Status: Completed.
Don't Forget About Me.
Chapter 4, Part 2
Jack’s POV: Age 14
Things were shit at home, my parents were still arguing. It seemed to have become a regular occurrence in the Barakat household lately, and honestly I was getting pretty sick of it already. I hated lying in bed at night, listening to yet another heated argument which ended in my mother trying her best to climb the stairs quietly whilst failing to hold back the tears caused by my father breaking her heart.
It had started a couple of weeks ago when Dad had come home late from work, which at first wasn’t anything out of the ordinary because he often worked late at the office and it was rare we would see him at anytime other than before school. But this time was different, this time he had come home with a slight smell of alcohol and the faintest pink smudge on his cheek.
I noticed it instantly, and prayed that Mum wouldn’t pay too much attention to him and cast a blind eye, but I realised my prayers hadn’t been answered the moment I glanced to my left as we stood in the entrance hall, and saw a mixture of emotions wash over her face, first I saw joy which was closely followed by confusion, realisation, anger and sorrow.
“Jack, go to your room please.” I couldn’t control the confusion that must’ve waved over my face as the words left my mothers’ mouth.
“But Mum-” I tried to protest but was instantly stopped dead in my tracks as I saw the pleading in her eyes. I wanted to fight back, but I could already see the hurt she was feeling, and I didn’t want to be the reason that she felt any worse than she already did. So I decided to follow her wishes by erasing any argument I had and retreating to the confines of my room before pressing play on my CD player, causing the Blink CD that was already in to start playing.
After a couple of hours I had exhausted any possible source of entertainment in my room, and after examining my bedside alarm clock I noted that the time was now midnight, which meant it was too late to start texting Alex. So with a sigh I padded across my room to turn my CD player off with every intentions to then climb into bed and get a good night’s sleep before getting up for school in the morning. But it was as the music ceased blaring into my room that I first heard the mumbled raised voices rising from the room below me.
Being the curious person that I am I decided to investigate, slowly I pulled the handle of my bedroom door down – careful not to make any noise as I opened it and treaded my way to the railings at the top of the stairs, straining my ears to listen to the words being exchanged by my parents but managing to only make out a few parts.
“How could you! All this time!” my mother yelled.
“Joyce, be quiet! Jack’s music has stopped, he’ll hear you!”
“I don’t care anymore!” She screamed back at him, but instantly lowered her voice so it became nothing but a monotone mumble to me. I was tempted to descend a few steps in order to be closer to the conversation, but I knew that if I heard too much I would probably act upon impulse and barge in there, which at this point I didn’t think would be too helpful, so instead I retreated back to my bedroom and climbed into bed where I fell asleep holding my pillow to my ears in an attempt to block out the ever raising voices.
Like I said, that was a couple of weeks ago and things were still continuing to get worse, I wasn’t naive enough to believe that things could get better anymore. For the first week I thought that it would all blow over soon, but now I knew better, every day I expected to get home from school to find my Dad being kicked out, but unfortunately that day has yet to come. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father, I mean sure we’ve never had a very close relationship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. But if him being around meant seeing my mother upset, then I would happily be the one to ask him to leave, if Mum would let me.
I was currently on my way home from school, but the minute I walked through the door I could feel the tension in the air and instantly understood why when I spotted my fathers’ jacket hung up on the coat rack, I assumed he had come home in another desperate attempt to claim his innocence to Mum. Upon coming to this conclusion I kicked my shoes off, quickly ran to my room, dumped my school bag, threw come relatively clean clothes in to a new bag before getting changed, grabbing my iPod, retying my shoes and running back out of the front door.
I needed to get out of the house, so I went to the one place I knew I could be alone. My special place. I hadn’t been here for at least six months, but things were so fucked up lately and I just needed to get away. My mind was spinning in a thousand different directions and I didn’t have a clue what to do, I wanted to be concerned about what was going on back at home I really did, but somehow I couldn’t make myself care, because for the past couple of weeks nearly every single one of my thoughts had had but one thing in common: Alex.
I’d begun to feel things lately, things I shouldn’t feel for my best friend, and funnily enough it had all began around the same time as things had started going downhill at home. Of course, Alex being my best friend, he was the first person I had turned to. He’d been the best I could’ve ever asked for these past couple of weeks and had been my shoulder to cry on on several occasions.
Everything had been great in that aspect of things. Well, that was until about three days ago. I’d fled to Alex’s house again after a particularly bad argument between my parents, where my mother had taken to throwing a coffee cup at the wall a couple of feet away from where Dad had been stood. Of course he’d taken me in with open arms and let me cry into his shoulder, not saying a single word, just letting me release all the emotion building up inside myself.
