The Only Exception

Music was pouring from the speaker's of an impressive sound system that belonged to someone Alex wasn't acquainted with. It filled every inch of the room, and as the hand on Alex's watch started inching closer to twelve and the drinks in the kitchen were depleted, the music just gained volume. He usually didn't mind loud music, but the lyrics were nearly incomprehensible and the evidence of over mixing was present on the album.

Not that the music was Alex's sole concentration at the moment. Currently, he was trying to extract himself from the grip of a buxom blonde with a bottle of beer in her hand. Alex was glad that she had moved to a lighter variation of alcohol. In the half hour since he had met her, she had downed several glasses filled with clear, strong smelling vodka. As the time progressed, her mannerisms became more sluggish and sloppy, and Alex noticed that she was leaning on him.

She was talking, but nothing that she was saying was registering in Alex's mind. He knew she wasn't so intoxicated that her words weren't making sense (though she was very close), and he was also well aware that he wasn't very drunk himself. Alex was just very uninterested in everything that came out of the blonde's mouth. It wasn't just her though; Alex found that he was having trouble even feigning interest in anything that was going on around him.

Parties were usually one of the places that Alex felt most comfortable at, next to stages and studios. He liked drinking and dancing and meeting new people. He liked that he didn't have to feel self conscious, because he was well aware that he probably would never come into contact with the large majority of the party goers ever again.

Embarrassment was one of the big problems that Alex struggled with. Outwardly, it appeared as though the young singer didn't give a fuck as to what people thought about him. It was only because Alex believed in the "fake it till you make it" mantra. Very often, he worried about what his actions left people thinking.

And there was one person in particular whose opinion of him Alex was dying to discover. She was a naive girl, a year younger than himself. She lived next door to Zack. She had sparkling green eyes, wavy brown hair, and she was a little strange. And as Alex tried to get himself into a partying state of mind, he came to the conclusion that this girl was the only person he wanted to be with at the moment.

"You need to get a grip on yourself," Alex muttered aloud as he took a long drink from his beer bottle. He couldn't spend all of his time with Sunday. Sure, he hadn't seen her since they fell asleep on the beach together, but he was trying to convince himself that it was a good thing. He and Sunday felt too... He wasn't even sure.

Alex had opened up to Sunday. He had discussed his brother—only for a few seconds, yes, but it was much more time than he usually spent on the topic. He didn't even talk to Jack or his parents about Daniel anymore. This made him a little afraid to see Sunday again. Was she scared by his obvious attachment to her? He couldn't call it an attraction, but he also couldn't deny that there was something that made Alex feel like he needed to be around Sunday. It was like she was the world, and he was just the little moon, unable to escape the gravitational pull that she had on him.

"Did you hear me?" Alex's blonde companion demanded.

Alex focused his gaze on her. She was glaring at him slightly, and her hand was perched on her hip. "No, I didn't," Alex admitted.

"I asked you if you wanted to go somewhere more... private," she repeated with a sly smile.

With a deep sigh, Alex scooted away from her and stood up. "Look, you're pretty," Alex acknowledged, "but you need to lay off the booze, sweetheart. I'm probably not the first guy you've offered yourself up to tonight. But honestly, I haven't heard a word you've said in the last half hour, and no, I don't really want to have sex with you, so I'm going to leave now."

As Alex headed for the door, Jack fell into step with you. "That was amazing," he chortled as Alex checked to make sure his car keys were in his pocket. "That thing was a walking STD, really."

"Yeah, I wasn't up for that, especially not tonight," Alex agreed.

"You feeling okay?" Jack asked between drinks from his bottle of Jack Daniels.

"No," Alex countered. He usually didn't lie to Jack, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He was well aware that he would never live it down if he told Jack he was leaving the party to go see Sunday. "I'm gonna head back to Zack's."

"Don't wait up for me," Jack grinned as he winked at a pretty girl who was standing across the room. She gave a playful smile in return, and Alex had barely walked out the front door before Jack started to cross the room.

Deciding to leave the party had been easy. It wasn't an atmosphere that Alex was interested in that night. Deciding to drive to Sunday's house was a little more difficult. He had sat in his car for ten minutes with the keys hanging limply in his hand before he could begin reasoning that going to see her wasn't a big deal.

