I Can't Not Love You

[Jack]

A week or so went by, and everyone was starting to get a whole lot more busy with the tour. The band had interviews lined up all over the place with magazines, radio shows, and websites. There were acoustic sessions we had to go to some days. It had been taking the crew longer than usual to set things up because of the snow that was packed down on the ground everywhere in the northern states. The snow made it harder for them to get everything into the venues. Alex was always with John, even when our friends tried getting him to hang out with us. He seemed to prefer John over us lately, which was really annoying.

Today was Valentine’s Day, so it was even worse than usual. Alex had woken up in a lovey-dovey mood and was bugging the shit out of me. It was around lunch time and he was about to go out on a lunch date with John.

“Does this shirt look okay?” Alex asked for the fourth time, looking around the front lounge. Most of the band and crew was up here, but the others were busy with something or another. I was just sitting on my ass doing nothing. This was the fourth shirt that Alex had asked us about, and I was the only one responding each time.

“You look like you just pissed yourself,” I muttered, rolling onto my back. I was lying on the couch.

“What?!” Alex exclaimed, looking down. He let out a string of cuss words when he saw that there was a stain at the bottom of his shirt, running back to his bunk. I snickered quietly to myself, enjoying his frantic attitude. This was amusing for me. He returned after a minute, a new button-up shirt on. “This one?”

“Looks too big,” I said in a bored tone. Alex looked at the others helplessly.

“You look fine, Alex. Quit stressing. The shirt looks nice,” Rian sighed, shooting an annoyed glance at me. I smiled innocently.

“Good. Thanks,” Alex sighed in relief, walking back to his bunk once again.

Rian turned to me, “Did you really have to spend fifteen minutes telling him that he looks like shit in every shirt?”

“I didn’t like how he looked,” I shrugged.

“Bullshit. You were just trying to make him run around like a chicken with his head cut off,” Flyzik rolled his eyes at me.

“Was not,” I protested, even though it was true. Torturing Alex was my only source of amusement for the day.

“Don’t you have anything to go do, Jack?” Danny asked, looking up from his laptop.

“I could harass Alex about his pants, too,” I mused, and everyone around me groaned.

“Leave the poor man alone. He’s just trying to go on a date, and you’re trying to ruin it for him,” Danny said, giving me a look of contempt. I scowled in defeat and rolled off the couch, trudging back to the bunks. If no one wanted me around then I wasn’t going to stay up there.

Alex was standing near his bunk, pulling his shoes on. He looked up when he saw me and raised an eyebrow. “Are you gonna criticize my shoes, too?” he asked, obviously annoyed with me.

“No,” I grumbled, pushing past him. I headed to the back lounge instead and found that it was empty. Good.

I spent the next hour or so playing Mario Kart alone before I finally got bored. I searched through our pile of movies and found Home Alone, then headed back up front. Maybe now that I hadn’t annoyed anyone in a while, they’ll watch this with me.

“Who wants to watch Home Alone?” I questioned, holding the movie up above my head. Everyone was walking around, seeming busy.

“I hate that movie,” Ian said when I held it up in front of him and Vinny, and I pouted. I held it in front of Zack and Rian next.

“No way. I’ve already watched that five times just this tour,” Zack protested. Rian nodded in agreement, walking away.

I sighed, “Flyzik? Grieco?”

“We need to set up the venue, Jack. Sorry,” Flyzik apologized, pulling his coat and gloves on to go outside.

“Danny?” I asked hopefully, putting on my best puppy dog pout and holding the movie in front of him.

“I don’t want to watch that, bro. I’ll watch it with you some other time,” Danny said, not looking up from his laptop screen. I sighed, feeling hurt as I trudged back into the back lounge. No one likes me.

--------------------

It must be “National Ignore Jack Day” because the rest of the day was exactly the same. Even after the crew finished loading up the venue, they ignored me. It had been kind of like this all week, to be honest.

We were in the venue now, getting ready for our show, which started in an hour and a half. I walked up to Zack, nudging him in the back to get his attention. He turned around, “What?”

“Do you know where my shaving kit and stuff went?” I asked.

