I Know You've Got Your Life In Place But I've Yet To Take The Hint

I was screaming, flailing my arms everywhere and somehow not quite managing to realize that I was dreaming. The harsh lights tearing at my eyeballs didn’t register, neither did the loud voices or rough hands that were shaking me.

“Jack, Jack, come back, I’m sorry,” I cried, tears seeping out from under my closed eyes. “I need you, you’re my life.”

“Alex, wake up!” Somehow, Zack’s voice penetrated through my foggy mixed haze of dreams and reality when no one else’s had been able to.

“Zack, save him. Help Jack. I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault.” I cried and cried, not even knowing what was wrong. “He thinks I hate him, I love him so much, please make it better.” The words trembled as they came out and my arms waved wildly, looking for something to hold onto.

“Get OUT!” These words, that voice, I recognized it as Rian. “Everyone, get out NOW. We need to talk to Alex alone.”

The noise level receded a little and the insanity in my brain started to unscramble, and twin weights caused my mattress to sag. Two pairs of arms wrapped around me and held me until the trembling stopped and I finally opened my eyes.\

“Alex, are you calm now? We need to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.” Zack spoke in matter of fact voice, but behind that, there was a slight tremor and a barely noticeable twitch in his eye that caused almost instant panic to rear its ugly head.

“Is it Jack? What’s wrong? I wasn’t dreaming, was I? Something’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong!” The last part wasn’t a question, it was a demand, and the others better recognize that.

Rian took a deep breath. “Promise you will stay calm until we’ve told you everything?”

I bit my lip. I knew that there was no way I could promise that when I was already in such a state. “I can’t promise that, Ri. I’m sorry.”

Rian nodded. “I can’t blame you. If it was Cassadee, I would have murdered someone already. You’re one step ahead of me. Just know that before we start, Jack is alive. That’s what matters. He’s alive, and he’s going to live. He’s just had a little … accident.”

I gulped. “What kind of accident?”

Zack took over from here. “He almost drowned, Lex. He’s in the hospital right now. He’s suffering from a major case of hypothermia, but he is going to be fine. Nobody really knows what happened. A fisherman further down the river was watching him, because he thought he was acting pretty odd. He was swaying, and getting up randomly and walking, and then sitting back down, he was crying and kept hurling rocks and that into the river. At first we thought maybe he was drunk, but blood alcohol levels showed that he wasn’t. He hadn’t had anything to drink. Anyway, the fisherman had started walking over when Jack just leaned forward and ended up in the water. He took off running and pulled him out. But, Lex,” Zack stopped at this and pulled me towards him. “He wasn’t struggling or anything. He wasn’t fighting. It was like … it was like something had pulled him into that water and he had no intention of letting it go.”

I gasped. “You don’t think he did it on purpose, do you?” I blinked rapidly to stop the tears that formed in my eyes.

Zack’s face was sad. “I don’t know, Alex. None of us know, except Jack. We just want to know … what happened between you two?”

My face crumpled. “It is my fault. I knew it. Everyone blames me.” I gave up on trying to hold back the tears and let them fall freely, soaking my skin with their acidic bite. Rian tried to take me in his arms but I jerked away from him, wrapping my arms around my stomach and rocking back and forth.

“We don’t blame you, Alex. Jack has problems, and he would have them whether or not you were in his life. I honestly think he’d have more if you weren’t in his life. Now, please Lex, just tell us what happened between you two?” Rian’s voice was gentle, like he was talking to a child.

I looked up, barely able to make of the faces of my friends through my tears. “Lisa and me fought over the baby. Jack said … Jack said that I wasn’t involved enough, that I should be lucky to have a baby... and I told him that it seemed like that was the only reason he wanted me was to have a real family, and that my baby was mine and nothing to do with him. I’m an idiot, I know how badly he feels his family fucked up and –“

Zack cut him off. “It’s not necessarily anything to do with a family. He’s jealous of the baby, but not in the way you mean. He thinks that you’re going to regret being with him because a baby is the one thing that he can’t give you.”

It took a few minutes for my tired brain to absorb what Zack was telling me. Even then, I refused to believe it. “So … he thinks I’m going to stay with Lisa once she has the baby because I’m going to realize how much this baby means to me?”

Twin nods confirmed my thoughts.

I shook my head again. “That’s crazy! I can’t even bond with the idea of having this baby because it angers me that it’s something that separates me and Jack. I will never be able to love this baby as much as I’d love one that was raised by me and Jack. I know it hurts Lisa and I do feel bad for that but there’s nothing I can do about it!” I felt like hitting my head until it bled. “I need to go and see him.”

“First … can we talk to you?” the voice belonged to Vinny, and I looked up and saw that him and the rest of the guys, minus one, were gathered around the door. My cheeks flamed and I lowered my head.

“H-how much did you hear of that?” I stammered, not looking up.

“Pretty much all of it,” came the answer, from Evan this time. “Alex, look at us.”

I looked up, hands trembling, and met the stares of my friends with an unsteady gaze.

Evan pushed Zack over and sat down beside me. “Alex, don’t hide from us unless you want us to look for you. Don’t build up walls and hope that we won’t go and buy every bulldozer possible to break them down. Don’t lock yourself up without remembering that we all have keys. We’re not stupid. We damn well knew that something had been going on for some time between you and Jack. We respected you enough to wait until you were ready to tell us. But we can’t stay out of it this time. Not when both of you are hurting this much. We love the two of you, despite you being the biggest idiots we’ve ever met. Our opinions of you aren’t going to change because you have feelings for each other.”