The big hindrance that Alex saw was that it was nearly twelve thirty at night. So he decided that he would just drive over, and if there were lights on, he'd knock on the door and pray that Sunday's mother didn't answer. He could tell that Mrs. Phillips was not fond of him.

The drive back to Huntington Beach was much shorter than Alex thought it was. As there was very little traffic and he had a tendency to drive a little faster after he got a few drinks in him, Alex was parked in Sunday's driveway a mere fifteen minutes after he had started his car. He was partly hoping that the lights were turned off so that he would have reason to just go to Zack's and fall to bed not feeling like a coward for avoiding Sunday. However, the living room light was on, and Alex could also see a glow coming from the television.

So he forced himself out of his car and walked up the stairs. She was just a girl. He had known plenty of girls before, and he never got nervous around them. Why was Sunday so different? So Alex convinced himself that he was calm and collected his nerves before knocking lightly on the door.

The sound from the television died, and a moment later, the door opened to reveal the exact person that Alex had been dying to see all night. "Alex!" She greeted him with a wide smile, not bothering to conceal just how happy she was to see him. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I was just in the neighborhood," Alex shrugged. He took in Sunday's appearance—dark blue cotton shorts, a gray t-shirt with a high school's name and mascot on it, her hair in a messy bun, and black glasses perched on her nose—and felt invasive. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he added.

"Oh, no," insisted Sunday. She opened the door more widely and beckoned him inside. "My mom and dad are asleep," she explained after she shut the door and reset the alarm. "But I usually don't fall asleep for a while if my mom can't sneak me a sleeping pill," she admitted as she skipped back to the couch.

Alex remained standing near the door as he watched Sunday sit down on a pillow on the floor between the couch and coffee table. She glanced over her shoulder and told Alex, "You can sit down, you know."

He walked to the couch and sat down, feeling uncomfortable. Sunday picked up the remote and pressed 'play', causing the picture on the television screen to begin moving again. Then, she picked up her paint brush and stirred the contents of a mug sitting nearby. She carried on with all of her activities as though sitting in her living room with Alex as twelve forty-five in the morning was a completely normal occurrence.

"Uh, what are you working on?" Alex asked, trying to dispel his nervousness.

"Painting flowers," Sunday answered, looking over her shoulder at him. "I watched Beauty and the Beast and Alice in Wonderland today." He looked down and noticed that her drawing was of a garden. Everything was complete except for the roses on the bushes.

"What color?" Alex asked as he sat down on the floor with her.

"Silver," Sunday declared as she dipped her paint brush back into the color. "I love silver roses. Sometimes my mom gets them airbrushed at this floral shop, but most of the time she just gets white roses."

"I don't think I've ever seen silver roses," Alex said.

"Silver's one of my favorite colors," Sunday smiled. "I like that stars look like little clusters of silver just thrown up into the sky."

He smiled. "You have a real affinity for stars, huh?"

"And different time periods and tea and Disney movies," Sunday added with a smile as she traded her paint brush for the yellow mug that sat on the coffee table. "So now that you know all of my weaknesses, what are yours, Mr. Gaskarth?"

Alex gave a laugh as he looked away, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. One of the things that was most unsettling about Sunday was the way that she could so quickly make Alex feel comfortable with her. And that made him feel uncomfortable almost immediately. It was a complicated and unnerving cycle.

So he changed the subject. "This is a sad movie," he remarked as he turned his attention to the television. A Walk to Remember was currently playing. "Jack's sister May forced us to watch it once," he added.

Sunday glanced up at the screen and narrowed her eyes before admitting, "I don't really understand why it's so sad."

Alex's eyes widened. "You kidding?" he asked with a chuckle. "This guy meets this girl and falls completely in love with her only to have her tell him that she's going to die from cancer. And by then, he loves her so much that he can't stay away from her."

Sunday shrugged her little shoulders. "If she knew, why'd she let him fall in love with her?" she asked, looking perfectly serious. "And after he knew, why didn't he distance himself so that it'd be easier when she died?"

In that moment, Alex was completely mystified by Sunday. She always seemed like the sweetest thing that he'd ever met, and here she was completely unable to grasp the concept of love. In fact, she almost sounded annoyed by the movie's story line. "I—I think I'm going to go," Alex decided as he stood up. He had his hand on the door knob when Sunday scampered to his side.

