Alex Gaskarth Must Die

It’s been nearly one week after Lauren and Alex’s breakup, and Alex is completely back to normal now. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I am. Maybe it’s just because I’ve spent more time actually thinking about him, but I actually thought he was hurt about the breakup. Guess not, though.

‘Once a whore, always a whore,’ Lauren says as we pull into the school parking lot.

‘What?’

‘Over there,’ she says, pointing at a group of people standing underneath a bare tree. Sure enough, Alex is standing underneath it, running kisses down some girl’s neck.

‘Guess he wasn’t as hurt about it as we thought.’

‘Eh,’ Lauren shrugs. We unfasten our seatbelts and slide out of the car before we walk to school together. As we pass Alex and his friends, they turn to Lauren, calling insults after her.

‘Yo, Rebecca!’ Matt yells. ‘Why’re you with her?’ The way he says her, I know he wants to say bitch but can’t; he’s yelling loudly and there’s a teacher not far from here. The boys around him laugh and punch each other, and the girls close ranks with snide glares.

I glance at Lauren, raising my eyebrows to ask if it’s okay. ‘Yeah,’ she says, smiling harshly towards them.

‘Tutoring,’ I call back towards Matt, ‘I suck at math.’ He nods and smiles briefly in reply before being sucked back into the conversation going on over there, and Lauren and I part at the school entrance.

- - -

'Good luck on the... you know,' Zoe says to me as we arrive at our respective classes. She's biting her lip and more than a little worried about the Alex 'situation' in science class. See, today, tomorrow, and the day after that, my science class has been assigned to help the local middle schools out in frog dissections. Half the class will be taking off to help out (to reaffirm our own knowledge of frog anatomy, apparently, and learn how to 'work in teams and pass on knowledge to the future generation'), and the other half will stay in class and 'treat' the frogs, whatever that means. Mr Bryant hasn't said anything concrete about it, but it's general consensus that we're just going to have a free period, with the occasional poking around in frog buckets to make sure they haven't exploded or anything. We're in groups of four and since the groups were self-choice, surprise, surprise, guess who got landed with Alex in her team? I don't know anyone too well in my science class (well, except for Jack) and it would be good for the plan, so I let Jack pick Alex and his partner, Madison, to come join us. He practically peed his pants at the excitement, which was made even better when we learnt Madison was sitting out because she was a vegan. For our group, today's an in-class day, so I'm counting on lots of dick jokes and Jack forcing Alex and I together at every possible opportunity; he's absolutely set on making me become best friends with all of his best friends, 'because you look so much nicer with my group than your group!' What with Brittany, Lauren, the bathtub conversation, and the Alex Gaskarth Must Die plan, I’m not sure how I’m going to make him fall in love with me, but hopefully Jack’ll do the trick.

'I'll be fine, Zoe,' I chuckle, shaking my head and smiling at Zoe. She looks at me doubtfully, but spots Jack careening down the hallway and quickly excuses herself.

'Human cannonball coming towards you,' she jokes.

'And, of course, your cue to leave.' I smile and wave as she disappears into her classroom with a slightly worried expression on her face. I've learnt quickly that Zoe's really shy and quiet, and as an only child who keeps mostly to herself, she's kind of put off by anything too loud or obnoxious.

Of course, the very definition of those things is Jack Barakat, so she mostly just avoids him whenever he comes near us. 'Hola, group partner person!' Jack greets from behind me, bouncing on the soles of his feet in excitement.

'Hola hombre,' I laugh in reply, hugging him quickly. We walk in and sit down at our lab table, which has two buckets filled halfway with dead frogs. 'Ew,' I groan, wrinkling my face up and looking up at Jack.

'Attractive,' he laughs back. I roll my eyes and pull my hoodie around to cover my nose; I've kind of self-diagnosed myself with an overly sensitive nose, and most of my friends agree. As such, the preserved frogs are my own personal hell, with their stench of pickle juice, pond weed, and who knows what else. Back in the eighth grade, when I did these dissections, I actually soaked cotton balls in perfume and taped them onto my nose whilst dissecting. I got teased a lot for it, but by the end of that three-week period, most of the girls (and some of the guys, but I think they were just joking around) had them as well.

'I hate this smell,' I say to Jack, my voice slightly muffled through the fabric.

'I do too, but I suck it up like a man,' he teases.

'A man? You call yourself a man with those muscles? Oh, wait- you don't have any.' We laugh together as Alex walks in and sits down in front of Jack after doing one of those bro-hug-handshake-bump-things.

'Rebecca,' he says, a bit stiffly, towards me.

I drop my hoodie from the front of my face, slightly taken aback by his greeting. Even if I am Brittany's best friend, I didn't think things were this bad. 'H-Hi, Alex.'

