Believe Me, I'm Lying

“Um. Hey, it’s me again. Alex. I just… I just wanted to see if you were around. I know I called a little while ago too but… I dunno, maybe you didn’t get the message.”

There’s a pause, and Jack bites his lip and presses the phone harder against his ear. He looks across the room, watching Ashley paint her toenails. She’s wearing a pair of shorts and one of his t-shirts and her hair is wet and piled on top of her head. She looks adorable and pretty and cute and everything that any normal guy would want. But the one that Jack wants is leaving heartbreaking messages on his cell phone and he can’t really do anything about it.

“Anyway,” Alex continues, “We’re taking Devyn trick-or-treating. Me and Josh and Zack and Rian. Devyn was asking for you. I just…thought maybe if you had free time you could come with us. It’d really make his day, I think. So um. Yeah. Call me back, or something. Bye.”

Jack presses the ‘end call’ button and shakes his head. Alex has called four times already this afternoon. He sounded so sad and broken in both messages he left but Jack can’t do anything to help him right now. He can’t go over there. He’s going out with Ashley to do some wedding things and he really can’t bail.

Okay, maybe there is something he can do. He can call the wedding off. That would be the best thing he could ever do for Alex but for some reason, he just can’t bring himself to do it. He’s tried – he’s definitely tried. He practiced in the mirror for what felt like hours last week when he was supposed to meet up with Ashley for lunch. But once he got in front of her, it was like he forgot how to think for himself and that whole plan went down the drain. This morning he swore he was going to break up with her. But then she came over with candy and started gushing about how this time next year they would be living in their own house and would have kids coming to their door for candy and he really just couldn’t break her heart like that. Not today.

But of course, every day that he doesn’t break hers, he’s breaking Alex’s. There’s no way to get around that.

“Jack? Are you ready to go out?”

Jack sighs and turns to look at Ashley with a forced smile, “Yeah. I’m ready when you are.”

- - -

“You don’t have too many people coming from out of town,” Ashley says, running her finger down her list of guests, “I have a few more than you. So we have to add them to the rehearsal dinner list. And then we have our parents…”

Jack watches as she writes down names and crosses out others. She’s so organized and he’s thankful for that because if she wasn’t, he’d have no idea what’s going on.

They’re currently sitting at a table for two in a popular Italian restaurant that they’re planning on having their rehearsal dinner take place. The manager has already brought them out quite a few different meals to choose from and luckily, Ashley let Jack do the taste test because she’s “dieting to fit into her dress”. Whatever. More food for him, really.

“Where do we have to go after this?” Jack questions, with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

“We need to go to the florists – he wants to showus the final piece that’s going to be on all of the tables. I hope he did them the way I said to – it really wasn’t that difficult to follow.”

“I’m sure he did it fine.”

“Hopefully.” She crosses out one final name and adds one more to the end and then folds the paper up with a satisfied smile. “Okay, that’s all planned out. Okay so after the florist, we need to go shopping for our gifts for the wedding party.”

“Gifts?” Jack gapes at her, “I have to give Kyle and Caleb and Marshall and Martin and Paul gifts?”

“They are a part of our wedding party, yes, Jack.” She rolls her eyes, “It’s pretty common to give gifts to the party. Not everyone does it, but my mother and father did it and so did my sister and her husband so we’re going to do it too.”

“Ugh, fine.” Jack slumps in his seat. He doesn’t want to think about what to buy his friends. They all have enough money to buy what they want. They’re not going to need anything. “And after that?”

“Then we’re done.”

He nods. Maybe, hopefully, he’ll have some time to run over to see Alex and Devyn later. Of course, if Alex isn’t upset with him or anything.

Ashley seems to catch on to his irritation, and that surprises him because she’s not usually one to notice when he’s irritated. “Are you okay?” She asks, reaching out and lacing their fingers together. “I know the planning is getting kind of stressful, but it’s all worth it. In two months, we’ll be married and starting a new life together and everything will be perfect.”

“Yeah,” Jack nods, faking another smile, “I know. You’re right.”

Except she’s totally wrong and nothing will be perfect until he can call Alex and Devyn his family and that’s all up to him.

- - -

It’s seven at night when Jack finally gets away from Ashley. At first, he thought for sure she was going to want to spend the night at his place because she kept snuggling up to him on the couch and seeming like she was about to fall asleep. But once it hit six thirty, she was up and moving, claiming that she had to meet a friend about planning how they’re going to do their hair for the wedding and Jack didn’t even bother to open his mouth to try and get her to stay longer.

He got in his car a minute after she left, determined to get to Alex’s and spend as much time with him as he can. Of course, it being Halloween night, there were so many more kids out walking the streets than there normally is. The entire drive, he panicked about whether he’d get egged or not but thankfully, he pulled up in front of Alex’s apartment building with his car just as clean as it was when he left his own.

And now, he’s standing in front of Alex’s apartment door, having already knocked and just waiting for someone, ideally Alex, to open it. He has his hands shoved into his pockets and an apology completely formed in his head when the door opens. But it’s not who he wanted it to be.

Josh stares at Jack with uneasy eyes and a sleeping Devyn in his arms. “What do you want?”

“I was hoping I could see Alex. Is he here?”

“No. He’s at work. He switched his schedule around this weekend so that he could be with Devyn this afternoon.”

Jack wants to smack himself. He’s here, ready to beg for forgiveness and Alex isn’t even home. “Oh… Okay. I guess I’ll call him later, then.”

“You really let him down today, you know,” Josh tells him, tightening his arms around Devyn. “And I don’t mean Alex. Devyn cried for like, an hour when Alex said you weren’t coming with us.”

“I… I’m sorry. I really am, but I couldn’t-”

Josh laughs and shakes his head, “Don’t apologize to me, man. I’m not the one who’s being hurt by all your selfish head games. It’s my brother and my nephew who is. I may not have been around much lately, but they’re my family. And I’m not going to just stand by and watch you hurt them. I think maybe you should start to think of someone other than yourself.”

“I do-”

“You really don’t. You’re pulling your fiancé along, as well as Alex and if you had a single ounce of selflessness in you, you wouldn’t let it still be happening. So I don’t know what to tell you, other than to open your eyes and realize just how much damage you’re doing to the people you supposedly love.”

“First of all, you don’t know anything about me or my life and you have no idea what I’m going through. Don’t try to pretend that you do,” Jack says, getting defensive. Yes, he’s a selfish asshole. But who is this guy, who he barely knows, to tell him that? “I realize that what I’m doing is wrong. And I’m figuring out how I can go about fixing it without upsetting more people than necessary.”

“No, Jack. You trying to figure out how to get out of the situation with as little damage to your perfect life as you possibly can. And while you do that, you’re slowly pushing Alex away.”

And then the door is slammed shut, leaving Jack on the wrong side.