The Smile You Fake, The Steps You Take

POINT OF VIEW: Alex Gaskarth.
one month later.

Jack still hadn't talked to Amanda, thankfully. I wanted to talk to her first, simply to let her know that I wasn't comfortable with her getting back with Jack but thatshe still could if she really wanted to. It was her life and was completely up to her who she chose, me or Jack. It sucked that she had to pick between the two of us, her absolute best friends, but life wasn't always fair. In fact, more often than not, it was completely bogus. It was also ripping me apart that it had been a full month since I had spoken to Amanda. She'd hung out with Zack and Rian on multiple occasions but had avoided Jack and me like the plague, and with good reason, I supposed. After all, she was under the impression that Jack still hated her guts, and God knew what she thought was going on with us. Zack had finally convinced Amanda to come hang out with all of us, but it was uncomfortably tense.

Everyone was hanging at Jack's house that day, laying across the couches watching tv and playing video games. Amanda was curled up on a couch by herself, clutching her phone to her chest.

"Are you okay?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"Fine," she said briefly before standing abruptly and dashing from the room.

"What was that about?" Jack asked without tearing his eyes from the screen.

I shrugged and got up to follow her. "I'll go check." I followed her out ito the hall and was about to knock on the bathroom door when I heard two different voices trailing out from under the door; Amanda was apparently on the phone with one of her friends.

"I don't know what to do!" Amanda whimpered.

"But that doesn't even mean anything. You've had lots of stress lately, don't forget that. And besides, you can't even start seeing symptoms of that for at least a couple months. It's only been, what, three weeks?"

"Well, about a month. But what if it does mean something? Nobody is going to take that news very well, you know."

"I know," the friend sighed. "Especially Jack. He'd be completely crushed."

Amanda interluded, "Not to mention Alex. I don't even know what's going on with the two of us though, to be honest, so I can't exactly predict how he would react to something like this."

The girl on the phone laughed. "Are you kidding? He'd probably be thrilled to have a good excuse to stay with you. But wait...how would that even be possible? You said you didn't sleep with anybody."

I finally figured out what was going on here. Shit, this was not good. Whoever this girl on the other line was, she couldn't know that I'd slept with Amanda. I had to end this conversation somehow before Amanda told her.

"Yeah, about that. I, um, kind of lied. It - " But before Amanda could finish, I pounded loudly on the door. "Sorry, I gotta go. Talk to you later." She cracked open the door. "Oh. Can you come in here for a minute? I think we need to, um, talk."

I nodded and stepped inside the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind myself.

"So anyway, about the other night..." she stammered.

"What do you mean?"

"Alex," she sighed, looking down. "You know. When we, like...you know."

I shook my head, deciding to play dumb. "No, I don't know."

"Okay, fine" she groaned. "The other night when we had sex. Are you happy now?"

I nearly choked on my own spit. I hated how that sounded, as if we'd just done it for the hell of doing it. As if there had been zero emotion behind the actions I'd - we'd - taken. As quickly as panic arose in my chest at the prospect of her potentially spilling this lovely tidbit of information to Jack and the rest of the guys, a plan also bloomed. It was a plan that would absolutely kill me to go through with, but I had to do it. I knew I had to. "Amanda, we didn't sleep together," I lied as calmly as I could.

She was taken aback. "Yes we did. I mean, I thought we...what? But I thought-"

I nodded. "You got really drunk and it was probably just a dream, that's all." This was torture. All I wanted to do was hug her and tell her that everything would be fine, but it wouldn't be.

She blushed, extremely embarrassed. "I can't believe I dreamed something like that."

I shrugged. "It's okay, don't worry. Maybe don't tell Jack though, ya know? He can blow stuff out of proportion."

Amanda nodded and hugged me. "Thanks, Alex. I probably just thought that because I was freaked out about Jack, you know? But now everything can just go back to normal, I guess. I mean, as normal as it can be when your boy - ex-boyfriend - hates your guts. But hey, you're the best no matter what. I love you!" She smiled weakly before stepping out of the bathroom and into the other room where Jack was. Now I just had to convince Jack to patch things up with Amanda and I was no longer on a one-way train to getting my ass kicked. Hopefully.

"Yo, Jack Attack!"

"Whaddup?" he called back.

"C'mere for a second, bud!" I requested. Jack strode into the front room moments later, yawning and pushing back his duotone hair. "I thought I could help you figure out what you wanted to say to Amanda."

He winced and dropped onto the floor, pulling his legs under himself to sit indian-style. "I don't know if I can do it."

I dropped down next to him and punched his shoulder. "Of course you can. Just go for it, you know?" It was tearing me apart to be encouraging him to go for the girl of my dreams, but it was how things were meant to be. Amanda and I weren't supposed to be a couple. It had been that way practically from the very beginning. Even before Jack had admitted it to himself, the rest of us had always acknowledged the different way he used to act when Amanda was around, as if he had somebody to impress. Long before he knew how much he liked her, we knew. That was just the way things had always been.

Jack shook his head. "I treated her so bad, though. She hasn't spoken to me since the party."

If Jack didn't talk to her, there was no possibility of them making up, which meant that there was no way my eventual master plan would work. A.K.A., I was going to be dead. "Dude, come on. You just need to build up your confidence. She's probably just scared because you screamed at her. Besides, she told you she...loves you" - I choked on 'loves you' - "so not all hope is lost. And hey, if things go really well...you know what might come next, right?" I choked back tears and managed a mischievous sort of wink and nudge.

He grinned and nodded. "She isn't that sort of person, man. She wouldn't sleep with somebody unless they really meant a lot to her."

That one really killed me. "Yeah, I know Good thing you mean a hell of a lot to her." I took a moment to compose myself before suggesting, "I'll get the guys out of here, and you'll do what you've gotta do, okay?"