Too Much of Anything

Alex hadn’t changed since I last saw him at the club, and in fact I was starting to become a little worried. I felt like I had to forgive him for treating me like that, maybe it was just the alcohol talking, and most of the time Alex does things even though he doesn’t mean it. He can’t help it, that’s just who Alex is. Still, this was getting beyond the excuses of him acting this way because of drunken reasons. Even if he was now actually sober, he was still acting like a mega douche.

I went back to apologise on a cold Wednesday night, even though I thought that he was the one who was supposed to be apologising, not me. But I wanted to fix things, not talking to Alex just felt weird and not right. We’ve never gotten into a fight before, not one that was extremely serious anyway, the last fight we had was something tiny, a fight over who chose what movie to watch. But this is different and I can’t lose Alex. That’s not going to happen ever.

With this outlook in mind, I found myself on Alex’s doorstep; shivering from the cold and feeling like my hands were going to fall off from the cool air. I knocked twice as the door flung open revealing Alex with a disgruntled expression on his face.

“Oh it’s you,” he held onto the door, still not letting me in, “I don’t really want to talk to you right now, so if you could go then that would be perfect.”

I choked on air, shocked that he was acting this way. What exactly had I done wrong to be treated like this? Nothing at all, nothing I could think of anyway. I looked him in the eyes, the glare that had settled on my features faltering slightly. I hadn’t noticed the worried look etched deep into his eyes, it was like he was thinking about something else that was troubling him. Maybe I haven’t really looked into it enough; he hasn’t exactly told me why he wanted to leave so quickly from the club. Though I get the feeling he still doesn’t want to tell me.

I held onto the side of the door too, stepping forward so he was forced to take a step back. He looked pretty tired; there were evident black lines underneath his eyes.

“I’m not leaving,” I insisted, “I’m not leaving until you stop acting like this and tell me what’s wrong.”

He probably got the gist that I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. I might be quite persistent, but I don’t care. I deserve to know; in fact I’m really concerned about him. He sighed, opening the door slightly so he could let me in. The house was quiet, it seemed that his parents weren’t there at the time, leaving just Alex and I alone. He shut the door behind us, as he walked over to their living room, falling back on the couch.

I waited patiently for him to start looking, but Alex just sat there, not looking at me and his eyes fixed more on the black screen of their TV. His lips were in a thin line, and he seemed like he had a lot on his mind.

“Are you going to tell me or—"

Alex interrupted me sharply, “Just wait a second okay, because you’re not going to like it anyways.”

I furrowed my eyebrows at this, not understanding what he meant by that. He bit down on his lip, struggling to say anything. I wished he would just come out with it already, this was absolutely killing me. I wanted to know already, whatever it was everything would be fine.

“It’s just...there was this person at the club and they said something to me. I haven’t been able to get it off my mind ever since,” he admitted.

“So is that why you’re acting so cold to me?”

He looked back around to me, shaking his head. “No! I just – I just don’t feel like I’m worth it Jack, all of this is going to be ruined at some point. And then I won’t even have you as my friend anymore, and I can’t have that. What if I slip up, what if I – I don’t know – what if I went and made out with someone, you know by accident. I don’t want you to hate me.”

All of this came out in one fast ramble and I had to listen carefully to hear it all. I stared at him in disbelief, both confused and shocked that he could possibly think that way. But I felt that there was something more than what he was telling me, there was a part he had missed out deliberately. How he could feel that he isn’t worth it though is preposterous. Alex is so worth it, he’s worth it and so much more. He has to understand that and I feel like smacking some sense into him so he will.

“Are you fucking stupid? You’d have to do something absolutely horrible for me to hate you and not want to be your friend anymore. We’ll always be friends, Alex. That will never change. Besides, you haven’t done anything behind my back like that, have you?” I asked, curiously, even though I knew that Alex wouldn’t do that. He might have done that when he was with others, but he would never do that when he was with me. I was certain about that.

He didn’t answer back quickly with a definite, ‘no’, like I thought he would. Instead he shook his head frantically, not bothering to look up at me. “Of course I haven’t.”

I believed him entirely, because why would Alex lie about something like this? He wouldn’t and that’s why I chose not to question him any further like an interrogator. That was the thing though; I believed every single word that came out of Alex’s mouth without even thinking that there could be any possibilities of him actually lying to me.

We were both already heading for a lot of trouble. I should have realised the unsure look in Alex’s eyes before thinking that things were fine now, when in reality they weren’t.

I wanted to break the silence that had appeared between us as I suggested, “Do you want to play a video game or something now? I don’t want to go home in this weather any time soon.”

Alex smiled before a smirk appeared on his face, replacing the expression that had settled on his features before. “Of course, you better get ready to get your ass kicked because I’m the fucking King of Video Games.”

I scoffed at this; seriously Alex was not going to win this. I was competitive too and didn’t go down without a fight. “Oh just you wait, Gaskarth.” I cackled dramatically, as he put the game in and all thoughts of the previous conversation were forgotten.