Alex Gaskarth Must Die

It feels like something should shift after that. Like there should be, I don’t know, a period of Before Saying ‘I Love You’ and a period after, something to mark it as an Important Life Event. Like how relationships should go: first kiss, first date, I Love You, and then the rest.

But it’s not like that; nothing different happens at all.

It’s just like it’s always been, Alex and I, me and him, pushing and kissing and laughing, only now we’re peppering the days with I love yous and ending our phone calls with Love you, bye. It’s weird how nothing feels earth-shattering and there are no dramatic revelations, but only feels like maybe the puzzle pieces are slotting together better, like it’ll take more to break them apart.

Thinking about things like this makes my head spin, so I don’t do it often. After a week or two, I stop doing it at all.

-

High school’s started to feel like a cage ever since my acceptance letter came, like a drumming underneath my skin of I want to get out, I have to get out, I’m going to get out, of knowing that there are bigger and better things out there for me. I’ve taken all I can from high school, and it’s time to move on. A lot of people have started ditching half their classes because they’ve already been accepted, but part of me still can’t bear to leave Dulaney behind. I’ve been here for almost four years now, and the teachers and the red, black, and white and the losing football team and the vending machine behind the science classrooms that'll give you an extra fifty cents if you kick it quickly enough, all of that is home. I can’t quite decide if I can’t wait to get the hell out of this place or if I never want to leave, like anxiously tapping your foot until the bell rings and then running out to your car, only to flop onto the couch and watch SNL reruns when you actually get home. It’s May now, only three months until graduation, one until prom, and it’s finally started to sink in that I’m leaving this place.

‘This is going to sound really weird,’ Brittany says at lunch as we watch some people run laps around the track. She taps her fingernails against the bleachers we’re sitting in and takes a deep breath. ‘But I’m really going to miss this place. That’s weird, right? I’m not supposed to miss high school, these are supposed to be the worst years of your life.’

‘Really?’ Robin says. ‘I hear they’re supposed to be the best.’

‘Funny how the head cheerleader and the awkward ginger kid say that,’ I laugh, and receive a punch in the shoulder from Robin for my troubles.

‘No,’ Zoe says. ‘You’re right. I’ve only been here for a year but it’s – you guys have made it really nice.’

‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I don’t really want to leave.’

We stay silent for a few more minutes, the four of us sitting side by side on the bleachers, before the moment’s broken. My phone buzzes and we all jump before laughing as I check my text messages. ‘It’s Alex.’

‘Ooh, what’s he say?’ Zoe says.

‘Just dinner tomorrow night,’ I shrug as I type back a reply.

‘How are you two doing?’ Robin asks, too casually.

‘Fine,’ I say slowly. I realize too late that I should have said something more and start speaking again hastily. ‘We’re good, we’re great. I actually, um, I was just talking to Lauren the other night about it. She has a friend in one of his classes, she says he’s completely gone. It’s fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ Zoe asks.

‘Yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Nothing!’ she says. ‘I just – We just – We just want you to be sure, you know?’

I stare at her, and then Robin and Brittany. They’re all wearing slightly guilty and overwhelmingly intent expressions. ‘Guys, Jesus, this? I’m fine, I knew what I was getting into at the beginning of all this and I know now. It’ll be all over in a few weeks anyway. It’s fine.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Zoe says.

‘I’m sure,’ I say, and that’s that.

-

On Tuesday Alex and I have dinner at his place. We’ve taken to dropping in at each other’s houses for food, and sometimes Jack or Kara or someone else comes. Sometimes ten of us take over Alex or Rian’s house, and all their parents do is laugh bemusedly as all their food is demolished in two minutes. Those times are my favorite times right now: when I can forget everything but the people around me and just have a good time.

Once we finish dinner, we start on the dishes together. ‘So… how was your day today?’ he asks me, bumping my arm with his.

