Symphony of Sound.

The next few weeks leading up to spring break are bizarre, to say the least. Zack is constantly, and often rudely, reminded that he is, in fact, the only single one left in their little group.

So, because of this, he spends as much time as possible away from them.

He ends up spending most of his weekends and nights after school with Grace, or Hayley, and sometimes Andrew or Mike.

Down to this, rumours begin to crop up everywhere about Zack and Grace, or Mike, or Andrew and he’s getting a little bit sick of having to crush them all.

“So are you with Grace now?” Rian asks as he pushes open Zack’s door and takes a seat beside him on his bed. Zack’s expression quickly shifts from an amiable smile into an annoyed glare.

“Oh for God’s sake.” Zack mumbles to himself, pulling his violin from his shoulder and setting it in his lap. “No, I’m not dating Grace, I’ve told you at least three times today. And then twice yesterday.”

“You have? I guess I wasn’t listening.”

“I can see that.” Zack sighs, rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers. Now would be the perfect time to tell Rian everything –or at least, it would be if Cassadee was out of the picture.

Except Cassadee is still in the damn picture, so Zack holds off and says nothing of the sort, instead just watches as the older boy glances around the room curiously.

“Are you okay, Zack? You’ve been acting weird for the past few weeks.”

Zack sucks in a breath through his nose, and blinks slowly and deliberately a few times. He’d been waiting for one of the others to ask him this; he just didn’t expect it so suddenly.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Zack lies bluntly, pushing his fingers into his weakly curling bangs and exhaling, puffing out his cheeks.

“You seem stressed.”

“I am a little, I guess.” Zack replies, sighing quietly to himself as he pulls his fingers out of his hair.

“What about?” Rian asks, turning around to seat himself properly beside the younger boy.

“Just… things.” Zack replies quickly, glancing sideways at the darker haired boy that is suddenly seated beside him.

“Like what? I’m sure I can help with it, Zee.”

“It’s nothing major.” Zack replies.

“Uh, yeah, it is. I can tell.”

“You do surprise me.”

“I have my moments of brilliance.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘brilliance’…”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something? I’m sure we can find something between us.”

“There’s a copy of Sherlock Holmes over there somewhere.” Zack gestures with his violin bow at a teetering stack of DVDs in the far corner of his room.

Rian drags himself to his feet and rummages through the pile while Zack packs away his violin and sheet music, dragging his laptop up from the floor and switching it on.

Rian returns triumphantly with the DVD in question a few moments later and presents it to Zack with a certain amount of pride in his eyes.

Zack rolls his eyes at his overdramatic friend, taking the box from him and swiftly inserting the disc into the drive.

Rian settles himself comfortably behind the younger boy as he leans forward and presses play.

“Are you… Are you sure Cassadee will be okay with this?” Zack asks as Rian wraps his arms around his waist.

“She’s going to have to be.” Rian replies quickly, pausing only to bite at his lower lip. “And besides, who’s to say that she’ll find out?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a thought. And anyway, girls are usually freakishly good at figuring out when something’s happening with their boyfriends that they don’t know about.”

“I suppose,” Rian replies with a small shrug, squeezing Zack’s waist lightly. The blonde boy’s breath hitches quietly, but Rian (as observant as always) doesn’t notice a thing.

Zack frowns at the action on the screen and pretends like nothing happened –that the boy of his dreams slash biggest crush known to mankind is sitting behind him stroking his stomach.

Class the next day is both bizarre and slightly awkward.

Jack and Alex have a double period of Chemistry, which they spending flirting shyly and plotting how to get Rian to leave Cassadee and get with Zack before the younger boy explodes.

“So, I think we should play dares or spin the bottle, and fix it so that they have to kiss. Rian will see what he’s been missing and leave Cassadee.” Jack says with a proud smile, hitting his pen on the desk.

“Yeah, but that could go horribly wrong –Rian could just see it as a dare, or something, and that would just hurt Zack even more.” Alex replies quickly, frowning at the sheets in front of them.

