Symphony of Sound.
Hungarian Dance.
It’s a few weeks from Zack’s seventeenth birthday when he finally cracks.
Rian is as clueless as ever, and now he knows that Alex is aware of his situation (read: mind numbingly huge crush) it just makes matters worse.
They’re currently sitting at dinner after a long and tedious day in class. Rian is talking at Zack, Kara, Alex, Jack and Evan about his plans for his date with Cassadee this coming weekend.
Zack has already had enough of it as is, but when the girl herself arrives and takes the empty seat beside Rian and he kisses her, he can’t take it any more.
He slams his knife and fork down on the table, not even caring that everyone turns to stare at him, and storms off, blinking to stop the tears.
Alex is the first to get up and go after him, quickly followed by Jack and Evan.
Kara waits behind, and stays in her seat glaring at the two teens opposite her.
“Rian, you’re an A grade asshole, you know that, right?”
“What?” He asks, confused. “What the hell have I done this time?”
“Maybe if you paid attention to your supposed best friend’s feelings sometimes, you’d know. But you don’t, do you? All you do is talk about her all the time, without even sparing a second thought for how Zack might be feeling.”
Rian stares at Kara, mouth open and eyes wide in shock.
“I don’t… I don’t do that, do I?”
“Yes. You do.” Kara retorts sharply, her hair falling into her eyes as she speaks. “And I’ve told you this before, but I’ll tell you it again: breaking hearts is seriously not cool.”
And with that, she stands, turns on her heel and heads in the direction everyone else went a few minutes ago.
Rian gapes after her, his brain trying to piece together everything she just said.
“Rian.” Cassadee snaps, turning her head to face him. “What does she mean by that?”
“I… I have no idea.”
This seems to appease Cassadee, as she gives him an astoundingly fake smile and goes back to eating her dinner. Rian shakes his head, swallows anxiously and exhales, before doing the same.
Zack, on the other hand, is pacing around his room, barely stopping to think and trying to stop himself from crying. Alex is sitting cross legged on his bed, watching the younger boy carefully.
“I’m here if you need me, Zee.” Alex reassures him gently.
“I… I know, I just… Can’t really think straight at the minute.”
Zack looks over at him with teary green eyes and Alex sighs, shifting himself around nervously.
The blonde boy pauses for a second, pushes his fingers through his bangs and holds them up away from his face. He exhales loudly, and Alex glances over at him, his eyes shifting from the wall in seconds.
“Do you want to talk about it, or…” Alex starts, voice trailing off pathetically before he finishes speaking.
“I guess,” Zack replies quietly, finally stopping pacing and perching himself carefully on the edge of his bed. Alex shuffles forwards and throws an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders.
“I’ll be here whenever you’re ready, Zack. And you know that, right?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I do, Alex.”
Zack sniffles, rests his head absently against the taller boy’s shoulder and sighs.
“I guess… I guess it’s a few different things getting to me right now. I mean, there’s obviously Rian and Cassadee, which is like mental torture every time I see them together, but then there’s also the fact that it’s almost… It’s almost seventeen years since we lost Mom, and…”
Zack trails off there, the tears becoming too much for him to handle as he breaks in Alex’s arms.
Alex shushes him quietly, trying to remain as calm as possible because freaking out in a situation like this would just make everything worse.
“You just need your best friend, don’t you?” Alex says slowly, and he’s unsurprised when Zack nods and starts to cry gently into his shoulder.
“I wish he’d just notice, wish that he’d just see that you need him, and that you’re infinitely more important than Cassadee ever will be.” Alex continues quietly, and Zack knows that he’s right. He’s known all along that he’d need Rian when this time came.
This is probably the first year in a long time that the older boy hasn’t been around when Zack’s needed him. Zack figured this time would come, he just didn’t want it to be so sudden.
“I figure Kara hasn’t appeared because she’s screaming Rian’s face off right now.” Alex says with a small laugh.
Zack nods, laughing weakly into Alex’s sweater and hugging the older boy’s waist tightly.
“You should go hang out with Hayley or something. It’s impossible to be sad around her.”
“I think… I think I will. She’s awesome with things like this.”
It’s around a half hour later when Zack’s trudging his way across campus miserably in the twilight.
He knocks quietly and Jersey opens the door to him and gives him a soft smile, opening the door wide to him and letting him in.