‘Alright. It was good,’ I shrug. ‘But everything’s good now that I’m leaving for college so soon, you know? Half of me wants to get the fuck away from Baltimore and start living someplace else but the other half can’t bear to leave.’

He nods. ‘Yeah, yeah, I get that. With the tour coming up and all-’

‘Wait, what?’ I set the plate I’m soaping up back in the sink and frown. ‘So. You’re – Going on tour? In a bus, with the band, performing live?’ I look at him out of the corner of my eye and the Oh, shit, shouldn’t have said that all over his face notches my temper up. ‘You’re telling me that you’ve known about this for a while now but haven’t told me?’

‘Um…’ he says sheepishly. ‘Yes?’ I blink, completely unimpressed and a little hurt that he wouldn’t tell me such big news. He was the second person I called after Robin when I got accepted into Pratt, and now he’s going on tour for who knows how long and he didn’t tell me. Something must show in my face because he grabs my hand in his. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I was just – saving it?’

‘Saving it,’ I repeat.

‘For a better time!’ he says earnestly.

‘A better time.’

‘Yeah! It just – it didn’t seem right to tell you like it was no big deal so I was waiting for a moment when it would be, uh, better.’

‘Remember that time I got into Pratt?’ I ask, shaking his hands off and folding my arms. ‘You know, my dream college in my dream city? Where I’m going to study photography and focus completely on that? Where I’m pretty much going to be living out my dream? Remember when the letter came from Pratt? Remember when I called you? You were the second person I called. And – How long have you known about this?’

‘Like, a week,’ he mumbles. ‘That’s not even that long!’

‘I called you literally fifteen minutes after I got accepted!’ He backs away from me but all I do is follow him. Distantly, I realize this is the first real fight we’ve had.

‘I was going to tell you, I just didn’t right then!’

‘Or the next day, or the day after, or the day after that…’

‘Well sue me for not clinging onto you and telling you every minor detail of my life!’

I scoff and throw up my hands as I stalk over to the other side of the kitchen. ‘A minor detail? A minor detail? You’re going on your first actual tour with the band after getting signed – this is a big deal! I thought, as your girlfriend, we were supposed to keep up on these things-’

‘And we do! I was – ’

‘You obviously aren’t planning on it! Would it hurt that much just to talk to me for once?’

‘I do talk with you!’

‘That’s not talking! That’s freaking out about music or joking about something, I’m talking about serious things! You never tell me anything!’

‘I do! I told you when we got signed, I told you when – ’

‘You told me when you got signed because we had a date that night that you completely bailed on! You couldn’t have found the time to leave me a quick text saying “Hey, don’t wait around for me for an hour, good news, come to my place”? I’m always the last person to find out about anything – Kara, Lisa, Evan, everyone knows except me! The first few weeks dating you were so hard and I thought I was finally friends with your friends - but I guess not. I’m the one that’s always out of it.’

‘You’re not, baby, nobody else knows we got signed yet, it’s just us except – ’

‘Except!’

Alex makes a frustrated sound and tugs his fingers through his hair roughly before stalking over to me. I refuse to back off and glare back at him, waiting to refute his next argument. ‘Except our parents!’ he finishes. My mouth opens and closes while I fumble for something to say. ‘Listen, I’m sorry – really sorry – that you feel like this,’ he says, coming in close and taking my head in his hands. ‘We should – yeah, we should definitely start talking more, especially as we go and graduate and all – ’

I breathe in and out slowly, calming myself down and step closer to him. ‘Are we breaking up?’

‘What? No!’

‘I mean after graduation,’ I say quickly.

‘Um. I…Are we?’ he asks back.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Do you?’

‘I want whatever you want,’ I insist.

