A Love Like War

I'd only called Alex once. It was around a quarter to midnight and I was worried. He'd told me he would talk to me later, but hadn't contacted me or any of the other guys.

It wasn't that I was expecting Alex to call me. It was mostly just my wishful thinking, hoping that maybe, possibly, he actually had changed since I high school. But like always, I had just gotten my hopes up only to be let down. I'd ended up spending most of the rest of that day trying to make myself comfortable with the idea that Alex would only ever care about himself. It hadn't worked too well though.

Three days later, Jack called me. Still, nobody had heard from Alex, and everyone was freaking the hell out. Jack asked me if I would mind going to Alex's hotel room, since he was most likely in there, but if he was he was refusing to open the door for anyone. I hesitantly agreed, but with each turn down every street to the hotel, my regret skyrocketed. I started thinking of every possibility of what could've happened to Alex or why he wasn't talking to anyone. What if he had hurt himself? What if his room had gotten broken into? What if he got in a crash on the way home from the studio? Or what if he opened the door, told me to fuck off, and slammed it shut?

I walked down the hotel room hallway slowly, hoping if I procrastinated enough then something would come up that prevented me from continuing to the room. Unfortunately I had no such luck. Before I knew it, I was facing the door of room 406 and my hand was moving up to knock. After a moment, the door opened to reveal a very tired, worn-out Alex. I let out an enormous sigh of relief.

Apparently Alex noticed, because he cocked his head and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Alex, we were so worried about you. Why haven't you been talking to anyone?" I asked, the words coming out way too quickly to sound casual at all.

A sort of conflicted expression darted across his scruffy features, but it quickly disappeared and his face molded into an emotionless mask. "I just wanted some time to myself."

I sighed. "Can I come in?"

His mask disintegrated and his shoulders slumped. He looked defeated. "Yeah."

He stepped to the side to hold the door open for me, and I cautiously stepped into the hotel room. He led me over to the couch and we sat down, on opposite ends, facing each other. This scene seemed all too familiar for my comfort.

"So?" he asked expectantly. I'd almost forgotten how many questions I had for him.

I put off speaking for a few moments while I surveyed the room. The coffee table in front of the couch was practically covered in beer bottles. There were food stains on the white carpeted floor. Clothes and other small items were strewn about, as if he'd gotten worked up and started throwing things. I wasn't completely sure whether the room had looked like this since he'd gotten to California, or if the mess had accumulated over the past three days. My gut told me it was most likely the latter.

I looked at Alex. I really looked at him. His beard had grown; he probably hadn't shaved in a week. His hair was naturally messy, un-styled. He was wearing a stained white t-shirt and grey sweatpants. His face, for the most part, was expressionless, but his eyes were sad and confused. The sight of him kind of made me want to cry, honestly.

"Did I do something?" I asked suddenly. Though the question had broken the silence, my voice wasn't much louder than a whisper.

He stared at me for a while, and I couldn't tell if he was thinking or just zoning out. Eventually, he uttered the word, "Yeah."

My eyebrows drew together as I thought of all the things I had done and said this past week involving Alex. I could think of a lot of things that would throw him off a bit, but not anything that could upset him this much.

"Can you, uh, elaborate?" I prodded.

Alex opened and closed his mouth a couple times before finally letting the words come out. "Do you remember in high school, the day you came to my house after the party and told me you were pregnant?"

I cringed at the memory. That year was one I tried hard not to think about. I nodded.

"Before that day, all you were to me was the distant, old acquaintance, and awkward new girl in the group who I kind of felt bad for because I was fucking with your social life."

I looked at him curiously and waited for him to continue. He looked as if he were trying to remember the exact words to a speech he'd been practicing, but hadn't quite memorized.

"When you told me that, and I knew that I was the . . . father . . . I don't know what happened, but suddenly you were one of the most important people in my life. I couldn't act like it, of course, 'cause that's not who I was in high school. But that day had an enormous impact on me. It was the first time I'd ever realized . . . Okay, it was like a slap in the face, like some guy screaming at me, 'Hey, dude, you fucked up.' It made me realize how much of an effect my actions actually have on the people around me. And it made me realize that I actually did care about how I was affecting you, and it made me really fucking sad that it was affecting you that drastically and that negatively.

"Since then, I haven't really changed my actions at all, but it's literally all I think about. The way I'm affecting other people, and whether or not I even am affecting them. So when I saw you in the recording studio, and I started being a dick to you, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I might've been hurting you by saying those things, and it kind of made me hate myself. All I wanted to do was make it up to you. Make everything up to you. Every time I've been a dick to you or caused you a problem or made you upset in any way. But I know I can't and it kills me. Because honestly, the more I think about it, you are the last person that deserves the kind of treatment I give you. You deserve to be treated like fucking royalty. And I hate that no matter what I do, I can't do that for you. It's just not who I am. I can't treat anyone well for a substantial amount of time. And I know I never will be able to, and I know if we go anywhere with whatever we have, it'll only be unfair to you, and you'll end up being hurt, and I just can't handle that. So I guess what you did was give me a reality check, and I hate you for that, because it also made me realize how much I actually love you."

Alex's breath was heavy and his eyes were flickering back and forth between his hands in his lap and my eyes. I realized I'd been staring at him with my mouth open and I couldn't really close my mouth because it was dry and there was barely any breath in my lungs. I had no idea what to say to Alex. Hell, I didn't even know what to think about what he just said.

He reached up and swiped his thumb across my cheek, wiping away what I realized was a tear. I hated how I did that; I'd just start crying and not even notice it.

"I'm sorry," Alex said.

"Don't be," was the first thing I blurted out, because somehow the fifteen minutes I'd spent in his hotel room had completely erased every wrong thing he'd done to me in the past seven years.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he asked.

I felt my face soften, finally, and I answered, "Because there's nothing to be sorry about."

He gave me the questioning eyebrows again.

"You aren't perfect. You're selfish, conceited, rude, obnoxious, and clueless. But you're also selfless, humble, incredibly sweet, intelligent, and kind of perfect," I said, moving my lips around each word as if I had to be careful with them or they would lose their meaning.

For the first time in years, I saw his eyes light up with an intense spark of hope. His whole face relaxed and I could almost see a bit of misery drain out of him. And that was the only thing I needed to see to know that I didn't have to worry about anything.