begins, “that you’re pregnant. So now I’m thinking either 1) she’s not pregnant or 2) she’s planning on killing her baby with alcohol…”

“Jack! That’s awful!”

“So which one is it?”

“First of all, I’m not pregnant, and second of all, I would never ‘kill my baby’ as you so nicely put it.”

“You always seemed like a baby killer to me.”

I reach to hit him, but then Alex steps into the kitchen. His eyes go back and forth from my hand halfway to Jack’s face and the bottles of alcohol on the table.

“Is your goal to drown our baby in alcohol?”

“Alex!”

I get over to him as fast as I can and embrace him in the biggest hug I’ve ever given him.

“I’m not pregnant!”

“Wait – seriously? That’s great!”

“My life isn’t ruined anymore!”

“It was never really ruined, Lex…” he says mid laugh. “Yes, your life was maybe altered a bit for, like, a month, but I don’t think ruined, exactly.”

“I know. I’m dramatic. But you love me anyway.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He leans in for a kiss and I hear Jack start gagging across the room. Before he closes the distance between us, I see Alex flip him off.

When I pull away, for some reason I see a look of disappointment on his face. It’s hardly noticeable, but still there.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. He shakes his head.

“Nothing. Let’s go upstairs.”

He tugs on my hand and pulls me toward the steps. Jack calls out after us.

“Just remember that we have practice tonight Alex!”

*

“Believe it or not,” Alex says, “I’m actually not in the mood to get drunk.” He lies back on his bed and I sit next to him, leaning against the wall.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know… I just…” He sits up suddenly and rubs at his eyes. “I was up all night last night, again, and I was just thinking a lot.”

“Okay…”

I don’t understand how that would make him not want to get wasted, but I wait for him to elaborate before questioning.

“Lex, I literally sat in front of the computer looking up baby names for an hour and a half. Then after Rian caught me, I went up to my room and lay in bed thinking about what it would be like to have a baby… and I didn’t think it was bad.”

I just stare at him. He’s being so fucking cute.

“Alex-”

“I mean like, obviously I’m really happy that you’re not pregnant. It’s better this way for so many reasons. Like, you know – the band, NYU and whatever. And not to mention how young we both are. But… if you were pregnant I wouldn’t have been upset at all…”

I stay quiet and he gets nervous. He picks at a loose string on his bedspread and after a minute he finally looks back up at me.

“Am I freaking you out?”

“No. You’re making me fall in love with you even more. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Yeah? You know, I realized something the other day while I was out with Jack shopping for his mom’s birthday gift.”

“What’s that?”

He takes my hand in his and twists my school ring that’s on my finger. Then he pulls it off and examines it closely. After reading the inscription of my initials on the inside, he slips it back on and looks at me with a look I’d never seen on him before.

“I’m sure that you’re the one I’m meant to be with.”