Listen to the Thunder

It’s been a few days since Kyle and I had spoken, him confronting me about staying with Alex. I’ve barely been able to get that conversation out of my head. On one hand, Kyle has a point. I did break up with Kyle for cheating on me while I hadn’t broken up with Alex. On the other hand, Kyle’s wrong. Alex only cheated on me once, whereas Kyle cheated on me three times. I just don’t know what I’m meant to be doing. I love Alex, I really do, but there’s a little niggle in the back of my mind that’s telling me to be on my guard. And I hate that. I used to trust Alex completely and utterly one hundred percent. Now that trust is, like, ninety five percent. I want everything back the way it was, I really do.

I just know that will never happen.

All I’m trying to do is move forward with my life and move on from Alex kissing Caleb. That’s all I can do, right? Alex loves me and I love him. This is for the best. I’m sick of all the fucking drama, all the fucking chaos and all the fucking agony. I’m sick of feeling like I’m not worth anything. How can I feel like I’m worth anything when every boyfriend I have cheats on me? All I can hope is that Alex won’t cheat on me again. I can be happy with him again, right?

“Jack! Jack, snap out of it! We’re getting ready to play again!” Danny hissed in my ear.

I broke out of my thoughts to see that, indeed, everyone had their guitars on their laps and were turning their music sheets to the right pages. Shit, that could’ve been embarrassing. I elbowed Alex where he was snickering next to me and turned to the right sheet of music. Right now I’m in guitar ensemble with Danny and Alex. Matt is in the vocal ensemble but that’s tomorrow not today. I’m pretty sure Kyle percussion ensemble meets today though. Not sure what time. I try not to think about it.

Ensemble only lasted another half an hour, and then before I knew it we were packing our equipment away.

“Okay, I need a couple of volunteers to carry these stands back to the storage closet!” our professor called out.

No-one said anything. Nice.

“Don’t all shout at once! Okay, fine, I’ll choose. Harvey and…Barakat,”

Danny and Alex chuckled from behind me as I groaned, Alex kissing my cheek lightly as they left. Fantastic. Of course it would be me and the laziest guy in the class. I scowled as ‘Harvey’ picked up 2 stands in each hand before leaving the lecture room. What the fuck?! There are 20 of us altogether! How does he expect me to get the rest of them all by myself?!

Asshole.

With a sigh I put my guitar gently on my desk. There’s a trolley over in the corner. I guess I’ll just have to use that. It took me a little while to stack all the music stands neatly, but I eventually did it, and left the room. To cut a boring story short, three stands fell on me while I put them away. But I came out unharmed apart from a small scratch on my knuckles, so all is good. With a grunt I wheeled the trolley back out of the storage room, but froze when I heard a crash and a cry of pain. Shit, who’s that? I quickly walked down the corridor (for some reason I brought the trolley with me) and turned the corner…only to see a familiar flash of blonde hair sticking out from underneath a pile of drums. Kyle!

“Shit, are you okay?” I yelped, hurriedly pulling the drums off him.

I couldn’t help it. I know I’m meant to be ignoring him, but I can’t just walk away knowing he could be hurt. I just can’t.

“Y-Yeah. I think so,” Kyle said weakly, his bottom lip trembling.

Without thinking I pulled him into a hug, trying to comfort him before he could cry. One of my weaknesses is Kyle crying and I don’t know how weak I would get if he cried with me now.

“What are you doing down here?” Kyle eventually asked, pulling out of my arms.

I ignored the feeling of emptiness and smiled slightly at him.

“Stuck bringing back equipment like you were. My assigned partner took four stands and fucked off. I’m guessing you didn’t even have someone to help,” I mused.

“No, I was stuck doing this because I wasn’t paying attention in class,” Kyle shrugged.

Not paying attention in class? That doesn’t sound like Kyle.

“Why not?” I frowned.

Kyle sighed. “Had an argument with Nick last night. He still isn’t talking to me this morning and it sucks,”

Good. Well, not good for Kyle, but maybe he’ll realise what a jerk Nick really is and he’ll leave him.

“You deserve better than him,” I said.

Shit, why did I say that?! Stupid Jack!

“Do I really?” Kyle muttered.

Okay, what I said was stupid, but that’s just ridiculous! Of course he does.

“You deserve every happiness in the world,” I murmured, raising my hand to his face and stroking his cheek gently.

Kyle leant his head against my hand gently, a small content smile gracing his lips like I haven’t seen in a long time. Fuck, what am I doing? This is only going to make everything worse, it really is.

So I cleared my throat and pulled my hand away. “Do you want some help with this? Might as well make use of the trolley,”

“Sure, that’d be great,” Kyle nodded, smiling sadly.

I chose to ignore the sadness of his smile, and just started piling the drums onto the trolley. Kyle and I walked in silence to the percussion storage room, but I couldn’t tell whether it was awkward or comforting. I really just can’t read Kyle like I used to be able to. I used to be able to look into his eyes or even just at his face and tell exactly what he was thinking. Now…now I can barely catch a glimmer of anything. He just looks so lost. And I don’t know what to do about that.

Soon enough, Kyle and I had put away the drums and he’d walked with me back to my lecture theatre to return the trolley and pick up my guitar. But our journeys split at the doors of the building.

“Thank you, Jack. For helping me. You didn’t have to,” Kyle said sweetly.

“I wanted to,” I shrugged. Kyle beamed. “You’re still my friend,”

Kyle’s beam faded a little. Great.

“Alex is treating you well, yeah?” Kyle said suddenly.

“Yeah, he is,” I said softly, nodding.

Kyle sighed softly before smiling. “Good. That’s all I want. For you to be happy. Alex is a lucky guy,”

“Thanks, Kyle. That means a lot to me,” I said shyly.

Does he really mean that? Has he finally accepted Alex and I being together?

“I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?” Kyle said wistfully.

I just nodded, pulling him into another hug. What? I like hugs. Especially from Kyle. Kyle hugged back tightly, tucking his face into the crook of my neck. I’ve missed this. Sure, it’s not in the way that it used to be, but it means that Kyle’s slowly returning to the guy he used to be. And that’s a good thing, right?

“Bye, Jacky,”

Kyle pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek before he walked away, leaving me in a slight shock. W-What was that? And why is my skin still tingling after when it didn’t when Alex did exactly the same thing?