Vinny broke in. “In fact, we respect you even more for that. It takes someone brave and carefree and open-minded to love someone knowing that there are thousands of people out there who are going to condemn you for it, who will be quick to judge you and who will make your life a living hell. But we aren’t one of those people, Lex. We’re your friends. We’re more that your friends, we’re family. We support you every step of the way. We just can’t do that if you hide things from us. That hurts bro.”

My eyes filled with tears. “For the thousandth time today I proclaim myself an idiot. I love you guys, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you … but Jack didn’t. See … after Flyzik found out, things got kind of crazy and we decided it was better to wait until I’d worked things out with Lisa to tell you anything. But that’s never going to happen because Jack or not, Lisa is impossible for me to deal with.”

Jeff looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Flyzik knows?”

“Yeah, I do.” Came a voice from behind us. “And I’m sorry for the way I reacted. I … I just … well, to be completely honest I envied the two of you your obvious happiness.”

I looked over in surprise and saw Flyzik walking towards me. Everyone else scooted off the bed and let him sit down. “Can you forgive me, Alex? I really didn’t want to screw things up between you guys, honest.” He sounded so heartbroken and devastated. “I miss having you guys as my best friends; I just want to go back to normal.”

I reached over and hugged him hard. “You’re an asshole, Flyzik, but I love you anyway, and you’re always one of my best friends.”

He smiled and hugged me back for a few minutes. “Good, let’s go and see Jack.”

**************************************

The car ride had been wrought with tension. It ended up being me, Zack, Rian, and Matt who made the journey. Matt wanted to apologize in person to Jack and the other two were just as concerned as I was, but they all agreed that I was the one to go first.

So it was with hesitation and confusion and regret that I stood outside of Jack’s room, just looking at him. Even in the hospital gown, his face too pale and his eyes too wide, he was beautiful. He was looking down, his dark lashes brushing his cheeks. His mouth was moist and a hand lay on his stomach, the other one reaching out for a glass on the table but not quite making it.

I stepped inside. “Let me get that,” I said and handed him the glass. He looked up in surprise but took the glass and noisily gulped down a few mouthfuls of the water. When he was done, he looked at the glass, as if to avoid me. But after a few seconds, his eyes lifted and connected with mine. It was like a hurricane.

“Alex.” He acknowledged me, and then motioned me over. I took a careful step forward, and then another and another until I was at his side. He looked up at me, eyes watery and told me to hug him.

I reached down and wrapped my arms around him. I could feel his heartbeat through the thin blue material of the gown and I felt his breath against my shoulder, not quite even. His hands gripped my hips with such ferocity that I could feel the bite of his nails through the shorts I was wearing. His tears wet my t-shirt and mine were already leaving trails on the bare skin of his back.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Jack Bassam Barakat. I thought … you have no idea what I thought, I dreamt you were dead and then Rian and Zack told me that you were in an accident and I was scared and I felt like it was my fault even though I know it wasn’t and now everyone knows about us and I’m babbling but fuck Jack don’t ever do that again you’re my life, I can’t live without you!” This all came out in a breathless rush as each sentence fought for its place in my jumbled dialogue.

“I’m sorry Alex, you’re my life too, and I can explain everything. But back up a second … everyone knows? All the guys? Lisa too, or?” his voice trailed off.

“Just the guys. They were listening outside the door when I was talking to Ri and Zack. They’re … they’re cool with it, Jack. They love the fact that we’re together. I should have recorded the little speeches that Vinny and Evan gave me. They were the bomb.”

Me and Jack smiled at each other, and then I added “Flyzik is here, by the way. He wants to apologize for his reactions. He’s not disgusted by us, you know. He’s jealous of our happiness.”

Jack smiled. “I knew he was too much of a softie to hold out on us too long. I’ll talk to him in a minute. Do … do you want to know what happened first?”

I nodded, telling myself that no matter what he said, I could deal with it.

“It’s not your fault, not in the way you think. I went to the river to think and to get rid of all the negative energy that was clouding me and driving me crazy. I was thinking about my family, you know, and how I’m terrified that I’m going to become like my father. How I’ve already shown signs of being controlling and possessive and how I disgust myself for that. Anyway, I remember thinking that I needed to tell you everything; because that’s the only way I’d be at peace with it. But then, in the back of my mind I could hear you saying that I had to make peace with my family too, but I know I can’t do that. And I imagined you hating me for that, and your face was in the water, just taunting me. I tried to get to you, Alex. I wanted to save you, but in order to save you I have to be able to save myself. I realize that now.”

I looked at Jack. “So … you didn’t want to kill yourself?”

Jack grinned. “Never! I like torturing you with my presence.” Then a more serious look crossed his face. “None of this is your fault, Lex. This started a long time ago, and you know it.”

I nodded. “I know. But it’s my business now and we’re going to fix it. Nothing’s going to hurt my Jack again.”

“Your Jack, huh?” he smirked, licking his lips sexily. “I think your Jack wants you to kiss him better.”

I leaned over and kissed him for a few long seconds, until a chorus of awww’s ruined the moment.

Jack and I shared a look, and then broke apart and waved everyone else in.