“Check your bag. Flyzik mentioned something about it last night when he was cleaning your shit up,” Zack said, pointing across the room at our bags. I dug through my bag and found my shaving kit at the very bottom. I headed out of the room, going across the hall to a bathroom and shutting the door behind me. I looked into the mirror and cringed. My scruff was turning into a beard that desperately needed trimming. I spent a little while shaving, satisfied once I was clean-shaven. That looked much better than a furry face.

I was in the middle of getting dressed when I heard people talking outside the bathroom, and I froze when I heard my name. It sounded like Alex talking, but I couldn’t tell who he was talking to.

“Yeah, Jack was pissing me off earlier. It was like he was purposely trying to sabotage my date with John. He’s so annoying lately,” I heard Alex say. I felt my heart drop. I didn’t mean to make myself seem so annoying.

“Maybe he’s jealous,” I heard someone else say, and my eyes widened when I recognized the voice as Danny’s. What the hell? Danny wasn’t supposed to say anything about me to Alex, especially that!

Alex laughed, “Yeah right. Jack wouldn’t be jealous of us.”

“I don’t know, you never know,” Danny said, their voices fading away.

I sunk down to the ground and leaned against the wall, feeling more upset than I had all day. If Danny said anything about me liking Alex, I wasn’t ever going to forgive him. I looked at the razors in my shaving kit and pulled one out, frowning at it as I held it. I wonder if cutting actually would help relieve my feelings a little. I mean, I knew it sometimes made people feel a little better, even though it hurt...

Without thinking much of it, I brought the razor to my bare upper leg and tried to cut a little. I cut a little deeper than intended and yelped in pain, letting out every cuss word I could come up with as the razor clattered to the floor. I reached over and grabbed the toilet paper roll, tearing off some of it and holding it against my leg. Fuck. The fact that I attempted that just makes me feel even worse about myself.

“Jack, what’s going on in there?” I heard Danny call out, knocking on the door.

“Nothing – go away!” I squeaked, heart racing. He better not come in here.

“Why did you yell?”

“Go away,” I repeated.

“I’m coming in, Jack. I don’t believe you,” Danny said, pushing the door open. “Did you cut your face or-”

“Go!”

Danny’s eyes widened when he saw me holding toilet paper against my leg, and he shut the door quickly. “Jack!” he hissed, kneeling down next to me. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Leave me alone, asshole,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes as I looked away from him. He grabbed my hand and pulled it away from my leg along with the toilet paper, revealing the cut. It was still bleeding profusely. Why the hell does a razorblade cut always bleed more?

“Why the fuck would you do something like that? You haven’t done that before, have you?” Danny demanded angrily, eyes trailing past my legs to see if there were any more marks. He grabbed a washcloth from near the sink and held it against my leg to slow down the bleeding.

“No, I haven’t,” I mumbled, pushing his hand away and holding it there myself.

“This isn’t even funny, Jack. You know better than to hurt yourself,” Danny said. His voice was still angry, but the look in his eyes was concern and upset.

“I don’t care. It’s not like anyone else cares if I get hurt. No one else cares about me,” I muttered.

“Don’t say that. You know that every single person on our damn bus cares about you, Jack,” Danny said firmly, lifting my chin up. Tears were running down my eyes freely now, and I hiccupped when I tried to hold back a sob. Danny hugged me, looking helpless. I didn’t blame him; he didn’t know what to do with me.

“Why were you talking to Alex about me before?” I sniffled, when I stopped crying so much.

He looked confused for a second, and then realization hit him. “Oh, Jack. I wasn’t saying anything about you. I was just teasing Alex. He was ranting and I dragged him away from John so he could just rant to me instead,” he explained. “Is that why you did that? Alex?”

“That’s a stupid question. That’s obviously why I’ve been upset lately,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Just tell him, Jack. It’s tearing you apart,” Danny sighed in frustration.

“I-I can’t. He’s dating John now. That’s just mean, to tear them apart just because I w-want Alex,” I hiccupped, lifting up the washcloth. The bleeding had pretty much stopped now, but the washcloth had quite a bit of blood on it.

“I suppose,” he said, but he didn’t look convinced. “Try and wipe those tears away, will you? I’m going to get you a bandage for your leg. It’s going to pop back open and bleed again when you run around on stage. That would not be an easy story to explain to the others.”