Kiss My Ass

Alex would never deny that he was easily distracted; in fact, he was usually the first to say that he was. But he usually wasn’t as easily distracted during band practice. As he and his band mates (and Erika—she was pretty much always where Jack was, anyway) were running through one of their first songs, he just stopped. He stopped singing and he set his guitar aside, walking over to where his water bottle was sitting on the couch, and he took a long drink.

“You okay?” Rian asked as he set his drumsticks on the snare, making sure they didn’t roll off.

“Yeah,” Alex said before taking another drink of his water.

“Liar,” Jack said. He didn’t even try to hide it with a cough.

Alex rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, uh, isn’t bothering you doesn’t have anything to do with the rumors being spread around school about Lyle…does it?” Rian asked.

Alex pursed his lips.

“Bingo,” Zack said quietly. He could easily pinpoint the singer’s behavior without a second thought.

“We’re not talking about that,” Alex said. “Got it?”

“They’re just rumors,” Rian said with a shrug. “You know Lyle. She wouldn’t do that.”

Alex scoffed.

Zack shook his head. “Wait, guys, what’s going on? What rumor?”

Alex paused. Okay, he momentarily forgot that Zack went to school on the other side of town. Right.

“There’s a rumor going around that Lyle fucked some guy on the football team or something,” Jack said, filling the silence that had taken over the basement.

Erika slapped his arm. “Show a bit more couth, yeah?”

Jack shrugged. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Though, really, Jack? Couth? No way.

Zack paused. “Did she?” he asked.

“Of course she did,” Alex snapped.

“You don’t know that,” Rian said, always trying to be the logical one.

“I do know that,” Alex responded.

Zack shrugged. “I mean, she doesn’t seem like the type who would just…fuck some random guy,” he said. “There’s no way—not Lyle.”

Alex practically growled deep in his throat—he did not want to stay on that topic much longer. “She did it. It’s done. So let’s move on, okay?”

“Clearly you can’t move on so easily, Alex, considering you can’t even concentrate on one song. Your mind is clearly preoccupied,” Zack told him.

“She did,” Erika said quietly.

Alex paused for a minute before turning to look at her. “What?”

Erika shrugged. “I talked to her after school. I saw her talking with Ryan Decker and I wanted to know. So I confronted her and asked her if it was the truth,” she explained.

“And she just said yes? Why didn’t you tell us?” Jack asked.

“All she said was, and I quote, what the hell do you think,” she said with another shrug.

Alex didn’t really appreciate that statement. He placed the cap back on his bottle of water before throwing it across the basement. He didn’t bother responding; he just grabbed his cell phone and stormed up the stairs. He knew his friends, and his friends knew his moods, and he knew that no one was going to follow him. He stepped out of the front door and stopped in place when he saw Lyle walking up the driveway.

“Hey, Lex,” Lyle said quietly.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Alex asked, shoving his phone into his back pocket and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she told him, shoving her hands into the front pockets on her jeans.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Alex responded.

“Alex—“

Alex shook his head and walked back into his house, slamming and locking the door behind him. He walked back down to the basement, completely aware that all of his friends stopped talking the second they saw him. “What?” he snapped, reaching for his guitar. “Let’s go through Break Out, Break Out again, yeah?”

Rian shared a look with his friends but shrugged, picking up his drum sticks before taking a seat back on the throne behind his drum set. He started to count off and thirty seconds into the song, he stopped when he saw Lyle walking down the stairs, looking more pissed off than he had ever seen.

Alex bit his lip. “How did you get in?”

“I’ve known you for half your life, Alex, I think I know where you hide the spare key,” she told him.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Let’s start over again, guys—“

“Don’t even think about ignoring me, Alex,” Lyle pleaded. “Can we talk?”

“What do you want to talk about, Carlyle?” Alex asked, staring her down. “Lying to me? Lying to all of your friends? Or fucking some guy at school? And then lying about it?”

Lyle sighed. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain—“

“Explain what?!” he yelled.

“I—“

“Did you fuck him?” Alex asked, surprised at how calm he sounded.

“Do you really think that I’m that kind of girl?” she asked, unable to fight the tears from welling up in her eyes.

“I don’t really know what to think of you anymore, Carlyle,” Alex snapped.

Lyle nodded slowly. Her gut was churning and whether it was due to arguing itself or the fact that Alex was using her full name, she wasn’t sure.

“You’re pathetic,” Alex spat.

Lyle could handle many things; that wasn’t one of them. “Me? I’m the pathetic one?” she asked.

Alex nodded. “I didn’t stutter, did I?”

“You know what, Alex? For some guy who prides himself on being so much better than everyone around him, you’re just like fucking everyone else,” Lyle said.

Alex scoffed. “Really, now?”

“You’re just like everyone else at our school. You believe everything you hear and give no one a chance to explain. You’re just letting them suck you into a world of lies. And the worst part is that you deny that it’s actually happening,” she told him. “You deny that it’s happening because you’re so concerned with keeping up your reputation as resident bad ass and womanizer. Yet you judge everyone else who lives a life even remotely close to yours. And that is why you are the pathetic one, Alex Gaskarth,” she snapped, turning around and walking back up the stairs.

