Without You I'll Be Miserable at Best

I walk into lunch, hopeful to see Zack. I wanted to apologize for earlier. It was his body; he could do what he wanted. If he wanted to do drugs he could. I may not like it, but again, it was his body, his choice. Even though he was slowly killing himself and he was making me worry about him overdosing.

Zack was smart, so he wouldn’t overdose. Well, if he was smart he wouldn’t be doing drugs. You’d never think he did it either, he was so innocent looking.

I sigh walking over to my table, nodding at Jack. He was my closest friend… well after Zack. Rian, Caleb and Martin smile at me, going back to what they were previously doing.

“Where’s your shadow, Gaskank?” Jack asks.

I roll my eyes, “Shouldn’t you be calling Taylor the skank, not me?”

He grins, “Cuz I can, now seriously, where’s Zack?”

I roll my shoulders, “Don’t know, he was here earlier. I guess he’s skipping.”

“What did you do to him?” Rian asks.

Why would he jump to that? I mean, we were best friends. Jack knew I would never do anything to hurt Zack. He was like my brother… but not. Farthest thing from it, in my head.

“What?” I ask back, anger evident in my voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“Dude, come on, you know what I mean. You guys maybe best friends but you always have petty little fights.”

Me bugging Zack about him doing drugs was certainly not petty. It was pretty important. Just one overdose and I could lose him. We could all lose him. And then what would we do? I mean losing my best friend would kill me. Just thinking about it bothers me and makes me miserable.

“It wasn’t anything,” I mumble, “Just some misunderstanding.”

“So, something did happen. What was the misunderstanding?” he asks.

“Classified,” I respond, internally groaning when I see ‘it.’

Jack throws me a questioning glance before his eyes land on ‘it’ as well. “She’s not sitting with us.”

No one liked Taylor, just in case you didn’t notice. And Taylor didn’t just dislike Zack; Taylor didn’t seem to like any of my friends, either. They didn’t always hate Taylor, but that was when she was still nice, and not a complete and utter bitch. When we first started going out, everyone kept telling me, ‘get it in’. What? Did we ever- no. We’ve only been on like two G-rated dates. She kept trying to make things more sexual, but was doing so by being conspicuous. I pretended I didn’t notice all the hidden double meanings to what she said. I choose to take the non-sexual side of the sayings.

“Hey baby,” Taylor purrs, tying to sound seductive, but just makes me kind of sick.

“Hi Taylor.” Don’t sit down, don’t sit- dumb bitch sat down.

She smiles and takes my hand, snaking her fingers with mine. “So-”

She doenst get a chance to speak, as Jack cuts her off, as quickly as she opens her whore mouth.

“It’s a guy’s only club, bitch.”

Taylor seems a bit taken back at first, but quickly retorts, “Then why does Zack get to sit here?”

Rian rolls his eyes, “Just ignore her Jack, she’s still jealous that Zee got farther with him then she has.” He doesn’t make eye contact with her. He’s playing his usual game of pretending she’s not there and can’t hear him. Its quite amusing, to say the least, she hates it.

Taylor pouts at me, “That’s not true, right?”

I grunt, “I don’t know, we were drunk.” I can tell this bothers her, because she knows if we had done anything, I wouldn’t be the one in pain. She could tell that Zack would have bottomed if anything had happened. But nothing would have happened, ever with the alcohol, Zack wouldn’t have done anything that sexual. He was straight.

Her face is angry for a second, “You’re so gay, Alex. But can you tell your douche bag friends to leave me alone.”

Yeah, I’m so gay I hate you. “Yeah, sure.” I mentally roll my eyes.

She scouts closer to me and I have to fight the urge to scout away. I can smell the overuse of perfume on her. It makes me nauseated.

“So what about our date tonight, you seem better.” She comments.

“I don’t know Tay, I mean, I have a headache and my mom’s busy tonight and doesn’t want me to be out.”

She glares at me and yells, “You fucking suck, Alex! You always mess up everything! You’re probably going to go over to that homo, Zack’s house and make sure he’s not sick! And I bet if he is, you’re gonna play ‘doctor.’” She air-quotes doctor, and by the times she’s done, everyone is staring at us.

I pretend I don’t notice and go back to eating my food, wishing she’d leave me alone. And she does, thankfully. I can still feel everyone’s eyes on me, it makes me nervous.