After calming down we didn’t bring up the subject again, Mrs Gaskarth had grown accustom to my visits by now and always made a little bit extra food for tea on the off chance that I may show up, which I would forever be grateful to her for. So as seven PM came around myself, Alex, Mr and Mrs Gaskarth all sat down at the dinner table to eat our meal with only light dinner conversation occasionally breaking the silence.
This had almost become a routine now and part of me was glad that it had, because although the cause of the routine to start wasn’t necessarily positive, it proved to me just how much Alex really did care about me and it also proved to me that I had made the right choice in taking a chance on the new kid with the weird accent when he had first moved here. After dinner we thanked Mrs Gaskarth for the meal then retreated to Alex’s room to complete homework and play video games – just like any other day. And it wasn’t until the night was growing later and we were preparing for bed that I felt a small hint of tension in the room, over the past few years of knowing Alex I had developed an almost sixth sense to his emotions, and right now I felt like he was nervous about something almost like he was hiding something from me and wasn’t sure whether to tell me or not.
“Spit it out Alex,” I said light heartedly, I didn’t have to look at him to know that a slight hint of colour had just tinted his cheeks as his eyes bore into the back of my head. I heard his footsteps approach me from behind and I turned to face him, only to be met by his lips softly pressing against my own. It was small and delicate, and the softness of his lips caught me by surprise, so much so that I almost didn’t realise the kiss was over after a few seconds and Alex was now pulling away from me. I was in too much shock to respond properly, so instead I shifted myself down in my make-shift bed on his floor, pulled the covers up to my chin before murmuring a quiet “Night Alex.” And with that I closed my eyes and willed sleep to take me so I would be freed of the guilt that was pulsing through my body as I heard the soft sobs coming from the bed just a few feet away from me.
***
After what felt like hours I woke for some unknown reason, and sighed as the memories of what had happened just a few hours prior came flooding back to me. I checked my phone to see that it was two in the morning, and looking around I still couldn’t find a reason as to why my sleep had been so abruptly interrupted. It wasn’t until I scanned the room a few times, and my eyes had started to adjust to the darkness of the room that I noticed the silhouette of my best friend as he sat on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, head resting on his arms.
Instinct took over as I instantly pulled my covers back and climbed out of bed before making my way over to his bed and climbed in beside him, pulling him into my chest. I felt his body tense and then relax against me as he cried into my arms, and that’s how we stayed until morning, neither of us uttering a word. I hadn’t managed to fall back asleep, my thoughts were racing trying to work out where this left us now, what would happen to our friendship. But Alex had finally stopped crying at about four AM and managed to fall back asleep, which I was grateful for that because it meant we wouldn’t be forced to talk about what happened, and just for now, it could all be forgotten about.
It was Saturday today, so we hadn’t set the alarm last night, which meant I had time to think about what I was going to do about the situation I suddenly found myself in. This is too much for a fourteen year old boy to be worried about I kept thinking to myself, fourteen year old boys shouldn’t have to worry about their best friend kissing them. Except when said best friend happens to be the same gender as you. I may be young, but I’m not stupid, I know what people think about these kind of things, I knew no-one would understand.
I was so deep in thought I didn’t even notice when Alex woke up, or even when he raised himself from my chest and instead took to kneeling beside me, staring intently at me as he tried to read my facial expression. It wasn’t until out he let out a heavy sigh and shifted himself so that he was straddling my thighs that I was pulled from my thoughts and found myself looking directly into the eyes of my best friend.
“Hi.” He grinned at me, and I took notice of how it made his hazel eyes gleam.
“Hi there.” I couldn’t help but respond with a smile just as big as we fell into a comfortable silence in which we just sat there and watched each other for a while. It was Alex that finally said the first word.
“Jack, listen, I-” I knew that the topic couldn’t be avoided forever, and I also knew that I didn’t want to talk about it. No, definitely not talk about it. I wanted to do something about it. So with that decision in mind I instantly cut him off by wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and bringing his lips crashing to my own. We stayed like that for a few moments, lips slowly moving in sync with each other, and then I felt Alex’s tongue run along my bottom lip and I responded by slightly opening my mouth and allowing him entrance and instantly gave him dominance as I felt his tongue explore every inch of my mouth. This was like no kiss I’d ever experienced before in my life, sure I had kissed girls before and it had been... nice...but none of them could ever compare the electric feeling that ran through me as I shared this moment with Alex. But it was all over too soon as we both had to pull away in need of air, a slight tint of pink rose to our cheeks and our now slightly swollen bottom lips.
