Keep It Secret, Keeps Us Safe

Monday Morning, March 14, 2011

Alex walks through the school, his brown eyes searching frantically throughout the hallway for the messy black hair that defined Jack Barakat. All that’s on his mind is Jack, and that’s all that’s been on his mind since he pulled the plug on their relationship. He hadn’t seen or heard from Jack and it was killing him slowly.
What he wanted to do was to explain to Jack it had all been a mistake. He wanted to convince his ex-boyfriend that the “ex” needed to erased for good. He wanted to tell him that he would never do anything like this again. All he wanted as to be able to claim Jack as his own again, to hear from Jack, to see Jack, to hold the younger boy. It was all he wanted.
“Hey Gaskarth.” The voice is pointed and angry, Alex knows it’s probably one of Jack’s friends.
Sure enough, Alex’s puppy brown eyes are facing Jack’s burliest, football playing friend, Zack Merrick. He’s adorned in shorts that show off his sculpted calf muscles and a black Under Armor sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looks more than angry, and Alex knows it’s about Jack and him.
“Hey,” Alex couldn’t help the movie-esque gulp that came from him before he sputtered out the name Zack.
“Heard you broke up with Jack?” Alex knows the real question is why did he break up with young boy when it would obviously break him into pieces.
“His dad kicked him out because he was gay so I broke up with him so he could honestly tell his dad we weren’t together. I regret it one hundred percent, I do! All I want is to apologize to Jack and tell him it was a mistake.” Alex explains quickly looking directly into Zack’s strong brown eyes that show little emotion but anger.
“You better not hurt Jack again. I’m not quite sure what happened after you dumped him,” Alex cringes at the last part, it sounds so harsh, so rude, “but I do know he was staying the night at Hadley Sorkin’s over the weekend. So tell me Alex, did Jack’s dad let him back at home after you broke Jack’s heart?” With that final question, Zack left Alex with a spinning mind and only one question: What had happened this weekend?
That was going to be a tough question to find the answer to. Jack really hasn’t let anyone find out yet, not Zack, not his other best friend, Kyle, not even Hadley actually knows. He had kept what had happened Friday night and Saturday morning to himself.
If too many people knew the whole school would find out and if the whole school found out, well Jack actually doesn’t know what would happen but he has decided it wouldn’t be good. He’s happy with his social life now, no one knows how broken he really is. In his mind, nothing should really change that.
So as he walks the hallways, he keeps his distance from everyone, except Hadley. She isn’t asking questions, Jack has deemed her okay. She just quietly murmurs stupid rumors they both know aren’t true to keep Jack’s head above water. She knows he’s drowning quickly and will do anything to save him.
Hadley sees Jack as a brother figure to her. Without him she doesn’t know what she’d be doing or who she’d actually be. Jack actually picked out her outfit today; a white pencil skirt and a navy and white striped, off the shoulder shirt with a pair of red ankle boots that match her red jewelry. She knows he only did it because he couldn’t pick out Alex’s outfit, but it still makes her happy. It tells her that the happy Jack is somewhere deep inside that stone-faced Jack Barakat that had come out.
“I’ll see you later, Al” Jack blushes bright red out of embarrassment of his habit, “Had.”
“Jack,” Hadley takes his hand before he can walk away. “It’s okay to miss Alex, you loved him. Stop pretending like you’re okay, it’s a break up because it’s broken.” Hadley releases his hand.
Jack smiles lightly at Hadley, appreciating the words of wisdom that came from his best friend. “Thanks, Hadley, that means a lot to me.” He walks away from her into his homeroom to sit by himself, well that’s what he hopes, he knows it won’t happen.
As soon as Jack steps in his homeroom, his brown eyes do what they always do: Search for the dark blond he’s latched himself to. Even when they aren’t dating he can’t help the habit his eyes have grown accustomed to. As always, he spots the older boy in the room, in his desk.
The young boy walks forward slowly and solemnly. He isn’t very sure as to why Alex is in here, he broke them up. Jack looks back and forth noting that the other kids just thinks this is normal. He bites his lip and takes a seat in the desk beside the elder.
“We need to talk.”
Jack shakes his head frantically, resembling the five year old that’s inside him.
“C’mon Jack, Friday was a mistake.” Alex is desperate for Jack’s forgiveness, desperate to be able to hold the young boy again.
“Alex, you were pretty damn serious.” Jack’s brown eyes show warning for Alex to leave before they aren’t even on speaking level.
