I Love Your Switchblade Attitude

I love him. I love him. I love him, Harley vehemently repeated to herself as Max’s arm possessively snaked around her waist.

Though her jovial smile and confident aura gave off the false impression that Harley was, in fact, enjoying her twenty-first birthday party, the feeling of sadness that overwhelmed her inside suggested otherwise.

While she had assumed it would be a small social gathering, involving her family, Colie and Rian’s band mates, what surrounded her now was much worse. Somehow, both Jack and Max had been scheming behind her back, separately of course, which had led to a sea of both friends and strangers entering her household.

A flow of alcohol, obnoxious music and noise followed soon after, and now, Harley stood in the middle of her unrecognizable living room, forced into conversation with Max and a vaguely familiar alumnus of their high school. If there was a worse way to spend your twenty-first birthday, Harley couldn’t think of it.

“So, are you and Kevin still together?” Max asked the girl in front of him as Harley mentally returned to the conversation. “….What? Oh, you found out he’s a child molester? That’s absolutely dreadful.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Harley muttered absentmindedly, as she scanned the room for a familiar face, ignoring the drunken sobbing of the girl in front of her.

She was bored. Hell, she was more than bored. She was tired of Max attempting to assert himself into her life, she was exhausted from putting up this stupid façade to convince everyone that everything was fine, even though it wasn’t. She was sick of everyone wanting to do something for her, and even though she knew that it was selfish, she just wanted to go to her room and collapse onto her bed, and go to sleep. Knowing she couldn’t do that, however, she let out a low groan and turned back around, letting out an inaudible yelp of surprise as Alex materialized before her.

“Can I steal you away from lover boy, for a minute?” He bent to whisper in her ear, his warm breath fanning her neck. It took a minute to process his words, as Harley was too engrossed in marveling at his beauty.

He had obviously dressed for a nice dinner instead of a party, as had she, with a dark button down and nice jeans, and even more miraculous, his hair actually seemed to be combed. His face, all sharp angles and glowing tan skin, contrasted beautifully against the dark of his clothes, and his content smile seemed to suggest that unlike her, he was having a good time.

“Just a minute, I promise.”

“S-sure,” she nodded and turned back to Max, only to see him staring at the pair warily, the sobbing girl long gone.

He sneered in dissatisfaction, “What do you want with my girl, Gaskarth?”

“I—”

Surprisingly, it was Harley that interrupted Alex, “No need to give him a reason,” she turned to Max defiantly. Compared to Alex, he was nothing. His hair, dark curls that Harley thought had once framed his face so beautifully, now seemed greasy and unkempt, while his cashmere sweater and khakis seemed fake and pretentious. Harley tried her hardest to prevent her lips from tugging south as she spoke, “Look, Max. It’s my fucking birthday party, and if you can’t even let me go off and hang out with my friends, then there’s really no point in you being here.”

“I thought we put all this bullshit past us,” Max sighed, his pupils slightly larger than normal, no doubt from the four bottles of beer he had been nursing throughout the night.

“So had I,” Harley scoffed, and before Max could reply, Harley grabbed Alex’s hand and dragged him into the crowded hallway.

Pushing through a gathering of drunken young adults, the pair found a quieter corner near the stairs to talk.

“Way to be badass, Dawson.” Alex nodded approvingly, resting his hand on the railing of the bannister as though they were partaking in playful conversation.

“Thank you, I try.” Harley mocked blushing, and placed a hand on her chest, grinning as Alex laughed along beside her. Almost immediately, however, Alex’s smile dropped and his expression became somber. “What is it?” She asked, suddenly feeling anxious.

“Look, I didn’t mean to pull you away from lover boy, or ruin your great time,” Harley was unaware if Alex was being sarcastic or not, but let it slide, “but something happened with Colie. I went upstairs to use the bathroom—there’s some orange vomit and shit in the one downstairs by the way, you might want to get that cleaned—and Colie was sitting in the bathroom sobbing.”

“And you didn’t comfort her?!” Harley shouted, already halfway up the staircase.