“Fuck it” I thought to myself. “Alex, will you-uh-would you like to be my boyfriend?” I looked up and saw that his head was bowed down, but I could still see the look of shock that wiped across his face as my words sunk in, my heart fluttered in anticipation, and they were only intensified as after a couple of second passed by, the biggest grin I have ever seen spread across his face as he nodded his head frantically and gently pulled me back towards me to place a soft kiss on my lips, before I pulled away and placing my hands on his shoulders and carefully shoving him sideways off of my legs.
“Now get off me you fat lump, I want food, and as my boyfriend,” I smiled at the word, “It is your duty to feed me.” I climbed off the bed and instead stood next to it, arms folded across my chest as I stared at him expectantly. He watched me for a few seconds before scrambling to follow me in climbing off the bed before leading the way out of his bedroom door, down the stairs and into the kitchen where he pulled out two bowls and filled them both with cereal and milk. As I sat down at the dining table I watched him as he placed a spoon in each bowl and made his way over before carefully placing mine in front of me and taking his own seat.
When we finished eating Alex took my bowl from me, placed both of them in the dishwasher and continued to make his way through to the living room, he already knew that I was going to follow him so he made no attempt to beckon me himself. Mr and Mrs Gaskarth had already left for work, and they wouldn’t be back until later this evening, so we decided to spend our day playing video games, snacking on junk food and watching movies – of course, Home Alone being one of them, Alex had learnt to not bother attempting to resist, he now just accepted that we would watch it whether he liked it or not.
And when the Gaskarths’ returned home that night, the routine of eating together and then going our separate ways continued and once again myself and Alex found ourselves in his room kissing, just as we had been the previous night. Although this time neither of us fell asleep crying, instead we both shared his bed, me laying flat on my back while Alex slept curled into my side, his head resting on my chest and his arm draped over my stomach as I wrapped my arm around his shoulder, keeping him help as close to me as possible before finally drifting off myself into a happy oblivion of Alex filled dreams.
***
The next morning we woke up just as we had fallen asleep – in each other’s arms. I was confused at first, but as the memories of the previous night came flooding back to me I couldn’t help but smile. I looked down at the boy on my chest, his head rising and falling in time to my breathing. Forgive me for using such a girly term, but he looked, well...adorable.
I sighed as I leant my head back against the headboard of his bed, thinking about how I could be so lucky to end up with the person that knew me better than anyone else. How had I not noticed before how strong my feelings were for him? Why did it take a night of him being so upset to make me realise that I felt the same way? A pang of guilt hit my chest as the guilt seeped in after I remembered rejecting him, but it soon melted away as I took another glance at my best friend boyfriend.
I knew I had to talk to him about us, today. I didn’t want to, because I wasn’t sure how he’d take it, but it needed to be done. No matter how much I like him, and am willing for him to know that I like him, I’m not quite willing for it to be the common knowledge of school just yet. I sank into a deep thought again about my situation – it was happening more and more recently – and it wasn’t until I felt Alex stir under my arm that I was knocked from my thoughts. I smiled to myself and nudged my nose into his hair, pulling him out of his sleep.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” I awoke him with, slowly raising my hand to his face to swipe his dark brown bangs from his eyes, which, when uncovered, I discovered to be glistening up at me which caused a massive grin to break out across my face, to which he instantly responded with a smile of his own just as big.
I nuzzled my nose against his before gently placing a soft kiss on his lips, I felt him smile against me as our lips moved in sync. It was a few minutes before we pulled away, still smiling like idiots at each other.
“You have terrible morning breath by the way,” I teased him. His expression became one of mock shock.
“How dare you! Well, well, so do you! So ner.” And with that he childishly stuck his tongue out at me and climbed off the bed, dramatically huffing and puffing at her went.
“Don’t be so dramatic!” I called after him just as he entered his en suite, only for him to flip the bird at me before shutting the door.
I slouched further in to the bed and smiled to myself, “yeah,” I thought, “this is definitely going to last.”
***
6 months later.
Today was the day; we were finally going to do it, Me and Alex. Alex and Me. I can’t believe we’ve lasted six months, but it’s literally like we were made for each other. It wasn’t until we started dating that I actually realised that it wasn’t much different to our relationship before, only now we were allowed to be cutesy about it – only in private though, of course.
Today’s our six month anniversary, and I had everything planned out.
I was going to re-enact the first date me and Alex ever had together as a couple. Since I was the one who had asked him to be my boyfriend, I took it upon myself to initiate the first date, so I’d booked us a table at a small diner on the outskirts of town. It was an hours’ bus journey from here but it was worth it if it meant being able to be relaxed around Alex without anyone recognising us.