‘Well, then…’ He tilts my chin up and leans in closer and closer, the distance getting slower by the millisecond. My heart’s thumping so loud I’m sure he can hear it and suddenly I can’t breathe anymore. ‘You’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.’ He smiles just before our lips connect and I smile back tentatively, clinging to something I know will have to end eventually. It’s not a happy thought, or maybe I just want to distract myself from it, so I haul him in closer by his shirt and somehow we fall onto the couch. The house is empty except for the ticking of the grandfather clock and the gasps we make; my fingers trip up his spine, digging into the knob of his neck as he pushes me down and then his shirt’s going up and it still surprises me how he’s not that skinny, not the twig that I expect. ‘Off,’ I mutter, tugging at my own shirt, trying to get his arms out of the way and finally dropping it to the ground. Alex groans and drops down and the Wait, no, you just had a pint of ice cream yesterday, are you sure you want to be shirtless in my head disappears in a cloud of Alex-induced delirium. After what could be ten minutes or an hour, who knows, I tug at his belt in between kisses. He stops and hovers over me, breath coming in puffs over my ear and it feels like forever before he says, ‘Sure? Are you sure?’ I nod, I think so, before pulling off his belt and pushing his jeans down. ‘Is it impossible for you to wear normal jeans, God, these are skinnier than, like, Robin Hood’s tights-’ He cuts me off with his mouth and his hands on my jeans, breaking away briefly to murmur, ‘This okay?’ before continuing when I nod again. Somewhere between yes, god, get them off and my jeans actually being off a little tendril of doubt creeps in and I start panicking, like a button in my head has put it on replay, and it magnifies and magnifies until our bare legs are touching and his chest and underwear and I think I know where this is going but I’m not sure I’m okay with that but will he be okay with me not being okay oh God oh God oh God-

‘Alex?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Could we – could we not, uh –’

Alex pulls back properly and tries to meet my eyes. I tap his chest, Fur Elise from piano lessons four years ago rushing back as I refuse to look at him. ‘We don’t have to go any further than this if you don’t want to. I won’t, won’t push you. You know that, right?’

I huff out a breath. ‘Yeah,’ I say quietly. ‘Yeah. Just – just this. I don’t think – ’

‘Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.’ He shifts me to the side and lies down next to me instead of on top of me and the entire front of my body goes cold before he tosses an arm over me and twists his legs in mine. I’m still freaking out, staring at the mole on his right shoulder as I try to stop. ‘This is – We’re fine. We can do anything we want to when we want to, I’ll be here, don’t worry about it,’ he says, soothing. He presses a kiss along my collarbones, traces the freckles on my ribs with a finger as I calm down. ‘Good?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ I say quietly. Slowly, suddenly, like the other shoe finally dropping, guilt unfurls in my chest and I remember why I’m here at all. Why my phone’s buzzing in the next room over with a text from Lauren, why I’m lying with Alex wearing almost nothing, why Jack and I are going gift shopping for Zack’s birthday soon. I flick my eyes up to his even though I try not to and he grins down at me before pecking my forehead and wrapping his arms tighter around me. I mash my face into the crook of his neck and talk myself down again. Just a little more, I promise myself, just a few more nights and days and we’ll be done. ‘Thanks,’ I add.

‘What I’m here for,’ he murmurs, just before pulling his Star Wars blanket over us.

-

I awaken in the same position I was in before, only now it’s pitch black outside. ‘Shit,’ I say, squeezing my eyes shut before getting up, just remembering how I was supposed to get back home last night. Sure enough, when I check my phone there’s 3 voicemail messages, 12 texts, and 16 missed calls. I text my mom sorry, fell asleep watching a movie and go back to the living room. Alex hasn’t moved, still curled around the bubble of empty space I left, his face still and almost serene like it never is in real life.

‘Mmrf ‘sup?’ he slurs, flopping an arm around towards me.

‘Forgot to get back home, no big deal,’ I murmur.

‘Story of my life,’ he says sleepily, finally managing to latch onto my arm. ‘C’mon.’

-

The next time I wake up it’s because Alex is shaking me. ‘Sun’s nearly up,’ he murmurs with a kiss, pulling me to my feet and passing me a larger blanket. He’s holding two bottles of beer and a box of strawberries, which he hands to me as he opens the backdoor. I pop the tops off as he wraps us up in the blanket, my legs over his and our fingers intertwined.