“Is Hayley around?” He asks quietly.
“Yeah, she should be up in her room somewhere.” Jersey replies as Zack steps into the senior common room. He catches sight of Lipshaw and Grace sitting on the floor in front of the fire, talking quietly between themselves about something.
“Hey, Zack,” Grace says with a small smile as she looks up and notices his presence, “are you doing okay?”
“Kind of,” Zack says with a shrug, tugging his hoodie tighter around himself.
“Well, you know where we are if you need us.” Lipshaw continues with a grin, brushing his dirty blonde bangs away from his eyes.
“You know where Hayley’s room is, don’t you?” Jersey asks, pushing his glasses up his nose in a way that’s eerily similar to the way Jack does it.
“I’d imagine it’d be the room that says H. Williams on the door.” Zack says with a small smile.
“Uh, yeah. It’s just in that corridor.” Jersey replies with a laugh, gesturing at the girls’ corridor that opens up a few feet away.
The senior block is arranged in a very similar way to the junior block, and so Zack can hear Hayley practicing her song for the spring break concert.
He waits until she’s done before knocking gently and she grins as she opens the door.
“Zack, hey!” She says exuberantly, flicking her hair out of her eyes –she had recently become bored of the pink and had bleached it almost white, before flecking it with lime green highlights.
“Hey, Hayley.” He says with a smile as she hugs him. “You sound great.”
“You heard it?”
“Yeah. Paper thin walls, remember.”
She laughs, pulling him inside her room and sitting him down on her unmade bed. Her room is not unlike Zack’s in the sense that they’re a similar size, but Zack would never dream of letting his room get this messy.
“Are you prepared for the spring concert at all yet? I think we have the same number of things to do in it.”
Zack himself in involved in the orchestra’s performance of Elgar’s Pomp And Circumstance, as well as playing in the string quartet with a cover of I Miss You by Blink 182, and then playing the accompaniment to Hayley’s cover of Stay.
Hayley has to do both the orchestra piece and her song, and then the woodwind band are playing a woodwind version of Beethoven’s Fur Elise, much to the distaste of Andrew and the school’s other pianists.
“Kind of. But, in all fairness, so long as I have the sheet music in front of me, I should be fine.”
“I envy you.” Hayley pouts. “You don’t have to sing anything.”
“That’s because I can’t sing. My singing voice makes small children cry, I swear.”
Hayley laughs, elbowing Zack in the side gently.
“So, why are you here again?”
“Feeling pretty terrible. Alex suggested coming to see you.”
“Rian?”
“Yeah, among other things.”
“I’m here for you, Zack. You’ve got my cell number, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. Thanks, Hayley.”
“No problem.” She grins. “Out of interest, what’s going on with Jack and Alex? Are they dating, or what?”
“I don’t even know.” Zack shrugs, tacking a small laugh onto the end of his sentence casually. “I would think so, considering I saw Jack kissing Alex the other day during lunch break, but you never really know with those two.”
“They’re so cute together.” Hayley coos, pressing her hands flat onto her legs. “Seriously.”
“I know. They were so clueless before, I swear.”
“Kind of like Rian is now, then?”
“I guess, yeah. Except he’s not exactly interested in me in that way like Jack was with Alex.”
“Hey, you don’t know that. Think positive, alright?” Hayley says, offering the younger boy a small smile and brushing a few strands of pale green and blonde away from her face, tucking them behind her ear.
“We’re having a Go Fish tournament downstairs in twenty minutes, if you want to stick around for it. You totally should, it’ll be fun.”
“I might.” Zack says with a smile. “But, I should probably get to practicing some of these pieces for orchestra and string quartet.”
“Well, the invite’s there if you want to hang out.”
Rian returns to the junior common room after dinner to find Jack and Alex curled up on the sofa together, half asleep, with Paul, David, Greta, William, Nick and Christofer enthralled in what appears to be an intense game of Cluedo. Zack is nowhere in sight.
Jack is watching the six of them with an amused smile as Alex dozes on his chest, snuffling softly as he drifts off.
“Hey, Jack.” Rian hisses as he steps quietly over to the couch. “Where’s Zack?”
“No idea, dude.” Jack says with a slight shrug, not wanting to wake his slumbering boyfriend. “I haven’t seen him since dinner. He might be with Hayley or Evan, though.”
Rian frowns, turns on his heel and heads for the boys dorm corridor.