So that’s what we were going to do tonight, we were going back to his straight after school and then we were going to head out. But that’s not all I had planned. Tonight is the night I tell Alex I love him. I’ve been wanting to say it for about a month now, but it’s gotten to the point where I feel like the words are about to roll off of my tongue every time I open my mouth. And honestly, I couldn’t be more excited.
Before all that though, there was something much bigger, and much more dangerous that needed to be done before any of this could take place, because like I said, today is our sixth month anniversary, and it needed to be special.
So last night, I had told Alex I was ready, he’d looked at me for about ten minutes straight with a confused look on his face, I glanced at our hands and he followed my gaze, before looking back up at me, the confused look had only intensified which caused me to let out a breathy laugh at him.
“I’m ready to tell.” I’d confessed to him. It took a few seconds, but you could almost hear the penny drop in his head as his eyes filled to the brim with tears and he threw his arms around my neck, forcing me back on to the bed. He’d pressed a passionate kiss to my lips before pulling away for air, placing his hands at either side of my head to support him above me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” He sounded sincere, but I could see the ecstasy, the joy, the excitement in his eyes. I simply smiled and nodded my head, and once again found his lips hastily pressed against mine.
“Thank you, Jack.” His words were serious, but I could tell he was doing everything he could to stop himself bursting with excitement, I knew he was worried about people’s responses, but he’d been asking me for a few weeks now if we could, and well, what better time to agree than on our sixth month anniversary?
“You’re welcome, ‘Lex’” I’d murmured as I nuzzled my head into the crook of his neck, breathing deeply as I inhaled his scent. We laid like that for another hour before finally getting out of bed and going about our day as normal.
So that’s what was going to make this day even more special. Today was the day we were going to come out, make ourselves official and stop hiding. We weren’t stupid enough to think that we could just announce it to the whole school so bluntly and expect not to receive any grief; we would be naive to think so. We decided the best way to do it would be to just not care, we weren’t going to hide it anymore, we were going to walk the corridors hand in hand, we’d kiss each other goodbye at our lockers like every other couple in this school, and best of all? We were going to be happy.
I was currently on my way to Alex’s locker to give him the generic card and rose I had bought him the day before. I couldn’t help but grin like a Cheshire cat on my way there, I didn’t care how strange people thought I was for it, I was going to smile all I wanted, because today, today was going to be perfect.
I was just turning the last corner of the corridor which lead to our lockers when I stopped dead in my tracks, and I swear I felt my heard shatter into a thousand iddy biddy irreplaceable pieces. Because there, right in front of my eyes, I had just seen my boyfriend of six months making out with the head cheerleader. The head female cheerleader.
I froze. Completely froze to the spot in which I was standing, my mouth opened and closed at my loss for words, making me slightly resemble a goldfish. But at this moment in time I didn’t care, because tears had already began to uncontrollably pour down my face. I snapped back to reality and dropped the card and rose to the floor before spinning on my heel and running straight back out the front doors of school.
I ran back to his house and used the key Mrs Gaskarth had given me when I pretty much started living here to get in, ran to his room and gathered all of my possessions that had collected here over the past few months, before running downstairs and leaving a note to Mrs Gaskarth that simply read:
“Thanks for everything, Mum.
Love, Jack. Xo”
I had taken to calling her Mum over the course of my staying here, because she may as well have been, she did everything for me. But that didn’t matter now; none of this mattered now, because I was having nothing to do with the Gaskarth family ever again.
I left the house, locked the door behind me and slid the key back through the letter box, before slowly making my way back to my own house, possessions in arms, tears streaming down my face.
When I finally walked through my front door, I instantly made my way up to my room finding it exactly how I had left it just weeks before. I dumped all of my things in the corner of my room and stripped myself of my clothing, pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a plain white t-shirt as I climbed into bed, which is where I finally drifted off to sleep hours later, after draining my body of every tear it could muster up, leaving my pillow a big soggy lump under my head.
I woke up hours later to the sound of my phone going off, and just when I thought my heart couldn’t break anymore, I saw that the reminder flashing on my phone was informing me that I would’ve just been seated at the table I had reserved for me and Alex.
I was just about to throw the device across the room when a series of missed calls and texts caught my eye. All of them reading the same name: Alex<3
I couldn’t bear to read them all, so I skipped to the most recent one, sent four hours ago: three PM: the time we would usually be getting home from school. It simply read:
“I’m so sorry, I guess I just wasn’t ready after all.”
Today was the first day I hated Alex Gaskarth more than anything else on this earth.
