I Knew It From The First Time

I shake my head as I slowly remove Alex's hand from the bag of chips and pull his shoes off, setting them neatly on the side of the couch. The boys snored lightly, not even budging when I threw a blanket over the both of them. I wondered how late they had stayed up. Judging by the fact that the television was turned off and they were sprawled out on opposite ends of the couch, I guess they had fallen asleep talking to each other. My heart gets stuck for a moment as I wonder if they had perhaps mentioned me.

The thought is soon shaken when I open a cabinet door and find that Alex has stocked me well on cereal. A smile creeps over my face. Out the window, I can see Zack, shirtless as usual, tossing a football around with Rian. Cassadee must have gone out to buy groceries; it was strange that she wasn't up at the crack of dawn.

I wished Cassadee and I could have been closer. I needed another girl to tell me what to do. I didn't need Jack or Rian or Zack, and I surely didn't need Alex to give me advice on being in love with your best friend. Chomping down on my cereal, I make a vow right then and there to make some effort to reach out to her.

"Hey Jamie." Alex shakes his head groggily. "What time is it?"

"I didn't really bother checking yet." I shrug. "What's on the agenda for today?"

"Well Jack and I had planned to drive around for a bit, you know, see the city by day, get familiar with things." He looks toward the living room where Jack's snoring is becoming more and more audible. "But that looks like it's out the window. Unless you want to go."

Through my eyelashes I can see the hunger for exploration in Alex's eyes. It was nearly always there. In school he would barely scrape by in math class, but if you asked him a question on nearly every other topic, it was likely Alex had looked into it - lucid dreaming, constellations, the origin of words like 'hollow' - he had it. Outside school it was just the same. If we were camping, it was Alex who thought it would be a good idea to go looking for caves. If we were driving to the city, it was Alex who decidedly took new routes. It was always Alex who craved the adventure.

"As long as it doesn't involve me getting incarcerated, I'm down."

He leaps up from the table, clapping his hands and nearly knocking over the carton of milk I had set on it. "No time to waste! Hurry up!"

I watch as he slides down the hall in his socks, Risky Business style. His door clicks shut and I look back toward where Jack is still soundly stuck in dreamland.

"Thank God you can sleep through the apocalypse." I mumble.

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"I thought the city was supposed to be... exciting." Alex huffs. "It's just hot with a lot of people and nothing to do for free."

"You've been to LA before. I don't see why this is coming as a surprise to you." I remark.

Alex was right though. The sun and the humidity were beating down on us. I had worn just a tank top and shorts with my sunglasses. I had even pulled my hair back, and still I could feel my skin frying. Alex was decked out in jeans and a GK shirt, beanie in place. I could see the tips of his hair glazed with beads of sweat.

"Once before! Just once." He sticks one finger high up into the air, and people stop to look at him. "And Matt took us to Disneyland then. Did you see that? I think I just saw my skin turn red before my eyes."

He holds out his arm for me to see. "Alright, Alex, the heat is making you delusional and this is no fun and maybe the guys are-"

"I have an idea." He stops walking alongside me, and begins walking the way we came. I watch him go until he notices that I have not followed his lead. He turns on his heel, grabbing my wrist. "C'mon."

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"This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. THIS IS A BAD IDEA." I shake my head, feeling my stomach lurch as Alex jumps to reach the fire escape ladder.

He grins in satisfaction at his work and then hoists me onto the trashcan with him. "We're not doing anything illegal, Jamie. Calm down."

"Alex!" I stammer. "Just because you don't know if it's illegal or not doesn't mean you're exempt from... from... from prison!"

He begins climbing the ladder. "Alright one, I doubt they take you to prison for climbing a fire escape. Two, you're pretty small. You can always hide. And three, I'm not going to let anything happen to us that would result in death or serious injury."

"I never even mentioned that last one..."

"Sorry, that must have come from the little voice in my head telling me not to do this." Alex laughs, then looks back at me, finally stopping his upward climb. "I'm joking, Jamie."

"You promised we wouldn't get arrested on this trip." I remind him.

Alex looks back over his shoulder, pausing mid-step. "Trust me."

I bite my lip and take a deep breath, following his lead up to the roof. I lose count of the amount of ladder rungs I climb onto. At some point, I know we are so high up that if I look down, I'll have a panic attack. Finally, after several minutes, I hoist myself onto the flat cement of the roof, palms sweating immensely.

Alex stands at the edge of the building making me nervous. I inch behind him until he sees me, and taking note of my hesitation, holds onto my hand. He smiles at me. "I got you."

"Thanks." I manage back, peering over the edge. We have to be four stories up. The cars and people below us, so many, hundreds, make me want to vomit. Alex sits right on the edge, lowering himself carefully and dangling his feet toward the Earth beneath us.

