All for You

I smiled at Jack from across the table, half listening to him tell a story about a bar in Hong Kong, more interested in how he talked with his hands; bringing them together and apart, shaking them and spreading his fingers like he was stretching them. It was these gestures that made me realize that I was falling in love with him, slowly and then all in the same swoop.

I laughed as he finished, taking a sip of my wine and recoiling slightly at the taste. I still wasn't used to the bitterness, but it was good wine. He knew how to pick a good drink, and his brilliant white smile seemed to fill up the entire restaurant. Of course, it had to be dimly lit and it was late; nearly midnight. I still dressed as if it wasn't, knowing how important this dinner was to our relationship.

Our first real date. I had dressed up quite a bit, needing the excuse to hide away in the bathroom. Curled hair, real earrings, and I had even taken out the ring in my belly button for this dinner. Mostly because my dress was tight, but that was beside the point.

I bit my lip, thinking of when I had gotten my belly button pierced. Andy had stood there with her eyebrows raised as the piercer began, squinting slightly at my stomach. I remember her gently touching my side, where there was the beginnings of my first tattoo, and she smirked, shaking her head. I remember how Andy looked like such a kid to me. I was 17. It felt like it was so long ago, but it really wasn't.

Jack knew better than to ask me what was wrong, but I think it also had to do with him being afraid to see me cry. He gently touched my hand, and smiled slightly, and it was a sweet smile. “How about we order dessert first? I heard the seven layer chocolate cake is to die for, and I know that's your favorite.”

I smiled, blushing slightly also, impossible to tell beneath the dark candles on our table. “I told you that like, a million years ago.” I hated myself for the hyperbole, but I knew exactly when I had told him. Alex and I's grad party, where they had to be two separate cakes: mine had to be the seven layer chocolate, and Alex's had to be red velvet. Jack had questioned it, and I explained happily. I remembered that party like it was yesterday, even though it was so long ago. All of us were so young, but we weren't. Alex and the band was signed, and I was supposed to attend Roger Williams in the fall.

I sighed again, feeling the headache and the guilt set in. I could pretend all I wanted that I was okay and that things were normal, but they weren't. Andy wasn't speaking to me, and I hadn't even seen her since my big drunk mouth revealed the secret I swore I would keep. And Alex … Alex had screamed at me every day since then, telling me that it was my fault why we could never be close as siblings. I knew these words were spoken in anger and spite rather than based in his actual opinion, but it didn't change how I felt myself becoming more and more like an empty casing of a person.

I was trying to just stay away. Away from Andy, who would undoubtably never forgive me, and also from Alex, who would surely never play nice with Andy again if I was around to add fuel to the fire. I fucked up big time, and I knew it. Jack knew it too, and that's why he finally decided we needed a real date.

He sighed heavily. “Come on,” He murmured, grabbing my hand tight in his and squeezing, leading me out onto the street, a pile of bills on our table. “Let's go for a walk, okay? And we'll talk about the past because I know this is hard for you and it breaks my heart to see you like this.” I nodded, looking at my feet. He chuckled slightly.

“I'll start. Remember that time where we were at one of our first shows, and I was s pumped to have done some stupid solo I had been struggling with that I ran off stage and screamed my head off in your face, and you cried?”

I laughed, remembering that memory differently. It was before I had even met Jack, and he screamed in my face, when all I wanted was to grab the last box of their demo CD, recorded from my laptop.

I thought of one myself, squeezing his hands slightly as I grew excited. “Do you remember that first party where I officially met you? I think it was one of the prep's house parties, and I was uh … with the host in his parent's bed and you walked in and were like 'OH HEY ALEX'S SISTER' and I had to meet you with my shirt on the ground and my bra straps hanging off my shoulders..” Jack started to laugh, but the memory wasn't over, as if it could have gotten any worse for me. “And then you told Alex where and how you saw me, and he punched that guy in the face so hard he got suspended from three days?”

Jack was dying in laughter now, doubled over in the streets, his hand no longer in mine. I was shocked by how empty my hands felt without his in mine. Jack regained composure, looking up at me with his big eyes. “Wouldn't have had it any other way,” He murmured, kissing me, but unlike any other kiss before.

It was soft and sweet, the kind of kiss where he knew I was broken and he wasn't going to try to fix me, instead he was going to distract me. It was the kind of kiss I wouldn't mind having every day for the rest of my life.

He stepped back, holding my face in his big hands, smiling at me. It was well past midnight now, the streets illuminated only by fading street lamps. He began rubbing his thumbs on my cheek, smiling at me like I put stars in the sky. “What?” I murmured, feeling the exhaustion of the day creeping into my joints.

“Nothing,” He murmured, leaning his forehead on mine, his eyes closing. “I guess it just hit me how goddamn lucky I am to be with the most beautiful girl in the entire world of punk rock.” I laughed, at both the fact that he thought I belonged in the world of punk rock (or even that he belonged in it), and that he had dared to use such a corny pick up line.

“Aw, sweetie,” I said, latching my finger in his black hair, stiff with hairspray. “You tried,” I whispered, kissing him as gently as I could, feeling the weight of the world settle back onto my shoulders as we approached the venue.