Things were shit at home, my parents were still arguing. It seemed to have become a regular occurrence in the Barakat household lately, and honestly I was getting pretty sick of it already. I hated lying in bed at night, listening to yet another heated argument which ended in my mother trying her best to climb the stairs quietly whilst failing to hold back the tears caused by my father breaking her heart.
It had started a couple of weeks ago when Dad had come home late from work, which at first wasn’t anything out of the ordinary because he often worked late at the office and it was rare we would see him at anytime other than before school. But this time was different, this time he had come home with a slight smell of alcohol and the faintest pink smudge on his cheek.
I noticed it instantly, and prayed that Mum wouldn’t pay too much attention to him and cast a blind eye, but I realised my prayers hadn’t been answered the moment I glanced to my left as we stood in the entrance hall, and saw a mixture of emotions wash over her face, first I saw joy which was closely followed by confusion, realisation, anger and sorrow.
“Jack, go to your room please.” I couldn’t control the confusion that must’ve waved over my face as the words left my mothers’ mouth.
“But Mum-” I tried to protest but was instantly stopped dead in my tracks as I saw the pleading in her eyes. I wanted to fight back, but I could already see the hurt she was feeling, and I didn’t want to be the reason that she felt any worse than she already did. So I decided to follow her wishes by erasing any argument I had and retreating to the confines of my room before pressing play on my CD player, causing the Blink CD that was already in to start playing.
After a couple of hours I had exhausted any possible source of entertainment in my room, and after examining my bedside alarm clock I noted that the time was now midnight, which meant it was too late to start texting Alex. So with a sigh I padded across my room to turn my CD player off with every intentions to then climb into bed and get a good night’s sleep before getting up for school in the morning. But it was as the music ceased blaring into my room that I first heard the mumbled raised voices rising from the room below me.
Being the curious person that I am I decided to investigate, slowly I pulled the handle of my bedroom door down – careful not to make any noise as I opened it and treaded my way to the railings at the top of the stairs, straining my ears to listen to the words being exchanged by my parents but managing to only make out a few parts.
“How could you! All this time!” my mother yelled.
“Joyce, be quiet! Jack’s music has stopped, he’ll hear you!”
“I don’t care anymore!” She screamed back at him, but instantly lowered her voice so it became nothing but a monotone mumble to me. I was tempted to descend a few steps in order to be closer to the conversation, but I knew that if I heard too much I would probably act upon impulse and barge in there, which at this point I didn’t think would be too helpful, so instead I retreated back to my bedroom and climbed into bed where I fell asleep holding my pillow to my ears in an attempt to block out the ever raising voices.
Like I said, that was a couple of weeks ago and things were still continuing to get worse, I wasn’t naive enough to believe that things could get better anymore. For the first week I thought that it would all blow over soon, but now I knew better, every day I expected to get home from school to find my Dad being kicked out, but unfortunately that day has yet to come. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father, I mean sure we’ve never had a very close relationship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. But if him being around meant seeing my mother upset, then I would happily be the one to ask him to leave, if Mum would let me.
I was currently on my way home from school, but the minute I walked through the door I could feel the tension in the air and instantly understood why when I spotted my fathers’ jacket hung up on the coat rack, I assumed he had come home in another desperate attempt to claim his innocence to Mum. Upon coming to this conclusion I kicked my shoes off, quickly ran to my room, dumped my school bag, threw come relatively clean clothes in to a new bag before getting changed, grabbing my iPod, retying my shoes and running back out of the front door.
I needed to get out of the house, so I went to the one place I knew I could be alone. My special place. I hadn’t been here for at least six months, but things were so fucked up lately and I just needed to get away. My mind was spinning in a thousand different directions and I didn’t have a clue what to do, I wanted to be concerned about what was going on back at home I really did, but somehow I couldn’t make myself care, because for the past couple of weeks nearly every single one of my thoughts had had but one thing in common: Alex.
I’d begun to feel things lately, things I shouldn’t feel for my best friend, and funnily enough it had all began around the same time as things had started going downhill at home. Of course, Alex being my best friend, he was the first person I had turned to. He’d been the best I could’ve ever asked for these past couple of weeks and had been my shoulder to cry on on several occasions.
Everything had been great in that aspect of things. Well, that was until about three days ago. I’d fled to Alex’s house again after a particularly bad argument between my parents, where my mother had taken to throwing a coffee cup at the wall a couple of feet away from where Dad had been stood. Of course he’d taken me in with open arms and let me cry into his shoulder, not saying a single word, just letting me release all the emotion building up inside myself.