Jack glares at Alex, and hisses something to him under his breath. Alex rolls his eyes dramatically, but turns back to me and offers up a smile. It looks completely unnatural, but baby steps, right? 'Hello, Rebecca, how are you today?'

'Um- I'm, I'm fine, thanks. How're you?'

'Looking forward to spending this lovely period with you.' He offers a sugar sweet smile. I shoot a brief glare towards Jack at his obviously fake response, and Jack shrugs defensively back. He just wants us to get along, I know, but Jack Barakat's 'matchmaking' skills aren't exactly the greatest.

'So!' Jack cuts in. He reaches across the table and pulls a frog bucket towards him, looking down and wrinkling his nose at it. 'Let's start, start um, doing whatever we're supposed to be doing- Right?'

There's a silence, as Alex and I glare at each other- Me, because he's being a little bitch with his coldness, and him, God only knows why. Finally, I break the silence and decide to be the higher man. We can't just sit here like middle school girls having a fall out, can we? 'I think the instructions are on the board.'

'Oh, yeah, they are.' Jack reads them out loud to us, and then looks blankly down into the bucket. 'So.'

'So, I guess I'll start,' I say wearily with a small smile towards him. I snap on a pair of lab gloves and pull a bucket towards me, taking out a frog and putting it on the tray in front of me. 'You guys, just take out a frog and turn it over. Look for anything wrong with it; intestines popping out, cuts or marks-'

'Okay, okay,' Alex interrupts. 'We get it.' He rolls his eyes as he takes out a frog, and Jack and I glare at him. Bitch. Just 'cause I'm friends with Brittany doesn't mean I have anything to do with her 'plan' to break your heart, I think. Never mind that I'm pretty much at the core of the plan; to everyone but us five girls, the only people involved were Brittany and Lauren so he has absolutely no right to be as pissed as he is.

Five minutes and a frog later, I'm sick of the silence between us. Jack keeps mentally urging Alex and I to talk to each other, and we steadfastly ignore him. I don't want to talk to anyone at all, right now - I'm half fuming in silence, half awkwardly fidgeting and wishing someone would talk - and Jack doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone without the other person included. 'Fine,' I huff under my breath, pulling my gloves off and dumping them into the trash can.

'What!?' Alex screeches immediately. 'You can't just sit there and do no work!'

'I'm going to keep doing work,' I say, rolling my eyes. 'I'm just getting some music on.' I wave my iPod in the air, raising my eyebrows and putting every ounce of my being into channeling Robin’s you’re so stupid look. It seems to catch on; he blinks blankly in response, and I can tell he's fighting to come up with an intelligent comeback.

'Oh,' he manages.

'Oh,' I mock. I put my earphones in with a smirk on my face and press shuffle on my iPod. As the opening notes of All the Small Things filter in, I take a new pair of gloves and start bobbing my head to the beat, which is loud enough to block out the chatter going on in the classroom.

At the chorus, Jack starts singing along with me, although he's singing loudly while I'm only humming at best. 'Say it ain't so, I will not go,' he sings, grinning when other people turn to give him weird and confused looks. Alex looks at us a little weirdly too, but I can't figure out what he's thinking. We stare at each other, each of us refusing to back down, before Jack interrupts.

'Uh- I'm taking this earphone, 'kay?'

'Sure,' I say dismissively, waving a hand as he reaches around me to take my left earphone. 'I'm just shuffling through Blink and New Found Glory right now.'

He nods in response and his face immediately lights up when his favourite song, Rock Show, comes on. 'Rock Show, right?' Alex asks.

'Um, yeah,' I reply. I feel kind of awkward just cutting Alex off from Jack and I's music, especially now that he appears to be trying to make some kind of effort to patch up any hard feelings, but there's really nothing I can do about it. Maybe we'll both have cooled down by tomorrow, and then we can start in on the good feelings.

- - -

Jack B. to Rebecca H. on 12/02/05
soooooooooooooooooo

Rebecca H. to Jack B.
so?

Jack B. to Rebecca H.
what did u think of alex???

Jack B. to Rebecca H.
hurry up and answer!!!!

Rebecca H. to Jack B.
jesus barakat, not everyone can type as fast as brittany
but alex, idk, he's kinda cold. have i done something bad already?

Jack B. to Rebecca H.
yea idk either. band practice tonite tho so im gonna ask him then
think it's just the brittany/lauren thing tho

Rebecca H. to Jack B.
tell him to be a man and suck it up

Jack B. to Rebecca H.
we have

Rebecca H. to Jack B.
that was mean, sorry. say hi to the guys and kara, lisa, and co for me tho

Jack B. to Rebecca H.
si amigo, gotta go now
ADIOS!