'Cause Love Is A Selfish Thing

Alex hadn't made it far into the living room before he was stopped by some of his parents' friends to talk. The girl attached to his hand was smiling politely at everyone, seemingly acquainted with each of them. I didn't pay her much attention though. For all but two seconds, my eyes were locked on Alex. His hair was growing out and fading, his natural brown overtaking much of the short cut. He hadn't shaved since I'd last seem him, it looked like, and the stubble was thicker than even Jack's on his chin and cheeks. He didn't look completely disheveled from lack of caring though. His black jeans were wrinkle free and it appeared as if he had put effort into picking out the best button-up he owned to wear for the night. He was even adorning a white tie that contrasted nicely with the dark blue of his shirt. I wanted so badly to be the one attached to his hand like I should have been this year. I never expected there to be someone else in my place so soon, gripping his fingers around all these people that had yet to even meet me as his girlfriend.

Out of nowhere, I felt a hand slip into mine. I had the urge to jump from the shock but managed to force myself still. I swallowed hard as I tore my eyes away from Alex and the girl to follow the arm attached to the hand that had taken my own. Jack was looking uneasy and apprehensive as he stood above me. It had nothing to do with me though or the fact that he was touching me. He nodded his head behind him, gesturing that I should go with him to a different part of the house. "Let's go get you a drink. You look parched," he claimed, his eyes shifting from me and then trying desperately to roll to the back of his head to see through his skull to glare at Alex. I was sure parched was what I looked the least. Yet I didn't resist once more. There was nowhere I wanted to get away from more. He helped me up quickly once I had nodded and led me out of the nearest doorway, muttering angrily under his breath.

I was happy to emerge in the empty kitchen after a short walk through a couple of dark rooms. I immediately took my hand from Jack's and went to sit in one of the stools at the island protruding from the end of the counter. Once seated, I spun the seat so that the counter dug into my stomach from the tight fit and I threw my chin onto my arms that were crossed on the surface in front of me. I didn't have words, didn't want to speak. Though Jack had coaxed me in here with the front that I should get a drink, he made no move to make me one or even get me a can of soda. I watched him as he threw himself against the counter across from me, leaning there and obviously biting his tongue. I was afraid he was going to chew it off if he didn't calm himself.

"I can't fucking believe he brought Lisa," he seethed after a silent moment. His knuckles were white as they clutched the edge of the counter, holding himself back. It was strange seeing him like this, and not only because he normally was anything but angry. It had only been a couple of weeks ago that he had called me and sounded much more worried about his best friend's wellbeing than mine. But now he was pissed off because he didn't want to see me hurt by Alex being with someone else. "He knew you were going to be here! He called you himself! Why would he do that? Why her?" he demanded rhetorically, shooting his angry stare at me for an answer. Behind the ire lied the sympathy he felt for me.

Though I knew I wanted to cry and throw a tantrum of the worst kind because of what I had just seen in the living room, I couldn't find it in me. I knew a million emotions were playing across my face. None of them seemed to want to take the lead to make me fall apart. "Don't worry about it, Jack. You can't hate him just for wanting to make me jealous," I informed him with a tiny shrug. I wasn't so sure I believed my own words though. I really wanted to hate Alex for trying to make me jealous. At least, that's what I thought he was trying to do. He was the only one that could really say. "Why does it matter? Who is she?" I inquired, and I reached across the table with my hand out, palm up so he would take it again.

With a sigh, he gave up on his grip on the counter and sat down across from me, promptly reaching to hold my hand. "Lisa… Ruocco," he answered like it was obvious, pausing when the first name didn't strike a cord. "We went to high school with her. We're all still friends with her, but Alex dated her a few times while you were… in New York," he explained, obviously finding it difficult how to describe my years of absence. "But I thought that was all over when you came back. She wasn't the one he ran to last time. Why the fuck would he do it now?" he asked again indignantly. He ran his free hand over his face, the fingers digging into his skin slightly.