After calming down we didn’t bring up the subject again, Mrs Gaskarth had grown accustom to my visits by now and always made a little bit extra food for tea on the off chance that I may show up, which I would forever be grateful to her for. So as seven PM came around myself, Alex, Mr and Mrs Gaskarth all sat down at the dinner table to eat our meal with only light dinner conversation occasionally breaking the silence.
This had almost become a routine now and part of me was glad that it had, because although the cause of the routine to start wasn’t necessarily positive, it proved to me just how much Alex really did care about me and it also proved to me that I had made the right choice in taking a chance on the new kid with the weird accent when he had first moved here. After dinner we thanked Mrs Gaskarth for the meal then retreated to Alex’s room to complete homework and play video games – just like any other day. And it wasn’t until the night was growing later and we were preparing for bed that I felt a small hint of tension in the room, over the past few years of knowing Alex I had developed an almost sixth sense to his emotions, and right now I felt like he was nervous about something almost like he was hiding something from me and wasn’t sure whether to tell me or not.
“Spit it out Alex,” I said light heartedly, I didn’t have to look at him to know that a slight hint of colour had just tinted his cheeks as his eyes bore into the back of my head. I heard his footsteps approach me from behind and I turned to face him, only to be met by his lips softly pressing against my own. It was small and delicate, and the softness of his lips caught me by surprise, so much so that I almost didn’t realise the kiss was over after a few seconds and Alex was now pulling away from me. I was in too much shock to respond properly, so instead I shifted myself down in my make-shift bed on his floor, pulled the covers up to my chin before murmuring a quiet “Night Alex.” And with that I closed my eyes and willed sleep to take me so I would be freed of the guilt that was pulsing through my body as I heard the soft sobs coming from the bed just a few feet away from me.
***
After what felt like hours I woke for some unknown reason, and sighed as the memories of what had happened just a few hours prior came flooding back to me. I checked my phone to see that it was two in the morning, and looking around I still couldn’t find a reason as to why my sleep had been so abruptly interrupted. It wasn’t until I scanned the room a few times, and my eyes had started to adjust to the darkness of the room that I noticed the silhouette of my best friend as he sat on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, head resting on his arms.
Instinct took over as I instantly pulled my covers back and climbed out of bed before making my way over to his bed and climbed in beside him, pulling him into my chest. I felt his body tense and then relax against me as he cried into my arms, and that’s how we stayed until morning, neither of us uttering a word. I hadn’t managed to fall back asleep, my thoughts were racing trying to work out where this left us now, what would happen to our friendship. But Alex had finally stopped crying at about four AM and managed to fall back asleep, which I was grateful for that because it meant we wouldn’t be forced to talk about what happened, and just for now, it could all be forgotten about.
It was Saturday today, so we hadn’t set the alarm last night, which meant I had time to think about what I was going to do about the situation I suddenly found myself in. This is too much for a fourteen year old boy to be worried about I kept thinking to myself, fourteen year old boys shouldn’t have to worry about their best friend kissing them. Except when said best friend happens to be the same gender as you. I may be young, but I’m not stupid, I know what people think about these kind of things, I knew no-one would understand.
I was so deep in thought I didn’t even notice when Alex woke up, or even when he raised himself from my chest and instead took to kneeling beside me, staring intently at me as he tried to read my facial expression. It wasn’t until out he let out a heavy sigh and shifted himself so that he was straddling my thighs that I was pulled from my thoughts and found myself looking directly into the eyes of my best friend.
“Hi.” He grinned at me, and I took notice of how it made his hazel eyes gleam.
“Hi there.” I couldn’t help but respond with a smile just as big as we fell into a comfortable silence in which we just sat there and watched each other for a while. It was Alex that finally said the first word.
“Jack, listen, I-” I knew that the topic couldn’t be avoided forever, and I also knew that I didn’t want to talk about it. No, definitely not talk about it. I wanted to do something about it. So with that decision in mind I instantly cut him off by wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and bringing his lips crashing to my own. We stayed like that for a few moments, lips slowly moving in sync with each other, and then I felt Alex’s tongue run along my bottom lip and I responded by slightly opening my mouth and allowing him entrance and instantly gave him dominance as I felt his tongue explore every inch of my mouth. This was like no kiss I’d ever experienced before in my life, sure I had kissed girls before and it had been... nice...but none of them could ever compare the electric feeling that ran through me as I shared this moment with Alex. But it was all over too soon as we both had to pull away in need of air, a slight tint of pink rose to our cheeks and our now slightly swollen bottom lips.
“Fuck it” I thought to myself. “Alex, will you-uh-would you like to be my boyfriend?” I looked up and saw that his head was bowed down, but I could still see the look of shock that wiped across his face as my words sunk in, my heart fluttered in anticipation, and they were only intensified as after a couple of second passed by, the biggest grin I have ever seen spread across his face as he nodded his head frantically and gently pulled me back towards me to place a soft kiss on my lips, before I pulled away and placing my hands on his shoulders and carefully shoving him sideways off of my legs.
