Mistakes We Wouldn't Learn From

[Alex]

I woke up in the morning on a couch, unsure where I was. Shouldn’t I be in the van? I looked around and realized that we had crashed at the party that everyone was invited to. I sat up quickly, regretting it as I did so. My head spun and I felt nauseous. Shit, I must have drank a lot last night.

That thought alarmed me – I realized that I couldn’t remember anything that happened last night. The last thing I remembered was getting up from the couch with Zack to go hang out with Derek. Another wave of nausea rolled through and I jumped up from the couch, frantically looking down the hall for the bathroom. I found it and rushed in there, puking in the toilet. Gross. It was just a bunch of pizza, alcohol, and stomach acid. Too much pizza makes me sick, and apparently the combination of that and alcohol makes me puke.

I flushed the toilet before rinsing out my mouth and walking out of the bathroom. My previous thoughts had returned to my head, making me worry. If I couldn’t remember what I did last night, I must have drank a lot. And when I drink a lot, I do extremely stupid shit. Fuck, I had promised Zack that this wouldn’t happen again!

I bumped into Jack as I walked toward the front door, almost knocking both of us down. Jack smiled tiredly, “Morning.”

“Hey,” I greeted, tugging on my shoes that I had just found. “Does your head hurt as much as mine?”

“Mine is killing me,” he groaned. “I had fun last night though. Gabe’s pretty funny when he’s drunk.”

“I wouldn’t know. I can’t remember anything,” I admitted sheepishly.

Jack’s eyes widened, “That’s probably not a good thing.”

“Obviously,” I sighed, opening the front door just as Evan, Grieco, and Rian were staggering over to us sleepily.

“Has anyone seen Zack or Matt?” Rian asked, looking worried. “I can’t find them in the house.”

“Zack wasn’t with you, Alex?” Grieco asked in surprise.

I shook my head, “I woke up on a couch downstairs.”

“That’s weird. Both of you were upstairs last night, making out so much that I left you alone,” he said.

“Matt’s probably out in the van,” Evan pointed out, pushing the screen door open. “Zack might be with him.”

The five of us headed outside, and I squinted in the bright sunlight. This light was not helping my hangover. Rian pulled open the van door and, sure enough, Matt and Zack were both inside. Zack was curled up in a ball in the back seat, sleeping. Matt was pulling a clean t-shirt over his head.

“There you are. We didn’t know where you or Zack went,” Rian said in relief.

“We’ve been here all night,” Matt said in a grumpy tone. He spotted me behind the others and his eyes flashed with anger. “So you didn’t drown yourself in alcohol after I left you?”

“What?” I asked, confused. Why did he look so angry with me?

“You know what I’m talking about, you asshole!” Matt said angrily, jumping out of the van. The others stepped out of the way as he stormed toward me, grabbing me by the shirt.

I shook my head quickly, “I-I don’t remember anything I did last night, Matt! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Matt scowled, “So that means you don’t remember what you did to hurt Zack, and you don’t remember the rant I yelled at you afterwards.”

I froze in fear. I hurt Zack?!

“W-what? I wouldn’t hurt Zack,” I stammered. Looking past Matt, I could see that Zack had woken up and climbed over to the opening of the van. “Zack! Tell Matt I didn’t hurt you!” I said, breaking away from Matt and walking toward him.

Zack let out a quiet yelp as I came over to him, scrambling away from me and sitting in the middle seat, “N-no, d-don’t touch me!”

I felt my heart drop, and Rian and Matt both yanked me away from Zack. Why was Zack acting like that? He looked terrified.

“Is that why you asked me to go check on Zack last night? When I refused to, because I was drinking?” Rian asked, and Matt nodded. “Oh my gosh, Zack. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know something was wrong.”

“Y-you don’t touch me either,” Zack said, cringing as Rian tried to hug him. Rian looked hurt, before turning to me and scowling.

“W-what did I do?” I whimpered, my throat dry as I looked up at Matt.

“Zack told me that you were drinking with Derek, and you just kept getting more drunk as the night went on. He said you went looking for him upstairs, really drunk, and started making out with him. Apparently you were giving him a hand job or something and stopped because you said that you wouldn’t finish unless he had sex with you,” Matt explained, glaring at me.

My eyes widened. Zack wasn’t ready for sex yet. He had told me that, and I had promised that I would wait until he was ready.

“And when Zack said he didn’t want to have sex with you, you kept insisting on it. Zack said you grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the wall so he couldn’t move, and you were trying to force him into having sex. He managed to get away from you and ran outside, and that’s when I saw him and came out here to see what was wrong. He was in the middle of a panic attack and won’t even let anyone touch him now,” Matt finished furiously.

“You tried to rape him?!” Rian roared in anger, making the rest of us flinch. Jack, Evan, and Grieco had taken a few steps back from me when Matt explained the story, almost like they were afraid of me. They looked disgusted.

“N-no! I mean, I didn’t- I didn’t know what I was doing! I was drunk!” I said helplessly, my voice desperate. “Zack, you know I wouldn’t try to force you into doing anything like that! I-I couldn’t have done that!” I didn’t want to believe what Matt had just said. I’ve done a lot of stupid things when I was drunk, but trying to force Zack into sex? That was too extreme.

“Then why the hell won’t Zack let anyone touch him? Alex, he wouldn’t let me come within an arms length of him last night. And you saw what he just did to you and Rian. That’s a sign of someone who was traumatized,” Matt spat at me.

“B-but...” I stammered.

“Show him your wrists, Zack. Maybe then he’ll believe you,” Matt said in a softer tone, turning to Zack. Zack was sitting in the middle row of the van, his knees up to his chest and the hood of his hoodie up over his head. He sighed when Matt spoke to him, hesitating as I came closer. He pulled both of his hoodie sleeves up slightly and I gasped. On both of his wrists, there were finger-shaped bruises. Long, finger-shaped bruises that could only belong to me.

I met Zack’s eyes briefly as I looked up and felt another pang of guilt. He honestly looked scared of me. I was horrified with myself for doing that to him. “Zack... I’m so sorry...”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Zack muttered, pulling his sleeves back down and turning away from me. “I’ve dealt with enough of your bullshit.”

It wasn’t until then that I realized I had tears in my eyes, and they spilled over as Zack spoke. I choked back a sob, stepping back with blurry eyes. None of my friends looked the least bit sympathetic for me, and I didn’t blame them. What I did was horrible. Jack was the only one who looked slightly upset to see me crying, but he didn’t say anything.

There was nowhere else to go, so I just sunk down against the van, burying my face in my arms and trying to muffle the sobs wracking my body. The others climbed into the van, and I heard someone mumble, “We’re leaving soon, Alex.”

I kept trying to stop myself from crying, but it just wouldn’t end. I had really fucked up this time. I had promised Zack that I wouldn’t drink like that again. This time I had hurt him physically and emotionally, and that was going to make it a lot harder for him to forgive me.

This time, I was pretty sure that I was going to lose Zack over my own stupidity.