I wished I had an answer to his question because God knows I wanted to know, too. I was trying desperately to remember back to high school though. There were so many moments from that time that I would never forget, but there were just as many I couldn't even force myself to remember a minor detail of. Even with me being a loner, I had known a lot of people by the end of senior year. It took a while longer to mentally scroll through faces than I would have liked, but it finally clicked. "She's who he brought to prom," I said slowly. I didn't really need clarification for this but Jack nodded anyway. Alex had never mentioned that he had dated her again after we had graduated. Of course, we never really talked about his past relationships because he knew I didn't exactly want to hear that he had moved on so easily when I had kept to myself almost the entire time I had been away from them. But because we had never talked about her, I was sure I wouldn't be able to say why he had decided to bring her tonight. I opened my mouth to say something more, to try to make Jack forget about it any way I could. But by that point, people had begun to filter into the kitchen to replenish drinks and eat the hors d'oeuvres that had been sitting so close yet I hadn't noticed. "That drink would do well right now," I told Jack, pushing anything else I wanted to say aside. If we had to be around others now, we might as well look like nothing was bothering us.

Jack nodded in understanding and gave my hand a squeeze of reassurance before he stood up once more to get me a drink. I didn't care what he brought back, as long as it was a remedy to my dry mouth. I sat up finally, throwing a smile on my face that made it look like I was enjoying the party. Isobel swept passed once, lying her hand on my shoulder and asking if I was okay. She was surely speculating that I was probably going crazy after seeing her son with another girl. I was able to convince her easily enough though that I was having a good time. I was thankful when Jack came back and handed me a glass with a fake grin that backed up what I said. It looked as if I could ride out the rest of the party in here, talking with him and maybe the other boys when they discovered that I didn't want to approach the living room again. The rest of the night could have been as simple as that. My life was never that simple though.

Alex sauntered into the kitchen only a few minutes after many of the other people in the house had. He was alone at the moment, Lisa nowhere in sight. I hoped she was talking with the others and that they would stay wherever they were. I tugged on the side of Jack's shirt to pull him in front of me and tried to shrink in my seat to maybe prevent Alex from seeing me. But apparently he had spotted me the moment he walked through the doorway because he was leaning around his best friend just seconds after I had hidden. He was having a hard time keeping eye contact with me, mostly because I was trying my best to lean around the other side of Jack. "Can we talk?" Alex questioned, and looked at Jack like he was asking for us to be left alone. Jack didn't appear to want to argue because he walked away to the other side of the room, shooting me an apologetic look. "Hi…" Alex said lowly after he watched Jack leave us. That was all he really ever said to me anymore. It was getting old.

"What do you want, Alex?" I asked firmly, wanting him to get straight to the point. I was the one who had assumed we were broken up the moment I got in that taxi in whatever city we had been in. All I had been waiting for was his word to make it final, to say that he wanted nothing to do with me ever again. If this was the moment it was going to happen, then I wanted it to be quick. That way I could leave and not have to lose anymore sleep over thinking about the end of the relationship. There was also the fact that my heart was pounding erratically in my chest, so hard against my rib cage that I was afraid the bones might crack from the repeated pressure. My palms were sweating and I could feel them turning clammy. My throat was closing off, forcing my breath to come short. I was terrified. This needed to be over quickly.

The hand that Jack had been holding was still lying vulnerable on the table; there had been no reason to pull it any closer to my body than a few inches. Before I knew it, it had been snatched up in another. Alex's grasp was tight but still gentle, somehow showing more compassion than his face had toward me since coming in here. I looked up at him to see the incredible longing in his expression. We both wanted the same thing: to forget about all of the people around us and kiss each other like we were completely alone. His face was even coming down to make his lips meet my own. "Do you want to get out of here? We'll go up to my room," he suggested, only a few inches from my face now.

Suddenly borderline disgusted, I ripped my hand from his and shoved him away. "No. Jesus Christ, Alex. I really do not want to have sex right now, especially not with you in your parents house," I whispered savagely.