“Now get off me you fat lump, I want food, and as my boyfriend,” I smiled at the word, “It is your duty to feed me.” I climbed off the bed and instead stood next to it, arms folded across my chest as I stared at him expectantly. He watched me for a few seconds before scrambling to follow me in climbing off the bed before leading the way out of his bedroom door, down the stairs and into the kitchen where he pulled out two bowls and filled them both with cereal and milk. As I sat down at the dining table I watched him as he placed a spoon in each bowl and made his way over before carefully placing mine in front of me and taking his own seat.
When we finished eating Alex took my bowl from me, placed both of them in the dishwasher and continued to make his way through to the living room, he already knew that I was going to follow him so he made no attempt to beckon me himself. Mr and Mrs Gaskarth had already left for work, and they wouldn’t be back until later this evening, so we decided to spend our day playing video games, snacking on junk food and watching movies – of course, Home Alone being one of them, Alex had learnt to not bother attempting to resist, he now just accepted that we would watch it whether he liked it or not.
And when the Gaskarths’ returned home that night, the routine of eating together and then going our separate ways continued and once again myself and Alex found ourselves in his room kissing, just as we had been the previous night. Although this time neither of us fell asleep crying, instead we both shared his bed, me laying flat on my back while Alex slept curled into my side, his head resting on my chest and his arm draped over my stomach as I wrapped my arm around his shoulder, keeping him help as close to me as possible before finally drifting off myself into a happy oblivion of Alex filled dreams.
***
The next morning we woke up just as we had fallen asleep – in each other’s arms. I was confused at first, but as the memories of the previous night came flooding back to me I couldn’t help but smile. I looked down at the boy on my chest, his head rising and falling in time to my breathing. Forgive me for using such a girly term, but he looked, well...adorable.
I sighed as I leant my head back against the headboard of his bed, thinking about how I could be so lucky to end up with the person that knew me better than anyone else. How had I not noticed before how strong my feelings were for him? Why did it take a night of him being so upset to make me realise that I felt the same way? A pang of guilt hit my chest as the guilt seeped in after I remembered rejecting him, but it soon melted away as I took another glance at my best friend boyfriend.
I knew I had to talk to him about us, today. I didn’t want to, because I wasn’t sure how he’d take it, but it needed to be done. No matter how much I like him, and am willing for him to know that I like him, I’m not quite willing for it to be the common knowledge of school just yet. I sank into a deep thought again about my situation – it was happening more and more recently – and it wasn’t until I felt Alex stir under my arm that I was knocked from my thoughts. I smiled to myself and nudged my nose into his hair, pulling him out of his sleep.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” I awoke him with, slowly raising my hand to his face to swipe his dark brown bangs from his eyes, which, when uncovered, I discovered to be glistening up at me which caused a massive grin to break out across my face, to which he instantly responded with a smile of his own just as big.
I nuzzled my nose against his before gently placing a soft kiss on his lips, I felt him smile against me as our lips moved in sync. It was a few minutes before we pulled away, still smiling like idiots at each other.
“You have terrible morning breath by the way,” I teased him. His expression became one of mock shock.
“How dare you! Well, well, so do you! So ner.” And with that he childishly stuck his tongue out at me and climbed off the bed, dramatically huffing and puffing at her went.
“Don’t be so dramatic!” I called after him just as he entered his en suite, only for him to flip the bird at me before shutting the door.
I slouched further in to the bed and smiled to myself, “yeah,” I thought, “this is definitely going to last.”
***
6 months later.
Today was the day; we were finally going to do it, Me and Alex. Alex and Me. I can’t believe we’ve lasted six months, but it’s literally like we were made for each other. It wasn’t until we started dating that I actually realised that it wasn’t much different to our relationship before, only now we were allowed to be cutesy about it – only in private though, of course.
Today’s our six month anniversary, and I had everything planned out.
I was going to re-enact the first date me and Alex ever had together as a couple. Since I was the one who had asked him to be my boyfriend, I took it upon myself to initiate the first date, so I’d booked us a table at a small diner on the outskirts of town. It was an hours’ bus journey from here but it was worth it if it meant being able to be relaxed around Alex without anyone recognising us.
So that’s what we were going to do tonight, we were going back to his straight after school and then we were going to head out. But that’s not all I had planned. Tonight is the night I tell Alex I love him. I’ve been wanting to say it for about a month now, but it’s gotten to the point where I feel like the words are about to roll off of my tongue every time I open my mouth. And honestly, I couldn’t be more excited.
