Alex Gaskarth Must Die

Eventually, it’s a combination of the birds chirping outside and blinding sunlight that wakes me up. ‘Fuck,’ I mutter, as I try to open my eyes and sit up. I clench them shut quickly and fall back onto Brittany’s bed, wincing at my piercing headache. The sound of Brittany’s gags floats in from the bathroom, and I groan and burrow my head further into her goose-down filled pillows.

‘Wha’ time’s i’?’ Zoe mumbles from her bed on the other side of the room. After the party last night, the four of us stumbled over to Brittany’s house where she’d set up two spare beds for us. She hadn’t anticipated Robin coming along, but she’s got a giant suede couch so there wasn’t much to take care of.

‘Don’ talk,’ Robin slurs back. We all groan together and burrow deeper into our beds, closing our eyes and willing our hangovers from yesterday’s party to go away. I don’t remember much about last night after Robin, Zoe, Jack, and Matt found Alex and I together in the bathroom. There was, of course, our initial, awkward meeting in the bathroom, which then kind of turned into an actual conversation. We sat in the bathtub and… talked. In retrospect it sounds really weird, but it just kind of flowed last night. I learnt he has a dog (Sebastian, one of those cute little dogs with the giant ears), a band (Like I didn’t know that before, but it turns out they started as a Blink-182 cover band first. I mean, come on.), and an older brother that taught him guitar. There’s another guy in their band called Zack, but he goes to school in Towson. His girlfriend Lauren’s kind of wearing him down; she’s clingy, he says, and way too possessive for his liking. He’s just not the commitment type; they’re young, and this the time to have fun. I’ve told him about my photography (‘But it’s just, like, pointing a camera and clicking a button, isn’t it?’) and vented about my younger siblings and my wallflower-ness. Essentially, it was just a big Dr Phil pity party for the two of us. It was kind of nice. He was kind of nice.

‘Come on, guys,’ Brittany says, walking back into the room. She sounds remarkably perky for someone who was throwing up repeatedly all of five minutes ago. ‘Get up. It’s like, noon already.’

‘Go ‘way,’ Robin mumbles.

‘Wanna sleep forever,’ I add.

‘Up,’ Brittany insists. There’s a faint tugging on my comforter, but it only makes me grip it tighter. ‘I’ve got Advil, water, coffee, bagels and grilled cheese ready for you guys, when you decide to get the fuck up.’

‘Never gonna get up,’ I say.

‘Never wanna leave this bed,’ Zoe agrees.

‘I’m not above making you two all run five miles at cheerleading practice,’ Brittany threatens.

‘We just won’t run,’ I reply.

‘I’ll kick you off the team.’

‘We weren’t the ones who signed up for cheer camp.’

A beat. Then: ‘Please can you get up?’

‘Fucking hell, I’m up, I’m up,’ Robin grumbles. ‘You guys’ve talked too much for me to go back to sleep, Jesus.’

‘Rebecca? Zoe?’ Brittany says expectantly. I sigh, but open my eyes a fraction of a centimeter, squinting at the blurry outline of Robin eating a bagel, still lying down. Brittany smiles when she sees my eyes gradually opening up, and pushes a cup of steaming Starbucks coffee over the bedside table to me.

‘Three shots of espresso with caramel syrup,’ she says.

‘Mm,’ I say appreciatively as I take it and attempt to take a sip with my head still on the pillow.

‘You’ll have to try a bit harder than that,’ Robin says with a laugh. I grumble, but lift my head up anyway to take a sip, the warmth of the coffee spreading through me and waking me up quickly.

‘Ahhh,’ I sigh, placing the cup back on the table and flopping back into bed. ‘Heaven.’

Robin and Brittany laugh at me (I’m still wondering if I’ve missed the episode where they suddenly became friends; nothing like the power of shots, I guess) and then turn towards Zoe, who’s still sleeping peacefully on her bed. ‘Come on, Zoe, get up,’ Brittany says, poking at her with her foot.

