Teardrops on My Guitar

“Jack. Jack!” Alex says, waving his hand in front of the younger teen’s face. “You okay?”

Jack blinks a few times and fakes a smile, which seems to appease Alex, and Jack sighs to himself. Alex didn’t notice. Which he guesses is a good thing.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Jack elaborates, and Alex grins and nods, happy that Jack’s okay.

Jack looks up to the front of the classroom, where he’s a paragraph behind copying the teacher’s explanation of hyperboles and how they’re used in literature.

When Alex elbows Jack and shows him a note that says ‘I have a date tonight! With Lisa, you know that hot cheerleader? Apparently her friend has a crush on you; I’ll put in a good word ;)’ Jack sighs and shakes his head.

He writes a quick note back, simply saying ‘Don’t. I can do without a girlfriend right now. Senior year and graduation are more important than girls.’

‘Have you lost your mind, Barakat?’

Jack sighs and chooses to ignore Alex and go back to the work.

He bites his lip softly, ignoring the fact that Alex is jabbing him in the side. It always hurts to hear about Alex’s dates, girlfriends and crushes. Jack just wants to be like them; for Alex to pay attention to him like that, just once. Jack thinks they could be perfect, but Alex would never look at him twice.

He, of course, knows who Lisa ‘hot cheerleader #5’ Ruocco is. He’d have to have been living under a rock not to.

Alex talks about her all the time, and they’re not even dating yet.

Yet.

That’s the word that resonates around Jack’s mind whenever Alex mentions Lisa in conversation.

He’s not going to deny that she’s beautiful; big green eyes, gorgeous, softly curling brown hair and petite and skinny. Everything Jack isn’t, in fewer words.

Jack hopes she knows that, now she has Alex, she has everything anyone could ever want.

The bell that signals the end of English class rings, and Alex and Jack leave together, just like always.

They head for their usual table in the cafeteria and Rian and Zack show up a few moments later, but Jack doesn’t notice.

Alex is talking to him, and it’s not about Lisa, and Jack’s kind of struggling to focus on anything that isn’t the older boy.

Jack laughs a little at something Alex says, which turns to a glare when Zack kicks him under the table.

He doesn’t ask what it was for, because he already knows.

He told Zack a few weeks ago about his feelings for Alex, and Zack has been pressing him to tell Alex ever since.

The next day at lunch, Alex is talking about Lisa. Jack sits opposite him and next to Zack, and keeps his eyes downcast on his bowl of salad –which is looking less and less appetising by the minute.

“I really, really like her.” Alex says, taking a bite of the pizza in his hand. “I think I love her.”

Jack almost chokes on a lettuce leaf and blinks a few times, praying to God he heard wrong.

“That’s great. I’m glad you finally found someone.” Rian says with a smile, patting Alex on the back, and that’s all the conformation he needs.

I’ve been here for you the whole time, all you had to do was ask, Jack thinks to himself, blinking back a few tears that are pricking the corners of his eyes.

Zack seemingly picks up on his sadness and squeezes his knee gently in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture.

“This is going to sound stupid, Ri, but... I think she might be ‘the one’.” Alex says with a sheepish smile, and Jack can’t take it.

He stands up and is barely out of the cafeteria before Zack caught hold of him and is hugging him tight as he cries.

A few hours later, Jack is waiting outside of his locker for Alex, like he always does, when he walks past with an arm around Lisa’s waist and doesn’t even notice Jack at all.

Jack’s first thought is that Alex looks absolutely perfect, as always, with his just-got-out-of-bed hairstyle and his jeans hanging just below his ass and the way his hips move just so as he walks.

But Jack’s breath hitches for all the wrong reasons, and he stares longingly after Alex as he disappears down the corridor.

Zack appears a few moments later, when Jack is trying to compose himself and fight back tears he should be used to hiding.

“What happened?” Zack asks softly, resting his hands on Jack’s shoulders. The slightly younger shakes his head, blinking furiously, and Zack can work everything out just from that movement.

“I hope...” Jack says, pausing to try and remember how to breathe, “I hope she realizes how lucky she is. I hope she holds him when he’s sad and tells him she loves him and looks in those perfect eyes of his and realizes how much he loves her, because, dammit, he does, and that’s what hurts.”

His voice trails to a whimper and Zack just holds him tight as he breaks down.

Zack offers him a ride home that night, but Jack politely declines and drives himself home in silence, struggling enough to focus on the road without the sound of Blink 182, which will surely only remind him of Alex and make him cry more.

Jack tries to eat at dinner that night, but nothing seems to want to stay in his stomach and he ends up only eating a few bites of his mom’s home-made macaroni and cheese, which makes her worry because Jack’s told her so many times before how it’s his favourite food ever.

He heads up to his room before his mom and siblings can start asking questions that he honestly doesn’t want to think about right now.

Before he turns out the light, he pauses for a second as he sees a photo of him and Alex when they were fifteen and had a far too large collection of band shirts each. He stares at it for a second, before moving it from his bedside and laying it flat on his desk, where he can’t see it and cry more.

Right before he falls to sleep, Jack realizes that the only reason this hurts like it does is because Alex is the only one who’s ever held his heart like this. And Jack works out then that it hurts because Alex is breaking his heart right before his eyes.

The next day in school, Alex greets him with a hug and they sit next to each other in homeroom, just like always.

“You okay?” Alex asks him again. “Zack told me you were a little off yesterday. Sorry I didn’t really notice.”

He sounds guilty, Jack notices, and he nods a little after making a mental note to threaten Zack at knifepoint next time he sees him.

“I’m fine.” He says, flashing Alex a small, lopsided smile.

Alex doesn’t seem to notice how fake Jack’s smile is, and had this have happened a few months ago, he would’ve pressed what was wrong until Jack cracked.

But he doesn’t, and when he sighs, Alex looks at him again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, I promise.” Jack says, and he feels bad for lying, so he tacks on the most realistic smile he can onto the end of his sentence and Alex grins back.

Jack hates the lying more than anything else.

But then he remembers that what Alex doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

But it just might hurt Jack.