Stand A Little Too Tall, Say A Little Too Much

As soon as we got outside of reception, Alex put me back down onto my feet. I kept my arms around his neck and kissed him.
“I’m sorry about in there. Thankyou.” I put my arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug. Alex put his arms around my back.
“It’s honestly no problem, if you hadn’t of blown up, it wouldn’t have been long before I did.”
“I’m glad you did what you did. I could have been in some serious shit then.”
“I have no idea what would have been the consequences if either of us had caused some proper beef in there, to be honest, I don’t want to know, haha.”
“Know that feeling. Anyway, let’s go get Jack before the headteacher tries to get us. I bet Jack’s probably wondering where we are.”
“Good point there. Let’s go.” He removed his hands from my back, turned around and leaned down. “Hop on beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t turn down a piggyback any day, Gaskarth, you know that.” I jumped onto him and he caught my legs.
“I know.”
Alex started to walk down the path to the college gates and I saw Jack tapping his foot on the ground. This was a sign of impatience.
“Hey Jack!” I yelled.
“And what time do you call this?!” He laughed.
Alex put me down on the ground when we got to the gates and placed his hand in mine.
“Blame that dick of a headteacher.” Alex said.
“Ah, what happened?”
“He tried to force some information out of me that I didn’t want to tell him.” I said.
“Ah right. Did he get it in the end?”
“No thank god. Alex picked me up and took me out of his office before I did something I could have regretted.”
“Well, at least you got out before you blew up.”
“Yeah…” I trailed off.
“So, where we gonna go?” Jack questioned.
“We can go to the park with the lake in it if you want?” Alex suggested.
“Sure.” Jack replied.
I pulled my phone out from my pocket and decided to text Chloe. She probably wasn’t in college anyway.

‘Hey Chloe, it’s Justine. Meet us at the lake in about 15 minutes?’
I sent it and literally as soon as it had delivered, I had a new text from Chloe.
‘Sure! I’m not at college anyway. It’ll be good to catch up! Who’s gonna be there? xxx’
‘Alex, Jack and I. You’ll like Jack, he loves Berated. xxx’
‘Oooh! I’m on my way now! See you in 15! xxx’

I didn’t bother replying and put my phone back in my pocket. I had a positive feeling about today.
On the way to the lake, Jack spoke about how at his previous school he was bullied a lot because of his hair and how skinny he was. He explained that no-one really understood how his life was a mess and that he used to have noone to talk to. Alex then explained how his life was similar to that and when he used to hang around with his so called friends, they always made jokes about him and abused him a tiny bit. I felt a tear roll down my face but wiped it away quickly before either of them could notice. I explained how my father had left years ago so I was just left with my Mum. The atmosphere was totally chilled and we all had something in common with each other about our past. Something about our new friendship just felt right. After about 10 minutes, we arrived at the park. We proceeded to walk through the play area to the lake and seeing it again made me think back to when Alex and me were here by ourselves. It was a beautiful night, one I’d never forget.

Alex produced a blanket out of his bag and set it down on the ground. That boy was always prepared. I lay down next to Alex and looked up at the sky. There were no clouds, just a pure blue sky.
“The skies beautiful,” Jack pointed out, “it’s a really nice day.”
I started to laugh and Jack looked over at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Sorry to ruin the mood, but you’re good at stating the obvious.” Alex pinched me as I lay back down on the blanket.
“Ignore her.” Alex said.
“Oh, I see how it is! Fine.” I turned my back on Alex and faced the other way. Alex tried to put turn me back around but I shrugged his arms off me.
“Oh pssh. Fuck you then.”
“Maybe later.” I smirked. I felt my phone vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket and discovered I had 3 new messages… all from Chloe.

‘Where are you? I’m at the entrance. xxx’
‘Justine? Xxx’
‘Are you here yet? Where are you? Xxx’

I text her back quickly just to keep her from getting angry with me.
“Alex, I’m just gonna go fetch Chloe.”
“Alright.”
I kissed his cheek and then quickly ran to the entrance. Chloe raised her eyebrows when she saw me running towards her.
“Oh hi, Miss Ignorant.” She smiled and gave me a hug.
“Sorry about that, blame Alex.”
“Oh don’t worry, I will.” She chuckled as we walked back over to the lake.