He can’t help feeling like this whole mess is his fault.
Rian is as clueless as ever, and now he knows that Alex is aware of his situation (read: mind numbingly huge crush) it just makes matters worse.
They’re currently sitting at dinner after a long and tedious day in class. Rian is talking at Zack, Kara, Alex, Jack and Evan about his plans for his date with Cassadee this coming weekend.
Zack has already had enough of it as is, but when the girl herself arrives and takes the empty seat beside Rian and he kisses her, he can’t take it any more.
He slams his knife and fork down on the table, not even caring that everyone turns to stare at him, and storms off, blinking to stop the tears.
Alex is the first to get up and go after him, quickly followed by Jack and Evan.
Kara waits behind, and stays in her seat glaring at the two teens opposite her.
“Rian, you’re an A grade asshole, you know that, right?”
“What?” He asks, confused. “What the hell have I done this time?”
“Maybe if you paid attention to your supposed best friend’s feelings sometimes, you’d know. But you don’t, do you? All you do is talk about her all the time, without even sparing a second thought for how Zack might be feeling.”
Rian stares at Kara, mouth open and eyes wide in shock.
“I don’t… I don’t do that, do I?”
“Yes. You do.” Kara retorts sharply, her hair falling into her eyes as she speaks. “And I’ve told you this before, but I’ll tell you it again: breaking hearts is seriously not cool.”
And with that, she stands, turns on her heel and heads in the direction everyone else went a few minutes ago.
Rian gapes after her, his brain trying to piece together everything she just said.
“Rian.” Cassadee snaps, turning her head to face him. “What does she mean by that?”
“I… I have no idea.”
This seems to appease Cassadee, as she gives him an astoundingly fake smile and goes back to eating her dinner. Rian shakes his head, swallows anxiously and exhales, before doing the same.
Zack, on the other hand, is pacing around his room, barely stopping to think and trying to stop himself from crying. Alex is sitting cross legged on his bed, watching the younger boy carefully.
“I’m here if you need me, Zee.” Alex reassures him gently.
“I… I know, I just… Can’t really think straight at the minute.”
Zack looks over at him with teary green eyes and Alex sighs, shifting himself around nervously.
The blonde boy pauses for a second, pushes his fingers through his bangs and holds them up away from his face. He exhales loudly, and Alex glances over at him, his eyes shifting from the wall in seconds.
“Do you want to talk about it, or…” Alex starts, voice trailing off pathetically before he finishes speaking.
“I guess,” Zack replies quietly, finally stopping pacing and perching himself carefully on the edge of his bed. Alex shuffles forwards and throws an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders.
“I’ll be here whenever you’re ready, Zack. And you know that, right?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I do, Alex.”
Zack sniffles, rests his head absently against the taller boy’s shoulder and sighs.
“I guess… I guess it’s a few different things getting to me right now. I mean, there’s obviously Rian and Cassadee, which is like mental torture every time I see them together, but then there’s also the fact that it’s almost… It’s almost seventeen years since we lost Mom, and…”
Zack trails off there, the tears becoming too much for him to handle as he breaks in Alex’s arms.
Alex shushes him quietly, trying to remain as calm as possible because freaking out in a situation like this would just make everything worse.
“You just need your best friend, don’t you?” Alex says slowly, and he’s unsurprised when Zack nods and starts to cry gently into his shoulder.
“I wish he’d just notice, wish that he’d just see that you need him, and that you’re infinitely more important than Cassadee ever will be.” Alex continues quietly, and Zack knows that he’s right. He’s known all along that he’d need Rian when this time came.
This is probably the first year in a long time that the older boy hasn’t been around when Zack’s needed him. Zack figured this time would come, he just didn’t want it to be so sudden.
“I figure Kara hasn’t appeared because she’s screaming Rian’s face off right now.” Alex says with a small laugh.
Zack nods, laughing weakly into Alex’s sweater and hugging the older boy’s waist tightly.
“You should go hang out with Hayley or something. It’s impossible to be sad around her.”
“I think… I think I will. She’s awesome with things like this.”
It’s around a half hour later when Zack’s trudging his way across campus miserably in the twilight.
He knocks quietly and Jersey opens the door to him and gives him a soft smile, opening the door wide to him and letting him in.
“Is Hayley around?” He asks quietly.
