Darling, I Just Can't Go On

When I awoke the morning after, I found myself on the floor in front of the TV stretched out on my side with my head on Alex's stomach. His body was perpendicular to mine, head on a pillow below the coffee table, with a hand resting gently on my side.

I slowly sat up, trying to avoid a headrush, as I let out a long yawn, bringing a hand up to cover my mouth as I did so. Blinking a few times, I looked down to Alex who was still fast asleep before looking over to the clock on the cable box finding 10:04 glowing back at me.

With a mind still filled with sleep, I lifted a hand up and started poking Alex in the side repeatedly to try and wake him up.

"Go away," He mumbled as he rolled away from me, curling himself into the fetal position to try and protect himself.

With a groan I crawled over him, trying not to knee him in the back as I did so, before sitting back down as I poked the cheek that was facing the celing. It took only a few minutes of that before one of his eyes cracked open to see who had been repeatedly jabbing his face and side.

"What?" He groaned, drawing out the end of the word as he closed his eyes again, me stopping my assualt of his face.

"Wake up," I replied, making the last word longer much like he did.

After much whining, from both of us, I finally dragged Alex out from under the coffee table, and the two of us went into the kitchen to attempt to make ourselves breakfast.

"I want pancakes with faces," Alex declared as he sank down onto one of the tall stools by the island.

I just mumbled something in reply as I went to the pantry to find the box of pancake mix I knew was in there somewhere. Once I located it, I got out a bowl as well as the mixer from one of the drawers in the island.

"Go get milk, eggs, and whatever else you want in these out of the fridge," I instructed Alex before yawning, ripping open the bag of powder to pour into the big bowl.

Once he had handed me the things I asked from, along with a container of blueberries, I started mixing everything together.

"Can you heat the stove to 375?" I asked him as I dropped a handful of the blueberries into the thickening batter.

"Are you always so bossy in the morning?" He asked in return while sticking his tongue out at me, to which I only flipped him off. "Such harsh hand gestures from such a nice girl."

I just rolled my eyes at him as I picked the bowl up, bumping him out of my way with my hip so that I had access to the heated stove.

As the pancakes cooked, Alex was sitting in the same seat again with me throwing blueberries at him to catch with his mouth.

"Score!" He called after catching his fifth one in a row, throwing his hands up in victory while I just rolled my eyes at him.

With plates full of our food, Alex and I returned to the living room and turned on the TV switching the channel so that we could watch Saturday morning cartoons.

"It's been so long since I've been awake early enough to watch these on a Saturday," He commented before taking a bite from his stack of syrup drown pancakes.

"I'm usually awake, but I just stay up in bed because I'm too lazy." I replied with a shurgafter swallowing my bite of food.

It was quiet between us after that, the only sounds being the old school cartoons and our forks hitting our plates as we finished off the food I had cooked.

I had just taken the plate from Alex as well as mine into the kitchen to put into the sink before returning, finding him laying with his head on the armrest as he hummed a song quietly to himself. Moving closer, I sat down behind his legs so that mine were drapped over his as he continued to hum the familiar tune.

"What song is that?" I asked looking over to him, only making a smile spread across his face.

"This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looked so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
When she smiles."

A smile spread across my face as well as he continued to sing rather than hum, the song being one I used to listen to consatantly when it had come out many years before.

"Where did that come from?" I questioned after he had finished, moving as he sat himself up only to lay back down so that he was half on top of me on the small couch.

"It makes me think of you," He replied as he ran his fingertips lightly over the skin above my pajama pants where my skin was showing slightly. "And how much I love it when you smile."

I remained quiet as I bit at my lip to contain the smile that threatened to widen as I ran my fingers through his long hair as his fingers contined to trace across my hip bone like a whisper. Words didn't need to be said as we laid there together, both of us knowing what the other wanted to say as we shared a moment.

It went unknown to the both of us that my father had been standing in the doorway watching the two of us silently.

He simply stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, face void of emotion as he watched the loud boy that was always next door with his daughter. He hadn't known that the boy had known about Andi's cutting issue, but by the way that he was touching her hip signal just that to the older man.

He turned suddenly, retreating into the kitchen for coffee, leaving the two alone to do whatever it was they were doing.

~~

"Everything's better when she's around
I can't wait til her parents go out of town
I fell in love with the girl at the rock show
With the girl at the rock show."

The words rang out around the car as Jack, Alex, and i sang along to to the song that we all knew so very well as we were driving home from school later the next week. The album had been playing earlier that morning, as well as that afternoon at Jack's persistant requesting.

Parking in my driveway, we all piled out of the car when the engine had shut off and the music had gone silent.

"I feel in love with the girl at the rock show!" Alex sand loudly as I jumped up onto his back, him warpping his hands around the backs of my legs easily, carrying me into the garage where Rian was already setting up his drums.

"So I know it's a few weeks away," Rian started to say when the three of us entered. "But my mom wants me to invite all of you over for this big Thanksgivng dinner she's cooking."

"Free food? I'm in." Jack said as he started to het his guitar out of it's case.

I dropped down off of Alex's back just as Zack was pulling into the driveway, moving to sit in the armchair.

"I'll talk to my dad about it, but I'm pretty sure we'll come over," I said giving a small shrug.