You Have a Way With Words

“Roll with the punches, ‘cause you know that it’s inevitable…” I sang as I danced along to the song playing on my iPod. I avoided this fight, that fight, this nerd being slammed against the locker, those books falling. I was a master of the hallways. I never got pushed into. I had spent my freshmen year learning how to avoid the traps of the hallways. Now, as a junior in high school, I was used to all of it.

“Hey! Get over here!” I heard, and dodged someone tackling another.

Once I made it to my locker safely, I opened the door, shoving some textbooks in and taking some out. It was the end of the day, and I was ready to get home. I stared inside my open locker blankly, trying to recall any homework I had forgotten about. I took my backpack, and was about to grab my Calc book in case of a quiz the following Monday, thank God for weekends, but my locker was slammed shut.

“Hey,” drawled the one, the only, Jack Barakat. He and his buddy, Alex, were pick-up masters.

“Shit!” I yelled, putting in my combination once more.

Jack raised an eyebrow. His eyes, a gorgeous shade of brown, searched mine. I wondered what he was thinking. I snapped myself out of it.

“Don’t ever shut my fucking locker again. Ever.” I told him sternly.

“Sorry,” Jack scoffed.

I grabbed my Calc book and shoved it into my backpack and zipped it up. “May I help you?” I asked, looking up.

He grinned cheekily. “Yes, actually, you can help me by—”

I knew a perverted sentence was going to come out, so I slapped my hand over his mouth. “Let’s try this again. Why are you here?” I thought about what I had just said to make sure that no innuendos could follow. I nodded to myself, removing my hand from Jack’s mouth.

He paused. He was probably trying to see if he could wring a sexual innuendo out of that one. Apparently failing, he then said, “You wanna come out with me?”

“Hm…” I pretended to think. “No.” Truth to be told, I had had the biggest crush on him. I doubted he even knew my name. Well, my full name. December. Most people call me Em or Ember. But I didn’t want to be another one, another one night stand, left with nothing but the sunrise through the windowpane.

Nope. Wasn’t gonna happen.

“Oh, come on,” he chided. “One night. Promise it’ll be the best night of your life,” he winked.

I was about to open my mouth to retort, but my hand was faster. I slapped him across the face. “No,” I simply said.

~

“Will you come?” My cousin, Heather, pleaded. Heather went to a private school across town, but it didn’t stop us from being best friends. We knew everything about each other. She knew all about Jack, and I knew all about her crushes. “Will you come?” she repeated. “Please?” She was trying to talk me in to seeing this local band with her. They were playing somewhere downtown.

“Who’re they?” I asked.

“All Time Low,” she replied. “Please, please, please, please! I stumbled upon one of their shows, and they’re really good, but I only caught the last five minutes of it! Plus, they’re hot!”

I stayed silent for a couple of minutes. “… Fine.” I finally gave in.

She shrieked, and I held the phone away from my ear as she carried on. When I finally put the phone back to my ear, she was saying, “… won’t regret it! Promise!” She gave me the address and time, and I agreed to meet her there in an hour.

“Hey, Mom, I’m going out with Heather!” I yelled downstairs.

“Alright! You got money?” she yelled up.

“Yeah!”

“Be safe! Love you!”

I went back to my room to change. I pulled on a white Blink-182 shirt, black skinny jeans, and my classic Converses. Running a brush through my hair, I wondered to myself if anything interesting would happen that night. I grabbed the piece of paper with the address of the venue on it, made sure I had everything, and walked out of my room.

~

Teenagers. Loads of them. That was how I knew where I needed to be, without even checking the address. I saw some kids from my school. I got in line, guessing Heather was already inside. The bouncer checked my ID and stamped an “UNDER 21” stamp on my hand. I was then motioned inside. It wasn’t full inside yet, but it was getting there. Heather was up near the empty stage. I tapped on her shoulder, and she turned around.