Throughout the whole day I send Zack at least half a dozen texts, all go unanswered. I started to get a bit nervous to say the least. What if he had overdosed? What if he was dead? I sigh, walking to his house, sending my mother a text of where I was going. He sends me a text as I am walking to his house.

I send him a text that I was at the door, and he quickly opens up. I smile, he was still alive. My Zack, was okay. He was fine. He looked better the n before. I throw my arms around him and engulf him in a hug. I squeeze him tightly… maybe a bit too tight.

I eventually pull him back and look into his eyes. "They're less red them they were before."

"You know I do other things in my free time then just get high." His voice is angry as he talks into my shirt.

I pull him into the kitchen and sit on a bar stool at the counter. “I know you don't. It's just whenever you do you get back into that shit, it always seem you do it so often before I intervene. Now, since I had to cancel my date, make me food bitch." I slap his ass, and gently force him closer to the refrigerator.

"What makes you think I’m going to make you food for checking on me?" He questions, opening the refrigerator door.

"Cuz I'm hungry and you love me. Now make me a sandwich woman before I beat you," I joke.

"Oh! Now let me go find my apron and bread so I can make you a sandwich."

"You know I have a penis right?" he rolls his eyes and grabs some bread, as he speaks.

"Haha right, sure you have a dick, that's really funny." I smile at him. His face was getting redder.

"Do I have to fucking show you, to get you to believe?" he questions.

"Fuck ya! Strip now I wanna see those pants around your ankles!" I smirk, knowing he wouldn’t do it; I kind of wanted him to, though. He was so uptight. The blush gets a more vivid color to his cheeks.

"I know you wouldn't do it."

"No just admit it, you wanna see me naked." He replies, looking at the floor.

I don’t answer and take a bite of the sandwich, he had so nicely prepared.

He’s quiet and he’s always fucking talking around me. "Zee, you okay?"

"Yeah, why?" he rubs his arms. Why I am not sure.

“You’re not talking.”

"Eh, it must be from the drugs earlier." He mumbles looking at the kitchen counter.

As soon as he finishes speaking my phone goes off and I internally groan. It was Taylor.

I put the phone on speaker, as I answer it. "Hey Taylor, what's up sugar?"

“You know what’s up,” she snarls, and from the tone of her voice I can tell she’s glaring.

"Not really," I respond, "All I know is I had to cancel our date."

"Yah, for you to go be your fagget of a friend, Zack. You know I hate him. Why can't you stop being friends with him anymore?"

Ugh, she had to make things difficult. Maybe she would break up with me now. That would be just brilliant.

"I can be friends with who I want. And seriously, Tay 'fagget? Really? Are we 12 again? And he's not gay." he looks up at me, and smirks, "I mean with the sexy body I have I could make him like men, but that would make him bi.” I wink at Zack and he blushes again.

"I still don't want you to hang out with him." She replies.

"To fucking bad, now if you don't mind we're about to go have hawt, steamy gay butt sex."

"If you hang up on me we're thr-" I click the ‘end call button’ and sigh.

Zack smiles at me. This was going to be the end of her in my life. The end of her taunting and bothering Zack.

I bite my lip. Zack was cute. I had to give him that. And well… he was the person I mentioned liking before… I know. I’m fucked up. I like my best, (straight) friend. How could I fall in love with my best friend? I mean sure, I’m bi, but there were so many other people out there I could date. Why was it him?

I shake away from the part of my head that tells me not to, “Zee, come 'ere.

I reach my hands out to him as he walks closer to me. I sew our fingers together. Zack looks nervous. Could he want this too? I pull him closer, he’s about two or three inches away from me.

"w-what are you doing?" He asks as I place kisses on the top of his hands.

I bring my face closer to his and his face is red, like sunburn red. Our lips touch and I feel a spark fly through my body. Did he feel it too?

He doesn’t do anything though. He just stands there.

I get nervous and panic. I grab my hoodie and backpack, walking to the door, all while slipping my shoes on.

I fucked up big time. There was no way he was bi. And I just kissed him. A boy. His friend. What was he going to do the next time he saw me? How was I going to explain this? Shit. I was in over my head.

I need to talk to some one. And that person was my mom.