“Yeah, she should be up in her room somewhere.” Jersey replies as Zack steps into the senior common room. He catches sight of Lipshaw and Grace sitting on the floor in front of the fire, talking quietly between themselves about something.
“Hey, Zack,” Grace says with a small smile as she looks up and notices his presence, “are you doing okay?”
“Kind of,” Zack says with a shrug, tugging his hoodie tighter around himself.
“Well, you know where we are if you need us.” Lipshaw continues with a grin, brushing his dirty blonde bangs away from his eyes.
“You know where Hayley’s room is, don’t you?” Jersey asks, pushing his glasses up his nose in a way that’s eerily similar to the way Jack does it.
“I’d imagine it’d be the room that says H. Williams on the door.” Zack says with a small smile.
“Uh, yeah. It’s just in that corridor.” Jersey replies with a laugh, gesturing at the girls’ corridor that opens up a few feet away.
The senior block is arranged in a very similar way to the junior block, and so Zack can hear Hayley practicing her song for the spring break concert.
He waits until she’s done before knocking gently and she grins as she opens the door.
“Zack, hey!” She says exuberantly, flicking her hair out of her eyes –she had recently become bored of the pink and had bleached it almost white, before flecking it with lime green highlights.
“Hey, Hayley.” He says with a smile as she hugs him. “You sound great.”
“You heard it?”
“Yeah. Paper thin walls, remember.”
She laughs, pulling him inside her room and sitting him down on her unmade bed. Her room is not unlike Zack’s in the sense that they’re a similar size, but Zack would never dream of letting his room get this messy.
“Are you prepared for the spring concert at all yet? I think we have the same number of things to do in it.”
Zack himself in involved in the orchestra’s performance of Elgar’s Pomp And Circumstance, as well as playing in the string quartet with a cover of I Miss You by Blink 182, and then playing the accompaniment to Hayley’s cover of Stay.
Hayley has to do both the orchestra piece and her song, and then the woodwind band are playing a woodwind version of Beethoven’s Fur Elise, much to the distaste of Andrew and the school’s other pianists.
“Kind of. But, in all fairness, so long as I have the sheet music in front of me, I should be fine.”
“I envy you.” Hayley pouts. “You don’t have to sing anything.”
“That’s because I can’t sing. My singing voice makes small children cry, I swear.”
Hayley laughs, elbowing Zack in the side gently.
“So, why are you here again?”
“Feeling pretty terrible. Alex suggested coming to see you.”
“Rian?”
“Yeah, among other things.”
“I’m here for you, Zack. You’ve got my cell number, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. Thanks, Hayley.”
“No problem.” She grins. “Out of interest, what’s going on with Jack and Alex? Are they dating, or what?”
“I don’t even know.” Zack shrugs, tacking a small laugh onto the end of his sentence casually. “I would think so, considering I saw Jack kissing Alex the other day during lunch break, but you never really know with those two.”
“They’re so cute together.” Hayley coos, pressing her hands flat onto her legs. “Seriously.”
“I know. They were so clueless before, I swear.”
“Kind of like Rian is now, then?”
“I guess, yeah. Except he’s not exactly interested in me in that way like Jack was with Alex.”
“Hey, you don’t know that. Think positive, alright?” Hayley says, offering the younger boy a small smile and brushing a few strands of pale green and blonde away from her face, tucking them behind her ear.
“We’re having a Go Fish tournament downstairs in twenty minutes, if you want to stick around for it. You totally should, it’ll be fun.”
“I might.” Zack says with a smile. “But, I should probably get to practicing some of these pieces for orchestra and string quartet.”
“Well, the invite’s there if you want to hang out.”
Rian returns to the junior common room after dinner to find Jack and Alex curled up on the sofa together, half asleep, with Paul, David, Greta, William, Nick and Christofer enthralled in what appears to be an intense game of Cluedo. Zack is nowhere in sight.
Jack is watching the six of them with an amused smile as Alex dozes on his chest, snuffling softly as he drifts off.
“Hey, Jack.” Rian hisses as he steps quietly over to the couch. “Where’s Zack?”
“No idea, dude.” Jack says with a slight shrug, not wanting to wake his slumbering boyfriend. “I haven’t seen him since dinner. He might be with Hayley or Evan, though.”
Rian frowns, turns on his heel and heads for the boys dorm corridor.
He can’t help feeling like this whole mess is his fault.