Alex looked befuddled. “I can’t deal with all that girl drama like you can.”

“Thanks for letting me know!” Harley acknowledged, rounding the staircase as Alex disappeared from view.

Finding her way quickly through the upstairs hallway wasn’t hard—the party was mainly downstairs and other than a drunken couple passed out topless by the master bedroom, the upper floor was empty.

Shoving the bathroom door open with such force that it ricocheted against the wall and almost swung back closed again, Harley entered the bathroom to find a startled Colie staring at her. With tear stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, Colie fisted the shower curtain and curled tighter into a fetal position, muffling her sobs.

“Colie?” Harley asked tentatively as she moved forward, like a hunter carefully stepping towards a sleeping lion. “Are you okay?”

“I-I…” Colie sniffled, not bothering to move her body as Harley finally arrived at the edge of the bath tub and took a seat, ready to console her friend. “Y-you’re gonna hate me.”

“I could never hate you,” Harley cooed back soothingly, smoothing Colie’s hair down and rubbing circles on her back. “You’re one of my closest friends. Just tell me what you did, and we can figure out how to fix it together.”

Colie looked at her with such a miserable expression, Harley felt a rush of sympathy towards her friend. “I..I…m-made out with Rian.” Harley stopped breathing, if only for a moment, before she was met with overwhelming feelings of both relief and disappointment.

“Oh, Colie…” Harley sighed, shaking her head as though to shake away her frustration. “Was he drunk?”

“Yes,” Colie mumbled meekly.

“There’s your problem. You were both drunk, and I guess you acted on impulse and kissed him. As long as Cassadee didn’t see, you just have to make sure you don’t do anything like it again.”

“But I’m not that drunk! And he liked it! He said so. ” Colie protested like a child, slamming her palm against the cool porcelain of the tub. “…And, I kind of stuck my hand in his pants…”

“Colie!” Harley gasped, suddenly feeling lightheaded as new ideas and scenarios formed in her mind. “Y-you…you didn’t have sex with him, did you?”

“No!” Colie whined, leaning into the tub as she attempted to compose herself enough to tell the story. “We were both sitting in the living room and I just had a few beers, though I knew R-Rian, he, he had been drinking. And we were talking with this other guy, with, like, these reaaaaaaaaaly big glasses, and he was talking about how Rian only was stuck with Cassadee because he couldn’t get any other girls.”

“Oh no.”

“Wait!” Colie hiccupped, “And, so I was like ‘Rian so totally can get other girls.’ And glasses guy was like, he was like, ‘who?’ And I was like, ‘me!’ and then I kissed him and we made out for a little while and when I was like, making out with him, he, I, I put my hand in his pants and then Rian got mad.”

“Oh god, Colie, that’s not why you’re sad, is it?”

“YES! I was trying to confess my feelings for him, and he pulled me off him and was like,” Colie lowered her voice to imitate Rian, “I can’t be with you, Nicole. This is a mistake and I think we should f-forget about this. I have to find Cass.’ Can you believe that? And then he pushed me off him, and ran away!”

“Colie, he did the right thing,” Harley felt like a hypocrite, but tried to push those comparisons away, and instead focused on the drunken blonde beside her, curled in the bath tub, sobbing.

“He doesn’t love me! But I love him!”

“You’re drunk, Colie.”

“No, I’m not!”

“You are just speaking shit, right now.” Harley attempted to put on a soothing tone, but was quickly becoming annoyed with her overdramatic friend, “How about we just get you out of this bath tub, and put you to sleep. You’ve had a lot to drink and you’ll feel better in the morning…”

“You don’t understand what it’s like, ‘cause you a-always, you always have guys falling for you! You had Travis, and now Max and Alex, for god’s sake, and you go on and on about how you like Max and he’s so sweet, but then you’re eye-fucking Alex who eye-fucks you in r-return and everybody KNOWS that you love Alex and you won’t admit it. You really think Max is an ass, don’t you? Do you know what it’s like to be your friend, the girl who gets every guy, while I’m sitting here and I can’t even get the one guy I like?”

