I Want It All

Lyle didn’t know how to answer that question. She paused for a couple of minutes, choosing to just watch Alex. He looked uncomfortable, his right leg was bouncing up and down, and Lyle knew what that meant. He didn’t get nervous often—Lyle had only seen it a handful of times in the years that she had known him.

“You’re hesitating,” Alex noted.

“Because I don’t know what to say,” Lyle answered honestly.

Alex shook his head. “Why don’t you just tell me that it wouldn’t have changed anything?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Alex stood up and sighed. “Lyle—“

“What do you want from me, Alex? If you’re trying to make me feel worse about this situation, then congratulations, I do,” she snapped.

“It’s not about making you feel worse, Lyle, I don’t want that,” he reassured her.

“Then what is it about?” she asked him.

“Are we going to dance around this forever?”

“Dance around what?”

“The fact that we fucking care about each other, Lyle!” Alex exclaimed.

“You’re my best friend, Alex—“

Alex shook his head. “Oh, my God, I’m the girl in this relationship,” he muttered.

“What are you talking about?”

“I care about you, Lyle. I wouldn’t have fucking slept with you if I didn’t,” he snapped.

Lyle scoffed. “Right, because you care about every single girl you sleep with, huh?”

“Don’t throw that back in my face, Lyle, you know you’re different,” Alex told her.

Lyle sighed.

“Would it have been different if we were together and committed?” Alex asked again.

“Have you ever had a committed relationship with anything other than your band?” Lyle retorted. She didn’t mean it to be hurtful…or, well, maybe she did.

“Yes, with you!” he exclaimed. “You think I forgot about you once in those four years we didn’t talk? Walking away from you was the stupidest thing I have ever done. And I have regretted it every single day. I feel like I’m always going to be making this up to you—like you’re never going to really forgive me, no matter how many times you say you have.”

“Do you think this is me trying to get back at you for something that happened in high school?” Lyle asked quietly.

Alex sighed. “I don’t—I don’t know. I don’t want to think that you would—“

“It’s not,” she interrupted. “And…I’m sorry if I made you feel like I haven’t forgiven you when I have,” she told him, wringing her hands together.

Alex walked back over to the couch, sitting down and taking her hands in his own.

“Are we going to be able to get through this?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“I want us to.”

He nodded. “Then we’ll make it work.”

+

Alex loved being on tour. He really did. But at the same time, he didn’t really like being so far away from Lyle. It had been two weeks since he left her, three weeks since the “procedure.” True to his word, he didn’t speak of it again; he and Lyle had both decided that moving on was for the best. It wasn’t easy, but Alex didn’t want to hold it against her so he decided to forgive and forget.

Two weeks and Alex found himself missing Lyle more than he thought he would. Their relationship was slowly going back to normal. Or, well, as normal as their relationship could actually be. Jack and Erika acted as if they were walking on eggshells around him, as if he was going to explode any minute, but he wasn’t going to.

“Hey, Lex, we’re almost in Oklahoma.”

Alex looked up from his phone, meeting the eyes of his best friend. “Thanks, Jack.”

“You good?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Is Lyle okay?” Jack asked, eyes glancing around the bus to make sure the guys weren’t around.

Alex nodded.

“Good.”

“Yup.”

“So…” Jack trailed off.

Alex shook his head. “What?”

“Are you ever going to tell the guys?”

“No,” Alex responded instantaneously.

“Why not? You told me,” he replied.

Alex sighed. “I was tricked. You tricked me.”

Jack scoffed. “Well forgive me for assuming it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal anymore,” he told him.

“It still kind of is.”

Alex sighed again. “Look. Lyle and I made a decision, okay? We—“

“You mean Lyle made a decision,” Jack interrupted.

“What would you have done?”

“I would’ve fought for what I wanted,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Alex shook his head. “Even if it meant losing her forever? For having a relationship that would never, ever be the same?”

“Well, Erika wouldn’t do something like that—“

“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Alex snapped. “It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. Don’t compare Lyle and Erika, okay? They’re two different people. She made the decision she made for a reason. Stop acting like she’s a horrible person.”

Jack sighed. “She’s gonna go to Hell, you know that, right?”

Alex bit the inside of his cheek. “We’re not going to get into a philosophical debate over this, Jack. Especially you, someone who only brings it up when it serves a purpose.”

Jack frowned. “Thanks.”

“It’s true and you know it,” he told him. “Lyle is still beating herself up over it. I’m not going to add to that, okay?”

“Alex—“

“Can you get over it, Jack? It wasn’t your decision to make, so you’re in no place to judge her, or I, for these decisions,” he snapped, climbing back into his bunk and closing the curtain.

+

A week later, Jack and Alex were back to normal. They couldn’t fight for that long, at all. Alex was still a little upset, but he still didn’t see why Jack had to constantly judge Lyle for a decision that was hers to make. He didn’t want to get into a religious or philosophical debate because it was useless.

Scrolling through his laptop, Alex smiled when he saw that Lyle had changed her picture on Facebook. Yeah, it wasn't a big deal, but Alex loved seeing pictures of her. Especially when she was smiling. He scrolled through the comments, frowning when he saw one from Jack that simply stated: "hot."

Shutting his MacBook Pro, Alex left his bunk to find Jack digging through their mini-fridge.

"I see you approved of Lyle's new Facebook picture," he said casually. Though, okay, it was not casual. At all.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, she looked good."

"That's not what you said."

Jack paused. "What?"

"You called her hot."

His best friend shrugged. "And?"

"And I don't like it when other guys call my girlfriend hot."

"I didn't know she was your girlfriend—"

"Fine, my girl," he sighed.

Jack shook his head. "Sorry?"

Alex sighed. "Hot implies that's all that's there, yanno? And Lyle...she's so much more than that. She's pretty, beautiful, and gorgeous at the same time," he muttered, sitting down in the booth of their small kitchenette.

Jack paused before climbing into the seat across from him, more than slightly puzzled. "Shouldn't you be telling her this?"

"Yeah," he agreed, looking down at his hands.

"So...why aren't you? Are you two okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, we're good," Alex answered. "I just think she doubts my sincerity sometimes, like I don't mean it when I say it. I compliment her and I think she thinks I say it to every girl. The only girl I want is her. I don't want to say it to anyone else."

Jack smiled. "That's how I feel about Erika. She's...everything, you know?"

Alex nodded. "She's so stubborn and obtuse—"

"Good word," Jack interrupted.

Alex laughed. "Thanks, man," he said with a grin. "But how in the hell am I supposed to make her see that we are supposed to be more than best friends?"