“EMBER!” she squealed, throwing her arms around me. “You came!”

“Well, duh,” I smiled. “I promised, didn’t I?”

She nodded, grinning widely. My phone buzzed, alerting me that I had a new text message.

“Hey, bitches!” I heard as I read the text message. “We’re All Time Low… so… let’s get this party started!”

I put the phone back in my pocket and looked up. The lead singer had a nice voice… but… he looked kind of…

I gasped. Alex Gaskarth. Jack’s best friend. And wherever Alex was…

Think of the Devil. Jack came barreling onto the stage, playing the guitar, spinning and jumping. I laughed, despite myself.

“Because I'm leaving what I know behind, and I'm living out my chance to shine like the stars now fading from your eyes, and I hope you'll understand,” Alex sang. I stared at Jack, my attention never straying.

“Don’t turn my heart to stone…” Alex crooned one last time, and the song ended. The crowd clapped, yelled, whistled. Jack stood by his mic, squinting into the crowd. I prayed he didn’t see me.

His eyes fell upon me. “December!” he yelled into the microphone.

Well, Hell. So he did know my full first name. A little shocked, I lifted my hand in greeting.

“Who’s that?” Heather asked.

“Jack,” I responded.

“Wait. The Jack?” she asked, eyes bugging out.

I nodded wordlessly as the next song started. I looked back at Jack, who was staring at me as he played flawlessly. His brown eyes bored into my gray blue ones.

I heard the music, listened to it, but didn’t really react to it. The night flew by, me staring at Jack the whole time. Jack was hyper, bouncing around the stage, running over here, spinning over there, saying random stuff into the mic when the band was getting a drink.

I was sipping a Coke after the show when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Expecting it to be Heather, who had left me to use the bathroom, I turned around saying, “Ready to le—” I stopped when I saw that it was Jack, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Leaving already?” he asked quickly.

I nodded.

“Stay? Please?” he asked.

“What for?” I raised an eyebrow.

“For me,” he smiled shyly.

I was speechless. The night had been a night filled with sides of Jack I had never seen before. Hyper, energetic, kind. It was too much to handle. It wasn’t normal. Then again, I wasn’t exactly normal, either. “I… guess.”

“Hey, Jack,” a blonde girl, tall, tan, with big boobs, rubbed against Jack. “How about we have a continuation of the other night?” she looked up at him, blue eyes clouded with lust.

I bet mine, however, were clouded with anger. Different side of Jack? Hah! Jack was Jack, and always would be! I turned on my heel and tried to push my way through the cloud.

“Wait! Wait!” I heard Jack calling behind me. I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes. I knew that they would soon overflow.

I had made it to the middle of the crowd when I heard, “December Marie Walker!” Loud and clear. I spun around, and there, on stage, holding a microphone, was Jack Barakat.

I flipped him off, and was about to turn around, when I heard, “Wait!” I turned around slowly.

“Okay. I’m sorry. Look,” he said into the mic. “I just…” he looked frustrated. “I’m know who I appear to be at school. You don’t know the real me.”

“And you don’t know the real me, either!” I yelled.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh? You’re name is December Marie Walker, but mostly you just go by Ember or Em. Whenever you’re bored in class, you absentmindedly play with your long, brown hair. You just recently put red dye in the bangs because you like being different. You’re just as hyperactive as me. You've got a dirty mouth most of the time. You don't trust easy, and you've got a simple mind, so you like being blunt and to the point. You don't overreact or make big long speeches, very much so unlike the one I’m giving right now,” he finished.

“Okay. So maybe you do know me. Why?” I asked.

He put the mic down, and jumped off the stage. He walked slowly, tantalizingly towards me. He got to me, and grabbed me, pulling me into him, pressing my mouth against his. He pulled away. “Because I love you,” he said seriously.

“I love you, too,” I said breathlessly.

He grinned. “Did you like my speech?”

“You’ve certainly got a way with words.”