Alex looked taken aback. "No! That's not what I meant. We really need to talk. It seems logical to do it in a place I'm sure is going to be quiet for the rest of the night," he affirmed, sounding almost insulted that I had thought he wanted us to sleep together while there was a Christmas party going on downstairs.

With a sigh, I nodded. There were a lot of things I would much rather do, but he was right about us needing to talk. We had needed to talk since the day he had decided it would be a good idea to pretend that I didn't exist. I slid off the stool and began to follow him through the thin crowd of people. Once we reached the foyer, it was semi-silent, the only sounds seeping out from both the kitchen and living room. We shuffled up the stairs, me keeping two steps below him and I continued to keep my distance as we headed down the hall to his old bedroom. When he flipped the light switch, the first thing I discovered was that it looked almost exactly the same. The only things that were different were that the floor wasn't littered with both his dirty and clean clothes and that the bed was made. It was instantly like being thrust back in time.

He seated himself on the edge of the bed, creasing and denting the perfect set of the bedspread. I was sure his mother was going to scold him for that later if it wasn't in perfect order when she came in here again. Maybe he was thinking the same thing, because he sat very still and silent for what felt like forever. Though I knew this needed to happen, I didn't want to be the one to start the conversation. I didn't want to ask the first question. It felt right that he should be the one that started the interrogation even though we had both done wrong. After several minutes, he inhaled deeply and surely filled every corner of his lungs doing so. "Why did you leave?" he finally asked.

"Why did you stop talking to me?!" I demanded back brusquely, throwing my hands up in the air. I had forgotten about my purse on my shoulder and it went flying in the air after sliding down my arm. When I dropped my hands back to my sides, I let it drop to the floor with an audible plop, my keys jingling inside. Fiercely, I threw myself into the chair that had sat next to the door since he had hauled it up from the basement during senior year and winced as I found it wasn't as stuffed as I remembered. I leaned on the edge of it, waiting rather impatiently for his answer. I was anything but very happy when he didn't give me anything. "Why did you choose to ignore me when everything had been so perfect? There was so much going on, but our relationship seemed rock solid," I reminded him lowly, looking down at the floor quickly as tears sprang to my eyes. I was going to be damned if I cried in front of him before any information had even started to come out.

"Clarke, I didn't even know it was affecting you so badly! You could have come to me so easily and asked why I was being quiet," he told me, trying hard to keep himself from yelling this at me. All of our fights that were only supposed to be to talk things out ended up being the two of us yelling. But there were people in the house that would certainly hear anything that we screamed at each other. "But you didn't, and then you left when it got too tough." Hadley pointing out how I was afraid of commitment suddenly came to mind. "You hid at your best friend's house and then ignored the flowers I had sent to your apartment as an apology to whatever I did. I don't know what else you want from me because you've continued to overlook the problems for a month." The glare that he was shooting at me was more than evident in his voice. It made me cringe.

Rage was still bubbling up in me though, working its way around the distress I felt at his accusation. "You weren't speaking to me! Why in the hell would I try to get a hold of you once I'd gotten home when you had hardly said two words to me for a week? The flowers… were a nice gesture. But I don't know how to accept that as an apology after feeling disconnected from you and not being able to know why. I just want to know why. That's what I want from you," I enlightened him, squeezing my eyes shut momentarily. When I opened them again, I also lifted my head once more and saw that he had jolted off the bed.

Alex was clutching tufts of his hair between his hands, his face screwed up in what looked like a mixture of infuriation and frustration. "Do you really want to know, Clarke? Do you want to know why I was so quiet for those few days?" he probed irritably. Abruptly, I wasn't so sure I did. It was starting to sound like it was going to be something that caused a major mental malfunction. He shoved a hand into his pocket then, extracting something I couldn't see. "That's why!" he exclaimed, throwing it on the bed he had only just vacated.

My eyes slowly traveled from him fuming in front of me to where the object he had taken from his jeans was now resting. My sharp intake of breath was all it took for me to agree with the instinct that I no longer wanted to find out his reasoning. The object was a small box covered in light blue velvet. The fake gold lining around the edges of the opening twinkled some in the dull light from overhead. That was surely nothing compared to the sparkle what was inside would give off. "Oh, God. Alex, no," I whispered dreadfully. I began to shake my head steadily and I didn't think I would be able to stop.