“Colie…”

“NO!” She moaned, her voice cracking, “All I want is him! And you haven’t even noticed that I like him or that I have my own fucking problems because you’re too busy being a bitch and stringing two guys along, all because you can’t decide which one you like. So make your own damn decisions and get out—”

“After all I—”

“Get out and solve your own problems instead of trying to criticize mine!” Colie hissed, curling back into a corner of the bathtub and glaring at Harley, making her physically shrink away from the girl.

Slowly, Harley got up, attempting not to let the insults faze her or show weakness. Instead, she navigated towards the stairs and stopped, hearing the blaring music and the insufferable laughter that echoed throughout the house.

Did she really want to spend another four hours talking to people who thought they knew her as they wished her happy birthday and attempted to fabricate their way into her life? Or did she want to try to reconcile with her best friend, who was drunk and sobbing in the bathtub?

Making a hasty decision, she turned on her heels and made her way to her bedroom instead, hoping that if she stayed locked away long enough, others would forget about her.

As she twisted and pulled at the doorknob of her bedroom, she was once again met with a surprise as she noticed a darkened silhouette lounging on her bed. Letting out a squeak, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light in order to make sense of the scene in front of her.

“Alex,” she scolded, blinking rapidly as the boy put down the picture frame that he had previously been fingering in his hands. “Hasn’t your mother ever told you that it’s rude to lie in a girl’s bed unattended, let alone stay in her bedroom?”

“Obviously not, since I’m laying here.” Alex smirked, stretching out ostentatiously.

Harley waited for an explanation to his presence in her room, but got none, so instead asked, “What are you doing in my room, anyway?”

“No offense, but the majority of your guest list consists of lover boy’s cronies, and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not spend my night discussing the finer elements of Chopin’s works.”

“They’re not that bad,” Harley regretted her words as soon as she though back to some of the conversations earlier. “Okay, never mind. Point taken.”

“Exactly,” Alex eyed her for a moment, “so what happened with Colie?”

“Um,” Harley thought for a moment whether she should involve Alex in the predicament, but decided against it. The less people involved, the better. “Nothing really, just Colie getting drunk and going off on her business. All I can tell you is that she is very mad at me at the moment.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Alex yawned, rolling onto his side to face her before patting the space beside him, no doubt indicating that she should join him on the bed.

Shrugging and blaming the overwhelming sense of lethargy that numbed her mind, Harley kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the bed beside him, cautiously giving him a warning glance. “Why does it seem like we would be the perfect cast for Days of Our Lives or something?”

“Because we make fucked up decisions.” Harley stopped for a moment and stared at him, once again distracted by the beautiful boy in front of her.

His light hair fell into his eyes, his fringe tangling with his long eyelashes as he genuinely smiled at her, the epitome of beauty. And yet, if Harley looked hard enough, she could find the flaws in him that seemed so familiar; the crookedness of his top right tooth, how one eyebrow was longer than the other, even how when he felt insecure, his brows would furrow together and cause faint frown lines to appear around his mouth.

No matter the size of his flaws, in that moment, Harley felt like Alex was the most beautiful boy in the world. Harley knew it was stupid, crawling onto the bed with Alex, putting herself within such close proximity of his beauty that she was practically quivering.

“I regret a lot of fucked up decisions I made,” Alex mumbled, his voice falling to a half-whisper as he stared at her, his gaze burning into her. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Harley murmured in return, registering that Alex was so achingly close, she could feel the heat that radiated from his body.

Her head spun, with images of Colie yelling at her, Max’s look of disapproval and Alex’s beauty swimming behind her eyelids, leaving a numb and warm sensation flowing through her. She froze—was she drunk? No, she only had to wine cooler. Was he?

“Are you sober?” She mumbled, feeling stupid asking the question as soon as it left her mouth. She ached to touch him, to hold him in her arms, and yet, she did not want to make the same mistakes as the year prior.