"Please don't," she requested, her eyes looking sad. "I'm really sorry. I usually try to not to ask people questions like that. They don't seem to like it."

"I just don't get how someone doesn't understand that losing someone you love is the most painful thing in the world," Alex countered.

"I do get it," Sunday argued, "I just don't understand why they let it get to that."

"You can't exactly help it sometimes," Alex pointed out.

"Logically, you should be able to point out the cons to yourself," she rationalized.

She wasn't backing down from her previous view. "You are a complete enigma, you know that?" Alex demanded.

With a sigh, Sunday's shoulders fell, and she walked back to the couch. She fell onto it and curled into a small, dejected looking ball.

Alex sighed as well. Maybe he was being a little harsh. He walked back to the couch and moved her legs so that he could sit down next to her. "Is something going on that you want to talk about?" Alex asked softly.

"Why would something be going on?" Sunday shrugged.

"You sound very critical of love," Alex explained, "which is definitely not something I expected from you."

Sunday gave another shrug. "I just don't understand it," she said.

"What don't you understand?" Alex pressed.

"Any of it. Why there are certain people that you're just naturally inclined to love, like your family; what it feels like; why you can't stop it; why people are so upset when they lose it; what it even is, exactly," Sunday explicated.

Alex cocked his eyebrow in a state of utter perplexity.

Sunday laced her fingers together and began staring at them. "I have, uh, Asperger's Syndrome," she told Alex. "The doctors and therapists say that it makes normal emotions difficult for me to understand and that it makes me less sympathetic than a regular individual."

He didn't say anything, but his eyebrows knit together as he tried to rack his brain and piece things together. At least now he knew that there was a reason that she was a little strange.

"I guess it makes me focus on certain things," Sunday added, "like stars. I don't like meeting new people. I haven't made a new friend since Amber before I met you. I don't get things like love. I like being in my own head. I guess I don't make for very good company. I can't remember a lot of stuff, though that one might just be my own oddity because it's not really a symptom."

She took a deep breath, apparently about to list more of her own shortcomings when Alex gently put a finger under her chin and rose her head so that she was staring into his eyes. "I don't see any of that when I look at you," he told her.

"How can you not?" Sunday asked, looking disgusted with herself.

He shrugged. "I just don't, Sun," Alex admitted. "I just see a really pretty girl who needs to experience a little more of the world and realize that she's more special than she gives herself credit for. And for the record," he gave her a heart-stopping smile, "I think that you're really good company. You've sort of become one of my favorite people to be around."

Her expression morphed from one of intense sadness to a tentative smile. "So... you still want to be friends?" she asked.

"Of course," Alex scoffed. "You can't get rid of me just because your chromosomes decided to do something a little wonky. Now, if you were a weird mutant with like seventeen arms it might be a different story..."

Sunday gave a mock sigh. "That's the next thing I have to tell you about," she said with an "oh shucks" look.

Alex laughed and stood up, crossing to the television. He extracted the DVD that had caused the discord and did some shuffling around on the shelves before he inserted Alice in Wonderland into the DVD player. He figured that there was nothing even remotely offensive about the movie and that it would cause Sunday a feeling of comfort.

He sat down on the couch and kicked off his shoes so that he could get relaxed on the couch. Sunday was still curled into her sad looking ball, so he gave a grin before he reached out and pulled her closer to him. She gave an awkward and surprised squeal as she was laying on him partially. Alex felt her stiffen and he removed his arm from around her.

"One second," Sunday said, jumping up from the couch. She pushed the coffee table out of the way and pressed a button on the side of the couch that caused a foot rest to appear. Then, she grabbed a large blanket from an ottoman and sat down on the couch next to Alex.

They weren't as close as before, but they were laying beside each other so that they could both utilize the foot rest, and Sunday was using his shoulder as a pillow. There was complete silence as the movie started, but a few moments in, Sunday murmured, "Thank you, Alex."

He had no idea what she was thanking him for. "Sun," he sighed as his head leaned against hers, "I'm going to fall asleep if we keep watching this movie."

"So fall asleep," she offered. Her eyes were closed as well, though she was listening quite intently to the movie.

"We're making a habit out of this," he chuckled as he closed his eyes too.

"Good."