"I'm not stupid you know Jamie." Alex glances at me. "I know that you weren't going to ask Jack about me writing last night."

My stomach caves into itself. I'm really going to be sick now. "You're making me nervous. Sitting like that, I mean."

Alex pats the spot next to him, and despite what I've just said, I take it, but pointedly sit farther back than him as he goes on. "What were you asking Jack about?"

I bite my lip. Excuses weren't good with Alex. He saw right through them. "I don't want to talk about it, alright?"

"Jamie." Alex looks me in the eyes, his sparkle winking back at me. "I'm your best friend."

That's the problem. "Another time."

"It better be while we're still in LA." Alex doesn't talk for a long time, just stares out into the distance at the smog. "God, I bet it's beautiful here at night."

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The boys stand on the kitchen table dancing and I brace myself for its collapse. They're sloshing beer everywhere and the stench of alcohol fills the room. The music is so loud that I can feel it shaking the boards beneath my feet. They were the only people in the world who could have a party with just the four of them.

Cassadee stands next to me with a concerned look on her face, probably wondering how she'll ever get Rian to bed. I have been trying to work up a way to talk to her, to ask her about Alex, for the last hour.

"YOU'VE GOT ME POPPIN' CHAMPAGNE. I'M AT IT AGAIN. CAUGHT UP -" The boys scream out their own lyrics. Alex is doubled over in laughter with his breath caught in his throat as Jack skips around him. If I was going to talk to Cassadee alone, the time was now.

"Um, Cass?" She glances at me. "Do you, like, have a second? A few of them actually?"

She lightly smiles at me and I take notice of the fact that she's been holding her beer, but not drinking it. She nods. "Let's go outside though, shall we?"

"Yeah, uh, that would be more convenient." I stammer, wanting to hit myself for even bringing this up. I stumble outside, shutting the door behind us and moving as far away from Alex as possible, scared, terrified he may hear.

"What's up?" Cassadee takes a seat on the fountain, letting her beer drop beside her.

I didn't know how to begin. What was I supposed to say? This wasn't like talking to Alex where I could just relinquish everything, and it wasn't quite the same as Rian where you went slowly while he deciphered you. This was Cassadee and I hardly knew her apart from being Rian's girlfriend.

"Are you okay, Jamie?" She presses on when I don't answer.

"I love Alex. And I don't mean love, like best friend, oh he's a brother to me, type of love. I mean like you and Rian. I love him." The words pour out of me and I can't seem to stop now, although I try. "And everyone can see it, can't they? Everyone except for Alex. But do I tell him? Does he love me that way too? What if I say something and then he's scared away and it ruins everything? But what if I never say anything and we never know and it was there all along? I just... I don't know."

Cassadee half laughs, and she has that same expression Jack has just last night. Of course she did. They all knew. I took a complete moron to overlook it. And Alex.

"I think we all need to take leaps sometimes. There's a point where you know what forever is and what you want that forever to be. You have to grab onto that. Make it permanent. Or die trying. If we didn't take leaps of faith every once in a while, we'd be stuck in a crevice of expectations met and no experience behind it."

I give her an awestruck look. I had not expected that. "Are you saying I should tell him?"

Cassadee plays with the water inside the fountain, glancing at Rian who has hopped off the table and is egging Zack on to do something stupid. "What I'm saying is that I think you fall in love with people for a reason. And I think they have a right to know about it."

I don't know what to say, so I crisply reply back. "Thank you."

"Anytime Jamie." She leaves her beer out by the fountain when she get sup and heads back inside. She stops abruptly and looks back at me. "One more thing. I have a good feeling you aren't in love alone."

With that, she walks back into the kitchen where Rian loops his arms around her waist. I sit on the fountain watching from a distance. I weighed things in my mind. I knew that if I had a choice in forever, it would most certainly be Alex. I knew that if I never told him, I'd regret it. And I knew that Cassadee was right about falling into a crevice.

What I was unsure of was the part where Alex loved me back. No, I knew he loved me. I was unsure about Alex being in love with me. If he had a choice in forever, was it me? I was unsure.

"Jamie, get in here! We have to fit in all the fun we can before Matt gets here and makes us work!" Alex's drunk laughter slurred words float out into the night to me. "Besides I got a dance saved just for you!"

I put on my best fake grin and make my way toward him. "Only because we weren't taken into custody today."

"There's always tomorrow." Alex beams at me.

I think of what Cassadee had just told me. The thing about leaping. I nod and let my arms slide around his neck and he twirls us around the kitchen in unison with Jack and Zack, Rian and Cassadee. "Right. Always tomorrow."