Slightly Bruised and Broken From Our Head on Collision

By the time we actually get to the party Rian is already complaining that the music is going to be shit, Zack is complaining that Rian’s driving is shit, Jack’s saying something about Zack’s mum being shit in bed and Alex is squashed next to us complaining that he can’t feel his left arm. I roll my eyes,

“Well at least we’re only a block away, right?” I say mostly to reassure Alex that the feeling in his left arm will come back, and that no his arm will not get amputated.

“No we’re here now” and as soon as Rian says it I can hear the music and feel the bass, and I bet the music is shit. We all get out the car and I keep strong hold on my bottle of vodka, their present my ass, I’m keeping this crap. We get to the door and the noise is overwhelming I realise that even if I knocked on the door no-one would hear me so I just pull on the door and sure enough, it opens easily. We start pushing our way through the mass of people and I realise that, weirdly, I am getting stared at. I can’t tell whether the girls are judging or jealous and I can’t tell whether the boys and leering or just looking but either way it scares me. I sort of hide between Jack and Alex as we push our way through, but as Jack suddenly stops it create a domino effect of me bumping in to him, Alex into me and so on.

“What are you doing, you retard?” I shout over the noise, and Jack shouts back

“I see Matt!” I roll my eyes and we start to push forwards again only for Alex to almost whimper and say in my ear,

“I think I see Kyle...” All I see is a flash of blonde but I guess you can recognise the boy that abuses you for a year, but I can tell by his voice that he scared shitless, I don’t know what to do except shout back

“It’s okay Hun, I’m not going to let him hurt you again.” He grabs my hand and I don’t let go. We get looks from people but I don’t care. He’s scared and alone and I’m not letting anyone hurt him, and at that moment to me he’s more of a brother than a friend. We carry on half walking half pushing our way through the crowd until Jack jumps on a short boy with piercings and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt on, he looks over Jacks shoulder to us and smiles at the guys, then he looks at me smirks .

“This is Matt” Jack announces, Alex rolls his eyes and still sort of hides behind me holding my hand. I smile at Matt to be polite, and he winks back and moves his lip ring with his tongue,

“Who’s the hot chick?” He says, looking straight at me. Jack’s mood changes in an instant, he bristles at the shorter boy and the shorter one seems to shrink back slightly,
“She’s my girlfriend.” He says coolly, and the shorter boy looks ashamed, he has the decency to be ashamed, he must get something for that? But Jack just tells us we should walk back to the living room and no-one protests against angry Jack.

I find myself squashed on a sofa next to a couple that probably should be classed as one person considering how close they are I didn’t even know that humans could be that close together, and Jack, with Alex sitting on the floor leaning against my knees. When a blonde boy saunters up to us and smiles at Alex, my mind automatically wonders who the hell he is. When Alex looks petrified and Jack looks even more angry than he was originally I assume it’s Kyle. Even as a straight female with a well functioning gaydar, I can appreciate why Alex fell for him. He has messy hair that falls in a fringe but is kind of sticky up at the back, a cute smile that shows just enough teeth to be classed as friendly and eyes that don’t seem to stop. But he hurt Alex and that was enough to over ride everything in my mind and wish him to the deepest pits of hell.

“Hey Lexi how you doing? You look good.” And Kyle smirks and looks Alex up and down, he fucking smirks.

“Don’t call me Lexi.” Alex says stiffly looking on the edge of tears, Kyle just smiles and walks a bit closer.

“it’s good to see you looking so well... I wondered, you been seeing anyone recently? Anyone... special?” Kyle licks the side of him mouth and touches the top of Alex’s head. Alex looks straight ahead and ignores him and I can tell Alex is trying not to cry, I put a hand on his shoulder and stand up, stepping around him I step up to Kyle making him walk back several paces. I’m oblivious of Alex’s suddenly wide eyes and Jack warnings,

“You are a wanker, a skeeze, a player and a horrible person and you never deserved Alex. He doesn’t want you back, don’t you get it? So leave him alone.” I almost scream at him. My eyes flair angrily, and fear flickers through Kyle’s eyes for a moment, but then he smirks and laughs

“I didn’t know you had a bodyguard Lexi, I thought that was our thing.” He winks. This boy is disgusting! I snap. I get all the strength I can muster and slap him, hard.

