Lost To Me

Hayly’s POV
“Don’t move okay?” Jack asked me, and before I could answer him, he pressed his lips to mine. I froze, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Finally! Kiss him back you idiot!

Oh my God, what the hell?! Why is he kissing her? Is this some kind of joke?

Jack seemed to sense how shocked I was, or maybe he just noticed that I wasn’t kissing him too. Either way, he pulled away and looked down, sadness spreading across his features. “I knew it, you don’t like me,” he said sadly, and looked away. “I understand,” he mumbled.

I couldn’t take this confusion much longer. I whispered, “I’m sorry,” to Jack and opened the door and took off running. To the park, ironically. The pond by the edge of the woods suited my needs perfectly. Almost no one knew where it was, and even less people came here.

I sat by the edge of the pond and trailed my fingers in the water. The still water usually calmed me down, but it didn’t seem to have an effect right now. I was too confused, shocked, and every other emotion that could cram itself into my head.

“Oh Jack… Why do you have to make it so complicated…” I sighed to myself. Of course, I couldn’t really say much of anything, it was my feelings as much as his that put us in this situation.

I lay back in the grass and stared up at the clear blue sky. How could such a beautiful morning seem so dark and gray to me? “When I don’t know what to do about Jack, and everything that comes attached to that,” I answered myself.

Of course, me being me, I can never ever tell when someone’s behind me if I’m talking to myself. So of course in cliché, I didn’t hear the one and only Jack standing behind me. “Everything that comes attached to that?” He asked quietly, and I jumped up into a sitting position.

“No Jack-“

“I get it, Hayly. You don’t have to pretend anymore,” he said barely above a whisper. Then he turned, just like me earlier, and ran off.

I slumped down into the grass again groaning. “I need to tell him, but after that, how? Typical me, I fuck everything up. Nothing is safe. Of course.” I sighed again and continued to stare at the sky as it edged from bright blue to the pinkish purples of the afternoon.

I’d been laying there for way too long, I should probably go home. Right on cue, I heard rustling behind me. “Hayly,” I heard Alex say softly behind me, but I ignored him. “Hayly, come on, let’s go home.” He stood over me and grabbed my hands, pulling me to my feet.

I let him pull me up and stood there for a moment looking at him helplessly. “Alex, I didn’t mean to, I just, I don’t know, Alex, I don’t know...” I started to cry silently, all of this was just way too much for me to handle.

Alex pulled me to his chest and let me cry while he stroked my hair. “Shh, it’s gonna be alright. It’ll be okay Hayly,” he whispered to me.

I don’t know how long we stood there, but by the time I looked at the sky again, it had turned to pitch. I wiped my black tears away and looked up pleadingly at Alex.

“Do you think he’ll forgive me Lexy?” I asked him quietly, a sudden pain sweeping through me at the thought of Jack hating me.

“Of course he will, Hayles. He just needs time to calm down. Knowing him, he’ll be exactly the same as before by tomorrow, begging for you to do something idiotic with him,” Alex told me, then pulled on my hand. “We need to go home, come on.”

I followed mutely, keeping my hand firmly attached to my brother’s larger, more comforting one. When we reached the house, I silently walked up to my room head down.

The first thing I did was put my iPod in my iHome and turned it up as loud as I could stand it, to Bring Me The Horizon’s “It Was Written In Blood”. I knew Alex hated when I played my music so loud, but it was therapy for me, and I knew he wouldn’t bother me about it because of what had happened today.

Goodbye my friend, goodbye.
My love, you're in my heart.
It was preordained that we should part.
We're united by and by, united by and by,
Goodbye.
No handshakes to endure, there was nothing,
It was written in blood!

I whisper-screamed along to Oli Sykes, trying to keep from being too annoying. If I needed to, I could sneak out and really scream to it, but only if I really needed to. Say, if Jack came over.

As if the boy could read my thoughts, I saw Jack walking up the dimly lit sidewalk, head down, obviously heading straight for our house. Which meant I really needed to get out of here.

I turned down the music, and grabbed my iPod and headphones, shoving them in my ears. Turning it on, my ears were once again assaulted with loud yelling. I changed the song over to “Sleep With One Eye Open” and climbed quietly out my window.

As soon as Jack made it to my front porch, I made a break for it, running across the street to a small patch of trees. Thankfully, he didn’t turn around, otherwise he would’ve caught me.

More at ease now, I slowly walked through the trees to where I guessed no one would be able to hear me. I started out whispering, then my voice gathered strength, and my own screams rivaled the ones blasting into my ears.

I instantly felt more at ease, letting myself drown in the feeling of the music. As the song came to an end, I switched it to something softer, “If It Means A Lot To You”. I sang softly to it, even though my voice was rough from the strength I had put into the song before it.

“If you can wait till I can get home, then I swear to you, that we can make this last...” I sang the last line of the song letting my voice trail off. I slid down against a tree and let the iPod choose the next song for me.

I knew that they wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t in my room for awhile. My mom and Alex would have assumed I went to bed. I tugged on one of my earphones until it popped out of my ear. I let it dangle, touching the ground.

After I ran through a playlist of at least 15 songs before I heaved myself up from the ground and stretched. It was time to head home. I reached the edge of the trees and poked my head out to check if anyone could see me run across the street.

I didn’t see anyone, so I sprinted across the road up to the side of my house, right under my window. Thank God there was a tree conveniently placed where I could get in and out without a problem.

I stuffed my iPod in my pocket and quickly climbed through the branched to get level with my room. I clambered onto the windowsill as quietly as I could.

It was pitch black in my room, and I stumbled over a few things to get to the light switch on the other side of the room. When I flicked it on, I didn’t expect anyone to be in sight. And as usual, I was wrong. Because right there on my bed, staring blankly at me, was the one and only, Jack Barakat.