‘Is this a thing you planned?’ I ask as the first rays of light creep over the horizon.

‘The sunrise?’ He shrugs. ‘No, not really. Sometimes we like to watch the sunrise so I guess my body just kind of…wakes me up for it now. Most of the time we’re puking our guts out though.’

I snort and take a sip of beer. ‘God, I haven’t watched the sun rise since I was, like, seven.’

‘You’re missing out,’ he says simply. ‘It’s like – ’ he rubs a hand over his face and laughs to himself before continuing ‘ – The Lion King. What they said, when you think about it, it’s…’ He doesn’t get to continue because I burst out laughing, shaking with the force of it. ‘Shut up,’ he grouses, pushing me away. He pulls me right back in so I figure he can’t be too mad but I leave a kiss on his jaw anyway. The first rays of light flash up, making me squint in the brightness, but once I get used to it we settle in and he’s right, this is nice. I’m still loose from sleep, the beer only making my limbs lazier and with the sun wrapping us in its warmth I never want to leave.

I turn to look at Alex and find him already looking at me; he flushes a little and smiles, pulling me in to rest my head. The arm around me tightens and I reach up to intertwine our fingers, wanting nothing more than to stay like this forever.

‘Love you,’ Alex says when the sun’s up, birds chirping and the world around us coming to life.

‘Love you too,’ I murmur back, and shut my eyes to stay here.

-

Spring break is rushing towards us like a freight train, promises of vacations to Cancun, Malibu, Hollywood without parents just over the horizon, and none of us can wait. Brittany, Lauren, Robin, and I (Zoe’s family is flying to Canada) are heading to New York City for the week, where we’ll stay at Brittany's sister's apartment. It’s less than a day from Baltimore by car but I’m still excited out of my mind to experience the city with the friends who have become my family.

Senioritis always hits hardest the days before a vacation, and these days it seems like half the senior class skips a couple periods just because they can't wait until they're actually allowed to do it legally. The Friday before break officially starts – the Friday before we’re leaving – someone on the basketball team throws a party at his ranch.

The ranch is in the middle of the nowhere – secluded, perfect for a no-holds-barred high school party where we won’t have to worry about neighbors calling the police, and it’s fucking massive and filled to the brim with high schoolers. Derek said something about renovating, so there's no furniture either. There's a giant bonfire in the center of it all, fiery sparks shooting up in the night, with smaller bonfires to roast marshmallows forming a ring around it. Trees loom around us and garlands of fairy lights are threaded through the branches and the buildings. A barn sits to the left, empty except for a black light and all the booze, weed, and food we would ever need for the next ten years, and on the other side is a guest house reserved for people planning to stay the night. It looks like something out of a music video.

‘I’m, like, 99% sure the basketball team is gay because no straight man could have put this together,’ Lauren says after parking the car and walking in.

‘Come on, Lauren, that hurts,’ Brad, the varsity captain says, walking towards us. He pops the tabs on four cans of beer before handing them to us. ‘Enjoy yourselves, alright? This is our last year together, let’s make it count.’ He grins, a lopsided dimple appearing and clinks his can against Zoe’s before disappearing off into the crowd. Something about the way he looks at us makes me uneasy, but I shrug it off. No one else has noticed that Lauren’s hanging out with us and even if they do, they won’t think it's weird - lately everyone's been hanging out with people they previously hated.

Once the crowd inside the barn's grown into a mass of teenagers making out and grinding with abandon, the basketball team gets up on a table and cuts the music. 'Hello senior class of 2006!' Brad yells. 'We've only got two months left together so let's do this right! We want everyone to have fun, but for the love of Christ, try not to get alcohol poisoning, and if you need to barf, trash cans are your friend. The ones that are sleeping over: fucking sprint to the bathrooms. The ones that aren't: don't drive drunk, we don't need a death on our hands. Condoms are literally everywhere, so use one. Now that that's said...' The rest of the players grin and reveal champagne bottles in their hands, poised to uncork them. 'Let's get wrecked!'