The older boy sighs, angry at himself. All he’d wanted to do was save Jack from living on the street, now he had to save himself from living without Jack. He gets up from Jack’s desk. “Can we be friends?”
Jack doesn’t say a word, telling Alex the question isn’t applicable. Alex may have just lost Jack Barakat, but deep down he knows he hasn’t. Deep inside Jack, he’s aware that Alex won’t give up and he hopes with every being in him that Alex does keep trying. He needs the dark blond in his life and he knows that Alex needs him too.
“I’ll be back, Jack Barakat, mark my words, you and I will be together again.”
Jack knows of the dark blond’s determination. He doesn’t doubt that Alex will try again, but he does have a slight doubt that they’ll be together again. It just wasn’t seen in his own dark brown eyes, maybe Alex could see it, but for now Jack couldn’t. Everything was jumbling together in the unforeseen future, the same future his very own Alex Gaskarth had been part of.
His brown eyes are on Alex’s figure as he walks out of the room. That perfect ass in the tight – but not too tight – grey jeans he has paired with the blink-182 shirt he and Jack had gotten together at a show. Jack sighs wondering if he has made a mistake saying no.
It just hadn’t seemed like they were ready to be together. The older boy had made it seem like Jack needed to get his living situation together before they could be together. That was what Jack was planning on doing – what he is trying to do.
The older boy seemed like he wanted Jack to know everything about the future when it came down to his family. Christ, Jack doesn’t even know where he’ll be for dinner tonight. He doesn’t know anything about what he’ll be doing when it comes to necessities and he doesn’t know how much longer he can stay at Hadley’s before her parents ask questions.
He runs a hand through his dark hair, wishing he could’ve been straight and gone to Hadley. They would’ve made a great couple when Jack had tried to be straight, but instead Alex had pushed him into admitting he was gay. Now he’s stuck in a binding situation that he wants nothing to do with.
All Jack Barakat wants is something easy, something simple. But he’s not going to get that so easily, he knows that for a fact. Instead he gets an impolite greeting from his best friend, Kyle Burns. A fan of Alex and Jack, Jack and Alex, the couple version not the friend version.
“Hey Kyle,” Jack gives the boy a relative of a smile.
“What’s wrong, Jack-O? Trouble in paradise?” Kyle’s smile displayed that he was telling a joke, Jack’s eyes displayed that Kyle’s joke was reality. “What? W-what happened?” Kyle stutters out with wide brown eyes.
Jack can’t help but smile. The fact that Kyle is so concerned over something that didn’t even concern him, makes him feel like he has a fighting chance in the world, like someone genuinely, truly cares about him. If Jack was, for once, honest – truly honest with himself – he’d realize more than just Kyle cared deeply for him.
“I told my parents.” Kyle was already shaking his head. It seemed like that spelled out everything for the normally, self-proclaimed “dumb blond”.
“I should’ve stopped you. I knew something bad would happen, I knew your dad wasn’t going to accept you as a gay kid. Your dad is so religious, Jack. I know you don’t go to church with him, but he’s so into it. He could lead the sermons!” Kyle sighs deeply, his brown eyes deep with regret. “I feel partly responsible.”
“You don’t know the rest of the story.” Jack reminds him finally seeing the dumb blond Kyle he knows and loves come out with a simple blush on the fact that Jack’s right.
“Continue then, Jack-O.”
“Anyhow, my father gets really angry and says until I “fix myself” I’m not allowed in the house. Of course I go to Alex’s, and I just cry to him working up the nerve to tell him what happened. After I told him, he just held me while he thought deeply and then he told me that we needed to break-up so I could fix things at home, get a place to stay so I could stay safe or whatever. I realize he’s looking out for me but he broke-up with me, I can’t help but hate him for that!” Jack has to calm himself down before he gets angry like he had Saturday. “I don’t know what I thought would happen, but certainly not this.”
“You wanted Alex to let you stay with him.” Kyle states simply, as if he didn’t even have to think about what Jack has spilled to him.
Deep within Jack he realizes Kyle is right. He wants that cliché moment where his true love saves him from everything. But they’re just in high school, Alex still lives with his parents. He can’t possibly request for his parents to let Jack move in simply because Jack’s gay. That may have been what Jack had wanted to happen, but Jack should’ve known that wouldn’t happen.
Jack sighs as he runs a hand, messing up his already messy hair. He brings his eyes to Kyle in a way of letting the blond know he’s right. Kyle doesn’t say a word, he just grabs his backpack and leaves Jack alone to himself to think.