‘Mmrf.’

‘Zooeee,’ Brittany whines. ‘Come on.’

‘Hey, let’s go out to brunch,’ Robin suggests randomly. She’s standing up now, slowly pulling on her jeans from last night and adjusting her Metallica tank top so her boobs don’t show. ‘That new French place by the movie theatre?’

‘Yeah,’ I yawn and cast a glance over at Zoe, who’s still staying stubbornly in bed. Brittany huffs and begins to pull her comforter off. ‘When she gets up,’ I laugh.

- - -

The new French place is a little cafe tucked away in the corner of a street, and we all have no idea how Robin heard of it. She just shrugged and mumbled something about her own mother who owns a restaurant when we asked. It’s great, though, with raw brick walls and the smell of honey and flowers everywhere. Julia Child’s cookbook is propped up on the counter and all the waitresses and waiters bark rapid French at each other. It’d be scary if the French language weren’t so great; German, for example, would probably have us all hiding under our wicker chairs.

‘So,’ Brittany starts. ‘What happened with you and Alex last night?’ She points an accusatory chocolate at me.

‘Um.’ I grab a handful of chocolate chips from the tiny glass bowl in the middle of the table and shove them into my mouth, as if eating will give me an excuse not to talk. My headache’s bad enough; I just want to eat and sleep, not get questioned by Brittany

‘We found you in the bathroom,’ Brittany continues. ‘Something must’ve been going on.’

‘Nothing was going on,’ I mumble through my chocolate. ‘We were just talking.’

‘They were just sitting in the bathtub,’ Robin says.

‘With the door closed,’ Brittany says. She raises her eyebrows and does a little blow job pantomime. Robin snorts and smacks her lightly as Zoe blushes and casts her head down. I roll my eyes and turn away.

‘Nothing happened, I promise,’ I insist again. Brittany just makes a if you say so! expression and leans back in her chair.

‘We could just, you know, ask him,’ Zoe says abruptly, raising a hand to point behind me. I turn towards the entrance and, sure enough, there’s Alex and Lauren standing with Kara and her boyfriend. I don’t remember his name, only recognize him fleetingly from the party yesterday night.

‘Speak of the devil,’ Robin says, nodding in greeting towards them.

Zoe smiles and waves at them politely; Brittany flicks a few fingers in acknowledgment of their existence. Lauren nods at us and sends a too-mean glare towards Brittany, but we know it’s a joke. They’ve amped up the ‘we-totally-hate-each-other’ thing even more since the Alex Gaskarth thing started, in a strange kind of inside joke. Kara tugs her boyfriend over to our table as Lauren and Alex get seated, stopping and smiling down at us.

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Hey,’ we smile back. ‘You guys checking out the new place too?’

‘Yeah,’ Kara says. ‘I love French food, but I had to drag Rian out here.’ She smiles and punches him softly on the arm.

‘Hangover,’ he explains, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he smiles down at her.

‘Tell me about it,’ Robin groans with a small laugh. ‘I even lost my phone in the pool.’ We grimace with her sympathetically; she was tackled into the pool by a random footballer last night with her phone in her pocket. When she realized it, we were nearly asleep on Brittany’s bed and still high off the night. She broke out laughing, which set us all off, and when she finally told us what happened, we half-cried-half-laughed ourselves to sleep.

‘I haven’t drunk that much in forever,’ I agree. We share small, secret smiles at the joke; Zoe and I have never drunk before, barring a few sips of our parents champagne at weddings when we were nine.

‘It was pretty crazy,’ Brittany says. ‘But hey, nothing but the best for our new cheerleaders!’

‘Whoo!’ I say sarcastically, punching the air with a limp fist.

‘Just wait ‘til you see Zoe though,’ Brittany says through our laughter with an eye roll. ‘She’s amazing.’