-

For lack of a better word, we get, er, wrecked.

Alex and the boys find us about ten minutes after Brad's rousing speech, we play a couple rounds of flip cup and beer pong before migrating to the dance floor, and then everyone just loses their shit. I'm pretty sure I saw a few couples flat-out having sex on the dance floor, which, no thanks, but I can't really talk because Alex and I weren't that, um, dignified either. Whoever put the playlist together threw in some slow songs to keep the couples happy, at which point the dance floor was just full of people making out while they swayed on the spot.

All of us head out after a while, arms around each other and laughing fit to burst, and I'm not entirely sure if it's a smart idea for people this drunk to be around fire but nobody can quite muster up the urge to care. We make ridiculous food around the campfire and sing badly to the thumping music coming from inside and then Alex announces he has to piss. He wanders off into the woods but after fifteen minutes, something must be up so I go after him.

I'm laughing as I go, but the music fades until it's barely there anymore and I'm suddenly struck by how creepy this is. The moonlight casts everything in shades of grey and the woods smell unfamiliar and damp, like something not entirely willing to have me inside it, and eager for me to leave. 'Alex?' I call. I see somebody that might be him so I run up to them, but it's only someone else peeing. Why, I wonder, are people peeing in the woods when there's a guest house with bathrooms right next to us? Before I can follow this line of reasoning, Alex appears.

'Alex!'

'Hey,' he says, his speech slow and sleepy as he reaches out and pulls me close. 'Miss me?'

'Maybe a little,' I smile, leaning up for a kiss. Now that I'm with him I don't feel so alone in the woods anymore; it's not so scary after all. 'Ready to head back?' He nods and we start walking back, tripping over twigs and each other's feet, hands roaming everywhere until every two steps we're stopping for kisses.

The music's loud again and we're nearly back when Alex mutters 'Oh, fuck,' and shoves me up against a tree. The sound I make is low and embarrassing as I pull him closer and it's not until somebody yells 'Get a room!' and throws an empty can at us that I pull away panting.

'We should - we should - '

'Stop,' Alex finishes, but he looks like somebody's kicked his puppy.

'No,' I say quickly. 'Just - guest house.' He grins and pulls me by the hand as we walk over, trying as hard as we can to look like respectable human beings who haven't been making out like their lives depended on it, but as soon as we're inside we run to the nearest bedroom. It's spartan, sloppy white paint on the walls and only a bed and night stand for decor, but none of that matters as he pushes me down onto the bed. We get as far as we've gotten before, and then Alex pulls back off of me.

He opens his mouth, but I speak first. 'Stop, wait, yes, I’m – yes,’ I say hurriedly, panting for breath.

'Are you sure?' he says slowly.

'Would I be here if I weren't?'

'We don't - we don't have to go further,' he stutters.

'You don't want to?'

'No! No, of course I want to, fuck, that's like all I ever want these days but don't listen to me, this is your choice and I don't want to pressure you. Like, there's no going back after this, can't take it back, and - '

'Oh my God, shut up,' I laugh, reaching up to drag him down. He keeps protesting as we're kissing until eventually I have to push him off. 'I'm absolutely sure, Alex. I am underneath you, nearly naked, and I've thought about this and I'm completely sure. I love you, we've been dating for a while now, and I want to do this before I leave.'

He stares at me for what seems like forever before nodding. 'Okay,' he says, and repeats it again. 'Okay.'

-

From Jack Barakat to Alex Gaskarth on 04/29/06
happy for you and all man but keep it the fuck down

Alex G. to Jack B.
ain’t no silencin the love train ;)

Alex G. to Jack B.
oh my god sorry jack this is really embarrassing soeru2

Jack B. to Alex G.
BEX that was the worst i can’t believe you made me witness the beginning of alex getting it on

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