We approached the lake to find Alex and Jack cross-legged, facing each other.
“What are they doing? Looks like frigging Yoga to me.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, haha!” I replied.
I ran up behind Alex and fell into his lap.
“You’re a clumsy shit.” He joked.
“You’re so charming.”
“Indeed I am.”
“Pssh.”
Chloe cleared her throat and I could sense Jack and Chloe staring at Alex and me.
“Sorry haha. Jack, this is Chloe,” I pointed towards Chloe, “Chloe, this is Jack.” I pointed at Jack. She smiled and gave him a hug.
“Hey.” Chloe sat down beside Jack and pulled out some food from her bag.
“Hiya.” Jack replied.
Once we’d all debated over which college was the worst for about 20 minutes, I started to zone out as they started to talk away about Berated and their home life. I stared Alex in the eyes and he stared back. This continued for a few minutes until my eyes started watering and I blinked.
“You lose.” Alex did a little victory gesture.
“I’ll win next time.”
“We shall see about that.”
“I will. I am going to beat you one day.”
“Aha, really?”
“Yup.” He started to tickle me so I decided to lightly bite on the skin just above his hip. He started to lightly scream like a girl. He was so adorable.
“Stop it, or I’m going to tickle you to death.” He knew I hated being tickled. I stopped immediately and sat up in his lap.
“You win on that too I guess.”
He smiled and rested his head on mine. I turned and looked at Jack and Chloe. They were sitting almost on top of each other and were deep in conversation.
“I bet you £10 they’ll get together within a few days.” Alex chuckled.
“Deal.” I smirked. It was a bit wrong to bet on their future, but they didn’t need to know about it. It wasn’t like it was harming them anyway.
Alex turned his attention back to me and started to lean forward. I went to connect our lips but someone tapped my on the shoulder.
“Sorry to be a mood killer, but Justine, can I talk to you please?” Chloe interrupted us.
“Sure,” I turned back to Alex, “back in a minute.” I pecked a kiss on his lips. I got up and Alex leaned back on his hands and sighed.

Chloe and I went over to the path away from hearing distance. She looked at me and fidgeted around with her fingers.
“What’s up?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Nothing exactly. I’m just a bit over the place.”
“What’s happened?”
“I feel something strong between Jack and myself. We’ve only met for like a few hours though.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I felt something really strong with Alex the first day we met too.”
“True true. We’ve just been talked for ages and we literally have loads in common.”
“Aw, that’s good.” I smiled.
“I’m really starting to like him though. Is that wrong?”
“No, of course not.”
“Hmm.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “Just go with whatever you feel is best. If you like him more than friends, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, definitely. Look at me and Alex and how we turned out.”
“Hmm, that’s true.”
“Is there anything else?” I smiled and she grinned.
“Nope, I think that’s it. Wait. How are you with the Josh situation?”
“I nearly lashed out at my headteacher earlier. He tried to force me to tell him about the situation. If Alex hadn’t of been there, I don’t know what could have happened.”
“Ah I see. How’re you coping in general with it though?”
“I still keep getting flashbacks, I hate it. Earlier on today in the corridor, this ‘gang’ stopped us from going anywhere and started insulting me and Alex put the frontman up against the wall and literally cut off his air supply. I was totally shocked.”
“Wow. You’re fucking lucky.”
“Tell me about it. I really didn't expect him to do that at all.”
“Aw, you’re both adorable together, really.”
“Thankyou.” I grinned. “We better get back to them.”
“Yeah, we should.”
We headed back over to Jack and Alex. They were talking about us clearly and they both shut up as soon as we got there. I sat down almost on top of Alex’s lap again and he linked my hands in with his.
“What was that about? Talking about us?” I winked.
“Maybe, maybe not. Now where were we?”
He kissed me on the cheek and then cupped his hands around my chin as he moved onto my lips. I loved our little moments like these when Alex physically made me breathless. My life was perfect except for a few minor issues.