Before all that though, there was something much bigger, and much more dangerous that needed to be done before any of this could take place, because like I said, today is our sixth month anniversary, and it needed to be special.
So last night, I had told Alex I was ready, he’d looked at me for about ten minutes straight with a confused look on his face, I glanced at our hands and he followed my gaze, before looking back up at me, the confused look had only intensified which caused me to let out a breathy laugh at him.
“I’m ready to tell.” I’d confessed to him. It took a few seconds, but you could almost hear the penny drop in his head as his eyes filled to the brim with tears and he threw his arms around my neck, forcing me back on to the bed. He’d pressed a passionate kiss to my lips before pulling away for air, placing his hands at either side of my head to support him above me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” He sounded sincere, but I could see the ecstasy, the joy, the excitement in his eyes. I simply smiled and nodded my head, and once again found his lips hastily pressed against mine.
“Thank you, Jack.” His words were serious, but I could tell he was doing everything he could to stop himself bursting with excitement, I knew he was worried about people’s responses, but he’d been asking me for a few weeks now if we could, and well, what better time to agree than on our sixth month anniversary?
“You’re welcome, ‘Lex’” I’d murmured as I nuzzled my head into the crook of his neck, breathing deeply as I inhaled his scent. We laid like that for another hour before finally getting out of bed and going about our day as normal.
So that’s what was going to make this day even more special. Today was the day we were going to come out, make ourselves official and stop hiding. We weren’t stupid enough to think that we could just announce it to the whole school so bluntly and expect not to receive any grief; we would be naive to think so. We decided the best way to do it would be to just not care, we weren’t going to hide it anymore, we were going to walk the corridors hand in hand, we’d kiss each other goodbye at our lockers like every other couple in this school, and best of all? We were going to be happy.
I was currently on my way to Alex’s locker to give him the generic card and rose I had bought him the day before. I couldn’t help but grin like a Cheshire cat on my way there, I didn’t care how strange people thought I was for it, I was going to smile all I wanted, because today, today was going to be perfect.
I was just turning the last corner of the corridor which lead to our lockers when I stopped dead in my tracks, and I swear I felt my heard shatter into a thousand iddy biddy irreplaceable pieces. Because there, right in front of my eyes, I had just seen my boyfriend of six months making out with the head cheerleader. The head female cheerleader.
I froze. Completely froze to the spot in which I was standing, my mouth opened and closed at my loss for words, making me slightly resemble a goldfish. But at this moment in time I didn’t care, because tears had already began to uncontrollably pour down my face. I snapped back to reality and dropped the card and rose to the floor before spinning on my heel and running straight back out the front doors of school.
I ran back to his house and used the key Mrs Gaskarth had given me when I pretty much started living here to get in, ran to his room and gathered all of my possessions that had collected here over the past few months, before running downstairs and leaving a note to Mrs Gaskarth that simply read:
“Thanks for everything, Mum.
Love, Jack. Xo”
I had taken to calling her Mum over the course of my staying here, because she may as well have been, she did everything for me. But that didn’t matter now; none of this mattered now, because I was having nothing to do with the Gaskarth family ever again.
I left the house, locked the door behind me and slid the key back through the letter box, before slowly making my way back to my own house, possessions in arms, tears streaming down my face.
When I finally walked through my front door, I instantly made my way up to my room finding it exactly how I had left it just weeks before. I dumped all of my things in the corner of my room and stripped myself of my clothing, pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a plain white t-shirt as I climbed into bed, which is where I finally drifted off to sleep hours later, after draining my body of every tear it could muster up, leaving my pillow a big soggy lump under my head.
I woke up hours later to the sound of my phone going off, and just when I thought my heart couldn’t break anymore, I saw that the reminder flashing on my phone was informing me that I would’ve just been seated at the table I had reserved for me and Alex.
I was just about to throw the device across the room when a series of missed calls and texts caught my eye. All of them reading the same name: Alex<3
I couldn’t bear to read them all, so I skipped to the most recent one, sent four hours ago: three PM: the time we would usually be getting home from school. It simply read:
“I’m so sorry, I guess I just wasn’t ready after all.”
Today was the first day I hated Alex Gaskarth more than anything else on this earth.
♠ ♠ ♠
Finally decided to try uploading to here again, and voila! We have success, so for those of you who are subscribed you'll be getting three updates tonight!I'm sorry if you really hate this - I don't blame you, but I'm going to finish it on the off chance that at least one of you is crazy and actually likes it :)
Becky xo
Update 1/3