“That’s a pretty good point, actually.” Jack replies, somewhat dejected. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“You don’t think about much.” Alex says with a small laugh, which only makes Jack elbow him in the side a little too violently.

“I resent that.”

Both of them glance forward and search the desks in front for the two boys in question, finding them sitting side by side a few desks from the front.

“It bothers me how Rian has never noticed how Zack looks at him, or anything even along those lines.” Alex says with a soft glare in the direction of the aforementioned brunette boy.

“He’s not very observant, remember. It took him months to figure that Cassadee liked him.” Jack replies. “Don’t worry your silly little head about it. It’ll all work itself out in the end.”

And with that, Jack leans in and knocks his lips against Alex’s cheek in a soft gesture of ‘hey, I like you’ which seems to make almost all of the smaller boy’s rage dissipate.

Alex smiles at him, a blush starting to spread over his cheeks.

Alex and Jack are already one of those couples that only they know where they really stand. They know that they’re together, whereas to those on the outside, they could just be very good friends. That’s how they both like it, and that’s how they plan to keep it.

Around ten minutes later, they’re given various chemicals and pieces of equipment in order to conduct an experiment.

“Careful with that!” Alex squeaks as Jack starts playing around with the bottle of acid. “That’s a very toxic and corrosive chemical!”

“Your mom is a very toxic and corrosive chemical.” Jack replies with a smug smirk.

“Be that as it may…” Alex laughs. “I’d still rather you didn’t get it everywhere. I would like to have a desk left by the end of this period.”

Jack pouts, but puts the bottle down anyway. Alex smiles, because, yeah, he’s probably the only one Jack will listen to about things like this.

They leave for German class with their arms linked and Zack and Rian trailing behind.

Or at least, they’re trailing behind up until they run into Evan and Kara, who are holding hands and look happier than ever.

“How are you guys?” Kara asks, letting go of the boy’s hand to embrace Zack in a hug. “I’ve not talked to you in a while.”

“Things are okay, I guess. I’ve been better, though. Definitely been better.” Zack replies with a small nod.

“And what about you, Dawson?” Kara asks, turning to Rian. She is still less than keen on the boy after all the pain he’s caused Zack.

Rian, however, has wandered off and is standing around five feet away with his arms around Cassadee’s waist.

“You still haven’t told him?” Evan says, his tone sad, and yet worried at the same time.

Zack shakes his head, and sniffles a little, wiping his nose on the back of his wrist, on his gray school sweater.

“Why not?” Evan says with a small, miserable sigh.

“I don’t dare, Evan. I’ve had chances to, and so many times I almost have but then I remember he’s got Cassadee, so it’s just stupid me even trying.”

“Don’t think like that, okay?” Evan says quietly, resting his hand on Zack’s shoulder. “There’s always hope. Even if you can’t see it.”

He glances sideways at his girlfriend, catching her glaring at Rian with more venom than he’s ever seen before.

“Kara, we have to go to class soon.” He says to her. She nods, but never moves her glare from Rian to Evan.

“Give me a hug,” Evan says, outstretching his arms and hugging Zack tightly. The older boy sniffs into Evan’s shoulder and swallows, almost nervously.

“Everything will be alright. I’ll make sure of it. Everything will work out in the end.” Evan says, mouth resting against Zack’s hair.

He can see the doubt resonating in Zack’s green eyes as he pulls back, so he just tugs him back in for another hug.

“Promise. I promise everything will work out in the end.”

And with that, the bell signalling the start of third period rings, letting them all know that they are now officially late to class.

Zack immediately starts cursing, moving away from Evan and turning on his heel, heading quickly towards the modern foreign languages block.

It’s just Zack’s luck that said block is right across campus, and around a ten minute walk away. Even if he runs the whole way, there’s no way he’ll get there even close to on time.

He arrives around ten minutes into the lesson, and his entrance makes everyone look up from their work, and makes Miss Harding turn and glare at him.

“Nice of you to join us, Zachary. Now sit down and shut up.”

Zack doesn’t dare question the fact that he’s not even said anything, just does as he’s told and slinks to his seat in the far right corner of the room.