“Surprisingly,” his gaze met hers, and she could tell from the softness of his gaze and gentleness of his voice that he was telling the truth. “Your party really suc—”

But Alex never had time to finish his sentence, for Harley’s arms had already crept around him, her fingers lacing themselves around his neck as she tugged him closer. Her face moved to press against neck as her hands threaded themselves into his soft hair, the hum in her throat announcing her approval.

She closed her eyes, shutting out the dim light of her bedroom, the dizzying world and the faint thumping of the bass from the floor below. In return, Harley felt Alex exhale beneath her, as though he had been holding his breath for ages and had only just let it out.

She gasped quietly as his fingertips made their way to her temples, falling to trace her cheekbones before resting against her throat. Her skin seemed to burn where he touched her, and as his hands trailed lower and lower, she couldn’t help but close the space between them.

His lips were soft. Extremely soft. Harley remembered the distant memory of kissing him exactly a year before, but this was much different. Their last kisses had been rushed and passionate and rough, attempting to physically display the desire they felt for one another.

This kiss was different; it was unhurried and delicate, as though she was a piece of fine china and Alex did not want to break her. She faintly registered the hammering of his heart against her chest as she desperately attempted to move closer to him, her chest pressing against his. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, and the movement of their lips together caused Harley’s body to quake in excitement.

He gasped quickly before bending down to her once more; their mouths met again, and the shock of the sensation was so strong, that Harley fisted Alex’s shirt, her grip tight as she clung to him. They rolled sideways, her legs wrapping around his waist, their bodies shifting to press each other closer and closer so it became harder to breathe, and yet they could not stop.

Her hands found the buttons of Alex’s shirt as his mouth moved to place a trail of butterfly kisses on her collarbone, and forcing her eyes open, she clumsily unfastened them. Quickly, Alex shrugged the shirt free and tossed it aside, doing the same with his undershirt so he lay bare-chested on top of her, breathing heavily.

Harley attempted to marvel at his beauty once more, but was distracted as Alex bit down on her neck teasingly, causing her to let out a whimper and bring his lips to meet hers. With trembling hands, Alex’s calloused hands found their way to the hem of her shirt, tugging it over head hastily and returned the urgent kiss that followed.

His hands trailed along her bare sides, over the curves of her breasts, before stopping to grab her hips and pull her body closer, grinding his hips to hers.

“A-lex.” Harley mumbled into his hair as he worked on the clasp of her bra, finally tugging it off and throwing it across the room.

Grinning into the kiss, Harley parted only to shakily undo Alex’s pants, stopping only when Alex began to impatiently tug down his own pants. Lips, skin, warmth, sweat, fire. The room spun as Harley latched herself onto Alex once more, rolling them onto the bed to change positions.

As though coming to a realization, Alex rolled them back to their original positions, before peeling himself off of Harley.

“Wha—?” mumbled Harley, her gaze clouded with lust as she attempted to calm herself down, her hands trembling as they reached towards Alex once more.

“What about Max?” Alex inquired, folding his arms across his chest while attempting to focus on Harley’s face, and not her, er, other assets that were displayed before him.

Sensing his struggle, Harley looked down, and blushing a pale crimson, hastily pulled the sheet up to cover her exposed chest.

“You didn’t seem to care about Max when you were taking my bra off.”

“I don’t want you to…” Alex looked like he was facing some sort of internal struggle, “…regret this, and tear us apart again.”

“I promise I won’t regret it.” Harley leaned in, preparing herself to resume where they left off, but Alex stopped her, pushing her body back slightly. A look of hurt flashed across her face, but Alex turned away.

“I’m single but you’re not. Affairs never end well, and we’ve learnt that. No more casual sex.”

“But—”

“I know, I’m a hypocrite. But it’s the truth. No more significant others. When you break up with Max, we can continue where we left off.”

Harley stared at Alex, his disheveled hair and swollen lips emphasizing his attractiveness. Hm.

When you break up with Max, we can continue where we left off.

What a thought to think about, indeed.