He didn't appear to hear my words or observe my obvious action. He began pacing the space in front of the bed, never inching any closer to me. "I was trying to plan everything perfectly to give that," he pointed furiously at the ring's box, "to you the day we got home. I was so excited to do it. I didn't want to jump the gun. Ignoring you, I admit, was not the smartest tactic, but I didn't know how else to ensure that I wouldn't ask you when we were just sitting in the front lounge together. I wanted everything to be perfect for you. And then I come back from soundcheck one day, and you and all of your shit are nowhere to be found. I didn't know what the fuck to do, Clarke. I had already fucked up and I didn't know what to say to make it better. I'm sorry for the few words I didn't speak between Halloween and now. But did you really think that I would just stop loving you? That that's what this was all about?" he asked, finally pausing and staring at me intently.

My breath caught in my throat. That was exactly what I had thought, wasn't it? I had believed that promises about forever had only been feigned and that he was getting bored. But then it hadn't been such a big deal because I wasn't sure I would have been able to be with him forever anyway. "Actually, yes," I answered, not even daring to mention my other thoughts.

"Did you forget about what I told you on Halloween? To remember that I loved you no matter what happened to me," he said before I could even reply. "Maybe that doesn't change anything. Pretend none of that happened though. That we had come home together and I was able to go through with all my plans. What would you have said?" He was desperate to know, this was easy to tell.

He just had to ask me the one question that was going to bring my fear into light. I didn't want him to know what I probably would have said. "If none of the avoiding had happened, I honestly can't predict what I would have said, Alex. I would love to think that I would have given you an automatic yes. After all the thinking I've done this past month though… I can't say that I would have," I responded honestly, my expression growing more and more doleful with each word. I didn't want him to know, but he had every right to.

I could see his Adam's apple jump as he swallowed angrily a few times in reaction to what I had confessed. He began nodding then, very much like me shaking my head. Bad news just makes you want to break into a continuous action, I suppose. "That's just great. I guess I can deal with it though. It's not like I haven't been told no to a proposal before," he ranted. Whatever this was referring to, I didn't want to know. It had to be more unknown information about his past relationships. He ran his hands over his face once before pressing the tips of his fingers into his closed eyes, his palms resting against his cheeks. With a sigh that sounded like it ended up being a huff, he threw his hands back down and looked at me. "At least I know now," he shrugged. He wildly snatched up the box and shoved it back in the front pocket of his jeans. It was a wonder how I hadn't noticed it there in the first place, it sat there now so menacingly.

Now that we had finally discussed what had been going on, it simply hung there in the air and made it utterly awkward. I didn't know what else to say, what else could really be said. I didn't know where we could go from here and I was positive that he didn't either. It was a moot point of the worst kind. We weren't looking at each other since it simply would have been too painful for the both of us. We both wanted out of there though, and were thinking hard on how to do it without hurting the other. Still not having come up with anything, I went to rise from the chair.

"Clarke Elizabeth," a voice sang from the first floor of the house. Hadley's loud call could be heard the whole way from the bottom of the stairs. She had impeccable timing when it came to getting me out of uneasy situations, I could give her that. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief with her next yell. "You better be on your way down here, because I think everyone needs to be witnessing Marshall's and Zack's vocal rendition of the guitar solo in Hotel California," she stated with a tone of finality.

I made to stand the rest of the way and picked up my purse, feeling my legs stiffen as I began to walk. I mumbled something about going to see if she was telling the truth before hurrying out the door. It took some work but I managed to quicken my pace to get back downstairs, not even wanting to wait to see if he was following. He didn't need to worry about me the rest of the night. He had his answers while I had mine, and he had a date to get back to. We were both going to be quite occupied the rest of the night, and I would hope that we didn't have to glimpse each other again throughout it.