And that moment could easily be pinpointed as the end of their friendship.

+

After that day, the words spoken between Lyle and Alex were minimal. Apart from their regular insults in the hallway, lunch room, or the classes that they had together, their contact was scarce. And whether that was because Lyle had nothing good to say about him or because she still thought he was a hypocrite, she wasn’t sure. And whether or not Alex didn’t talk to her as much because he really thought she was a whore or because he knew that Lyle was, however begrudgingly, correct, he wasn’t sure.

+

A few months later when Lyle learned that Alex’s older brother had died, she felt her heart break a little bit. Part of it was because she had known Daniel, too, even if it was just a little bit; but most of it was because she didn’t want Alex to have to go through it alone. The day she heard the news, Alex wasn’t in school. So in her mind, the only logical thing to do was to skip school. She left before her first class even started, stopping by the local grocery store to grab a thing of flowers, before driving to his house.

Even though she hadn’t been there in months, she couldn’t deny that, okay, she sometimes drove through his neighborhood, just for the hell of it. Because even though she was still upset about how their friendship ended, part of her was over it. But the bigger part of her just didn’t care at that point because she knew that Alex would need a friend. And she honestly believed that she knew him better than anyone.

As she pulled into her driveway, her stomach flipped. She was nervous and hated it. Her stomach didn’t stop flipping until after she knocked on the front door (which was also new for her—she normally just walked straight in). And when Alex opened the door to see her standing there, half of her expected him to slam the door again; but when he didn’t, she smiled softly.

“What do you want, Lyle?” Alex asked, his voice tired.

Lyle looked down at the flowers and chewed on her lip. She wasn’t used to seeing Alex so down. His eyes were tired and she didn’t miss the dark circles under them. He looked like hell; but she probably would have, too, if she was in his position. “I, um, I brought you these,” she told him before handing him the flowers she had brought.

Alex took them slowly. “Thanks.”

She knew he didn’t mean it, but she would accept it anyway. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked him.

He nodded. “Actually, yes.”

“What?”

“Get off of my porch,” Alex said, and while his words were harsh, his tone was the opposite. He just…sounded as if he had no energy to fight with her (but, knowing Alex, he was still going to try).

Lyle sighed. “Alex, I’m trying to help—“

“I don’t want your help. Did I ask for your help?”

“No, but—“

“Then I don’t want it. And I don’t need it,” he told her.

“Okay,” Lyle said softly. She wasn’t going to argue with Alex—it was pointless. “Just. I’m here if you, you know, want to talk or…whatever.”

“Okay,” Alex said.

Lyle sighed. “I’m sorry…for your loss, Alex,” she told him. “I know how close you two…were.”

Alex nodded slowly and reached forward to grab her arm before she could walk away. Without a second thought, he wrapped his arms around her small frame and hugged her tightly. “Thank you.”

Lyle smiled softly as she pulled away.

+

By the time she graduated, the rumors had died down. Well, the initial rumor had—but others had been started as well. Lyle had begun to lose track of how many guys claimed to have slept with her. After about the fifth one, she didn’t even bother trying to deny it or look ashamed. She knew no one was going to believe her anyway. Instead, she walked around with as much confidence as she could muster.

She sincerely thought that if people thought it didn’t bother her, that they would leave it alone.

They never did.

After graduation, she looked around at everyone who was posing with pictures with their friends. Lyle realized she didn’t even have any at that point. But instead of wasting time being depressed, she smiled with her parents and grandparents and decided to treasure those memories more than anything. After all, in less than two weeks, she planned on moving—far away from Baltimore, Maryland.

“Isn’t that Alex? That boy you’ve been friends with for years?” her mother asked.

Lyle looked over at Alex, who was laughing and smiling with Jack, Erika, and Lisa—his current girlfriend. “Yeah,” she said quietly. She never had the heart to tell her parents they had drifted apart. Whenever she did go somewhere, she always told her parents that she was out with Alex, when she never was.

“Alex! Oh, Alex, over here!” her mother yelled.

Lyle’s eyes widened and she looked away, her cheeks flushing. Oh, God, this cannot be happening, she thought to herself. She turned back around just in time to see Alex walking over to her family, a smile on his face. Or maybe it is. Fuck.

“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. King!” Alex greeted. “What’s going on?”

“You and Lyle need one last picture before she moves to California for school,” her mother said, smiling.

Alex turned to face Lyle. “California, huh? Why so far?” he asked.

“Because it’s not Baltimore,” she said quietly.

“Big smile, you two!” her mother said, holding up the camera.

Lyle forced a smile.

“Oh, come on, act like you like each other,” her father said with a smile.

Alex wrapped his arm around Lyle’s waist and smiled right as the flash went off. When her mother put the camera down, he pressed his lips against her temple. “Have a good summer, Carlyle,” he told her, before walking off.

Lyle bit the inside of her cheek as he walked away and back to her former group of friends.

That was the last time that they spoke for over four years.