Zoe blushes and immediately starts protesting, which Brittany and I refute quickly. ‘Trust me, she’s brilliant,’ I say.

‘We’ll look out for you then,’ Kara smiles. She looks over her back at Alex, who’s beckoning for them to hurry up and get over, then turns back to us. ‘Sorry, I’ve gotta go. See you tomorrow!’

‘Bye,’ Rian says. They turn and walk back to their table, Lauren flashing a discreet thumbs up at us under it and miming texting on her phone as she laughs with Alex. We nod to signal we get the message and return to our table, where four plates of crepes have appeared.

‘Oh, my God,’ Robin practically moans as she grabs her fork. Zoe stifles a laugh and reaches for the whipped cream can on our table, loading it up on her strawberries-and-chocolate crepe. Brittany’s cutting hers up into bite-sized pieces, ever the lady; I’m tearing at mine with my hands.

‘Oh, my God,’ Robin repeats through her first mouthful of crepe. It looks slightly scary to be honest- some odd medley of a million different colours of fruits and sweets, but Robin’s eyes are rolling back in her head. ‘I think I’m in love with this thing.’

‘Jesus,’ Brittany agrees.

‘Holy Hoppus,’ Zoe enthuses. She closes her eyes and opens them to find Brittany and Robin both blinking at her blankly. Sighing dramatically, she turns to me and shakes her head sadly.

‘Humans,’ I say, waving my fork towards them as Zoe and I share a sympathetic look. ‘I just don’t understand them.’

‘I pity them, really.’

By this point, Robin and Brittany have both rolled their eyes hard enough to permanently damage a muscle and returned to their conversation. They’ve both spent enough time around us to know that together, we are a sickening temple of Hoppus-Barker-DeLonge worship and we slip in references to Blink-182 whenever we can.

‘So,’ Robin’s saying. ‘What’s the, uh, Project: Kill Alex Gaskarth about?’ She continues chewing like nothing is wrong, but Brittany freezes for a second before slipping seamlessly back into schooled nonchalance.

‘Who told you about that?’ Brittany asks cooly, looking at me innocently. Somehow, it’s even worse than my glare. I sink down slowly, averting my gaze to my food and pretending to be extremely fixated on the art of cutting it into a perfect square.

‘I did,’ I mumble through my food.

‘What was that?’

‘I did,’ I say, louder now, raising my eyes to meet hers.

‘I thought we agreed to keep it a secret.’

‘We did, but… It’s Robin,’ I say. I realize it’s probably sounding like a terrible explanation, but it’s Robin. I couldn’t just not tell her, we tell each other everything. I drop my gaze back to my food.

There’s a long pause, and then: ‘Fine,’ Brittany huffs, but I know the tension’s over. ‘Just, you tell anyone-’ she stabs the air with her fork for emphasis ‘-and I will ruin you.’

‘Oh, no,’ Robin says dryly under her breath so only I can hear. I grin at her and she grins back as Zoe and Brittany start filling her in on all the bases of Project: Kill Alex Gaskarth.

‘It’s the five of us now,’ Zoe’s saying. ‘You, me, Brittany, Rebecca, and Lauren. Lauren’s our ‘inside man’, she’s going to, like, get inside him and break his heart.’

‘He’ll fall in love with her and then she’ll pull it out from underneath him,’ Brittany says.

‘In other words, you guys are going down the route of every bad teen film ever created.’

Zoe hesitates, her mouth opening and closing like a fish before she settles into silence. ‘Pretty much,’ I laugh.

‘Except she’s not gonna fall in love with him,’ Brittany says firmly. ‘She’s Lauren. Not enough time for love.’

- - -

From Lauren D. to Rebecca H. at 1:42PM (CC)
plan’s going well. he’s opening up a little more. i’m going round for dinner again thurs night with his fam, then he’s coming to mine next thurs. he wants me to come to a ‘proper’ show instead of band practices. i’m playing hard to get. more to report on weds! ;)