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

I woke up to the sound of the rain tearing down the leaves in the tree outside my house. The room was pitch black, a sure sign that the power was out. Lightening split the sky in two as I watched the storm rage from my bed. I stretched and got up, pushing my curtains away from the windows.

I watched the rain streak down my windows, the droplets of water racing down the glass to smash into the cement that made up the outer window sill. Lightening lit up the sky every five seconds, and thunder crackled overhead.

For some reason, my eyes were drawn to the tree house in one of the trees not far from my window. I remembered building it with my dad and Jack when we were still little kids. We’d had so much fun back then. My parents had accepted us both. It wasn’t fair to think how things had changed.

I watched the lightening strike down in the field near the tree, and overwhelming anger suddenly consumed me. Part of me wanted to watch the tree go up in smoke, along with all of my memories and emotions, but another part of me knew that if it did, I’d lose the only piece of my innocence that I still had.

A movement caught my eye. I blinked and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and then focused on the tree house once again. Lightening lit up the sky just then, and I knew I wasn’t imagining things when I saw the silhouette illuminated by the light.

The figure could almost pass as that of a child, the way that it was sitting with its arms wrapped around its legs and its head buried as it rocked back and forth. More thunder rumbled across the sky and there was no mistaking the person’s flinching.

I knew without a doubt that it was Jack. The idiot.

I grabbed a shirt out of the closet, threw a thick blanket and a pillow into a duffel bag and crept out of my room.

It’d been hours since I’d left Jack’s house. I had known that waiting around wasn’t likely to help him anyway, so me and the guys had split and headed home. It had started raining not long after that and I decided to make up for the lack of sleep the night before. A quick glance at my phone told me it was almost midnight. I guess I’d slept longer than I’d intended.

The rain assaulted my face the moment I opened the door. The wind was howling and I had to hold on to the door frame or risk being blown back into the house. I took a tentative step onto my porch and – BAM.

I wound up on my ass in the muddied garden. Looking up at the steps, I saw why. It was now starting to hail and golf ball sized hail had caused my feet to slide out from under me. Rubbing my ass, I got up and starting jogging over to the tree.

The rope ladder was gone. Great.

“Jack!” I called. The wind whipped the words from my throat and sent them in thousands of directions. I could hear my voice echoing from all around the yard.

Jack. Jaccck. Jaccck. Jacccckkk.

Lightening struck the ground not far from where I was standing and a terrified scream tore from my throat. I hugged the tree trunk and started banging on it with my fist.

“Jack, give me the rope! Let me come up!” I screamed. I couldn’t help the tears that were coursing down my face. I’d never been this terrified in my whole life. Rain pummeled me from behind, and my clothes were stuck to me and I could feel my lip bleeding from where I’d fallen off the porch.

Finally, a dark shadow peered down at me. “ALEX!?” came the wispy, terrified voice of my best friend and lover.

“Jack! Throw down the ladder, I need to come up.” I shouted at him.

“No. Go back in the house, Lex; you can’t be out in this!” Jack said; his voice floating down from somewhere above me.

The sky lit up just then, and I saw his face peering down at me, tear streaked, pale, and covered in goose bumps.

“Damn it, Jack, we need to talk. Either I’m coming up or you’re coming down.” The wind lifted my shirt over my head and for a minute instant paranoia consumed me because I couldn’t see anything. The sky sounded like it was splitting in two and the wind pushed me hard. I screamed and cried at the same time.

Something touched my shoulder and I felt out blindly with my hand. Rope burned into my fingers and I grabbed it tightly. I pulled myself up one step after another, until I felt Jack’s hands grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me up. He pulled the shirt down from my face and pulled me into his arms.

My whole body was shaking and covered in cold sweat and I couldn’t catch my breath because of the tears that wouldn’t stop streaming. Jack held me and rubbed me up and down. Slowly his body heat took away the cold and I was able to stop shaking. The tears dried on my face and I looked at Jack.

“W-What are y-you doing he-e-re?” I stammered. “It’s s-storming.”

“It wasn’t when I got here. It was only raining. I was going to text you to come meet me but I fell asleep and when I woke up it was storming and I panicked and I decided I was just going to stay here. That way... that way if I died, I’d be close to you at least.”

I wanted to slap him but instead I hugged him tighter. Lightening flashed one after another and my nails bit into his neck.

“If we die, we’re going to die together,” I murmured into his shoulder. “I love you.”

Instead of hearing reassuring words of love, I felt hot tears hit my shoulder. This scared me more than the storm outside.

“W-what is it, Jack? What’s wrong?” I asked, pulling away from him to look at him. He dropped his head into his hands. It was still evident he was crying by the way his shoulders were jerking.

“Just … my parents, you know. They still know how to get to me. I’m 23 years old and they can still get to me as if I was 13. Maybe they’re right, maybe I can’t grow up and things can’t change. Maybe I’m still the scared little boy that I was then. Maybe I don’t deserve someone to love me. I’m just going to fuck it up. I’m a mess.”

My heart hurt hearing my angel talk that way about himself. “Jack, its okay to be scared. I’m still scared. I still wake up and think that you’re going to be gone because of something stupid that I said. I triple save our messages because I’m scared that they won’t be there in the morning and I’ll think that it’s all a dream. I read fan stuff on Twitter describing our love life and think that there’s so much that they don’t know, because it’s so much harder than they think. I can tell the ones that have been in love, because they’re scared, too. They don’t want us to be hurt. You’re not a mess, Jack, you’re just afraid of messing up.”

The lightening lit up the scared eyes of my beautiful boy and for just that one moment, I saw myself reflected in them. I was a dripping, muddied, drenched, frozen, terrified, confused mess, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, because behind that, beyond those imperfections, I saw the only thing in the world that mattered; love.

“I love you, Alex. Don’t ever leave me.” The words pulled me out of myself.

“I won’t, Jack. And who knows, maybe one day, your family will come around?”

Jack’s silence wrote the book on cynicism.

“Or not. But it doesn’t matter. Because I’m sure mine will. And you have me. That’s enough, right?” I asked hesitantly.

The first real smile crossed his face. “That’s always been enough.”

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

The man had seen the first boy climb into the tree. He’d expected him to come out, cowering with terror, after the storm hit, but he’d been surprised by his courage.

The lighter haired boy had surprised him, too. He’d come to his lover’s rescue. How cute. It was too bad the bitch hadn’t known anything about this. It would have saved them all a lot of trouble.

He smiled as inspiration struck. The dark haired boy could come in very handy, after all.

His phone vibrated. It seemed his lover was getting impatient. He couldn’t blame her. The plan hadn’t worked out, at all as it was supposed to. But … that was about to change.

Soon, my love, soon, he texted her. His heart warmed at the thought of making his love happy for once.

It was incredible, wasn’t it, what one would do for love?