“Fuck off Kyle! Don’t you get it? We don’t want you here, nobody wants you here, we all know that you’re an abusive little shit and we don’t like you. And besides, don’t you think you’ve hurt Alex enough?” I’m angry now. I’m screaming and drawing attention to myself but I can’t stop. I’m so angry I can feel it rising in my stomach.

“How dare you come round here pretend you’re something special and have one up on the rest of us? How dare you pick on people that are weaker than you and hurt them, how fucking dare you? Or is that what turns you on, you little freak? If I had my way you’d be in hell and burning along with the devil. I hope karma comes and hits you hard because you deserve every single little bit of pain you get.” While shouting I’d gathered a bit of a crowd, everyone is silent and all I hear is the music playing in the background.

... Where were you when my walls came falling down...

Then a cheer erupts, I have no idea who started it but it’s enough to make Kyle turn and leave. My eyes sting and I didn’t even realise I was close to tears; Jack comes up behind me and puts his arms around my waist. Alex smiles shyly at me and I hug him. Although I’m still angry I know that it will be a while before Kyle comes up to Alex. But only when I’m there, my mind reminds me. I push it away and carry on hi-fiving the guys that come up to me and hugging the girls that tell me repetitively that I’m “So awesome, OMG I can’t believe you did that, you’re amazing!”

The party after that seems kind of quiet but I’m not complaining. Although Jack’s does, continuously and loudly throughout the rest of the party. He gets drunker and drunker until I find him hiding in a mini fridge and then I realise it’s time to go home. Even my brain seems to be running slower than normal, so I go to find Rian. I see him pretty quickly and I tell him about Jack, he tells me I need to find Alex so I try to but, that boy is amazing at blending in. I ask about 15 people before I find him in the bathroom just laying in the bath looking at the ceiling. It looks fun.

“Alex sweetie we’re leaving now, you able to stand up?” I think I slurred and I was scared he didn’t understand me, but he just looks at me and swings himself over the edge of the bath tub and grabs my hand, which is becoming a common thing but I’m too drunk to even care at this moment in time. So we walk to the car where I gulp in cold air and hope to God that my mum read the note and isn’t waiting up for me to come home, who am I kidding? She is probably fast asleep; she’d be asleep even if that was my suicide note. Jack falls into the car and then complains when we sit on his feet, Alex giggles and tells him to move along, we all shuffle into the car and Rian starts driving us back to Jack’s. By the time we’ve pulled up outside the house, Zack has said “That was an AWESOME party” at least 10 times, Jack’s snoring against the window and Alex and I are holding hands. Again. My mind is starting to register this but by the time I think of a way to let go without seeming rude we’re here. We all get out except Jack and I feel like being a bitch so I open his door and laugh when he falls on his face. He grunts and slurs about me being a horrible person but I don’t care because, I knew that anyway, and he landed on his face and that’s funny.

We walk to his house and I fall up the front steps they added an extra step? And as I steady myself I find myself holding on to Alex’s hand rather than Jack’s and something about that feels wrong. But as we get into the house and I fall onto the sofa with Jack. It feels okay again, because honestly this is the boy I met and fell in love with straight away, the boy who found me passed out in a hedge and carried me home, and the boy whose seen me crying on the floor after my mum stormed out on me and I called him in panic almost sobbing. This is the boy that I will marry I think to myself, and that scares me. But will I? What if fate twists things? And as I lay there next to my snoring boyfriend I honestly wonder if he is going to be the boy I marry, or if I’ll have to look someone else. I’ll always look after Alex, the boy with the broken smile and the beautiful voice. The boy with the ability to still be strong after everything he’s been through. I don’t ever want to have to choose I think. And with that the alcohol fogs up my brain and I pass out.