Darling, Do You Wish We'd Fall in Love?

Chapter 2

How can I forget Alex when he’s sitting across the room from me?

....Oh! I know. All I have to do is try and find something to preoccupy my mind and distract my eyes until someone comes to get me, because I’m pretty sure I’ve lost all feeling in my legs and I’m stuck in this position.

I decide to look at the floor instead. After a while I start to think that looking at my feet isn’t nearly as fun as looking at Alex- wow, maybe Zack is right; I am a stalker. When I look up, I immediately regret the decision, because now I see his friend pointing in my general direction and talking – shit, this can’t be good. After a couple of seconds I see Alex get up and walk toward me and I instantly take a sudden interest in my shoes again as I slowly feel my heart pick up speed.

Please God, please just be heading to the kitchen.

Despite frantically praying to whoever is up there, my prayers go unanswered, ‘cause now I see a pair of converse shoes in front of mine – hmm, he has nice shoes, I decide- I should probably look up now in case he starts thinking I’m a spaz.

I reluctantly lift my head up and I’m instantly met with his caramel eyes – wow, he’s so close to me right now- I open and close my mouth trying to say something, but his eyes are making it impossible.

“Umm, are you okay?”

Oh, crap, he’s talking to me. With wide eyes I nod my head frantically in place of my lost words.

“Er... okay. It’s just that my friend over there was saying that you were staring at us, and it was kind of freaking him out.” He responds rubbing the back of his neck.

“S-Sorry, I d-didn’t mean to stare,” I manage to stutter out.

“It’s okay – hey, do I know you from somewhere?” he furrows his perfect eyebrows at his question.

Should I tell him that I order food from him practically every day? I start to chew my bottom lip; contemplating my response.

“OH! I know where I know you from.” His eyebrows shoot up with the sudden realisation “You come by the food court, like, every day and order the same thing, right?”

“Y-yeah. That’s me” I mumble out, my cheeks burning red from my embarrassing confession.
“I thought it was you. My name’s Alex by the way, Alex Gaskarth” he extends his hand forward with a smile.

I stare at his extended hand for a moment before taking it and managing to say “Hi, I’m Jack, Jack Barakat” without stuttering.

It was like a miracle; Alex actually recognised me and now he knows my name-I knew staring would work out in the end -this made a soft smile spread across my face.

“Nice to finally put a name to the order,” he laughs as he releases my hand. I frown from the loss of contact; his hands were so soft and warm.

“Yeah” I laughed awkwardly, trying to look at anything but Alex.

“Well...I guess I’ll see you around then?” he says, sensing the awkward situation – why do I have to make things so awkward all the time?

“I guess so,” is the only response I could think of before he started walking back to his friend and offering a small wave goodbye.

Fuck that was so awkward. My heart is pounding against my chest and I need to find Rian or Zack and get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

*******
When I regain the ability to walk, I manage to find Rian in the sea of people, talking to some girl. I walk up to him and flash the girl a weak smile before turning to Rian and telling him that I’d like to leave.

“Why? We haven’t even been here for that long”

“I know, but my mum just texted me saying she wants me home now.” I know Rian will believe me, he knows how controlling my mum is.

“Fine” he sighs “Go find Zack and we’ll go.”

“Thanks Rian,” I say with a sympathetic smile.

When I find Zack, he’s still in the Kitchen talking to Martin.

“Hey, Zack? We’re going to go now”

“Why?”

“My mum wants me home now” I shrug.

He simply nods in response and turns back to Martin to give him a hug goodbye before setting his cup down, and walks out of the kitchen.

“Thanks for coming my party, Jack.” I hear Martin next to me.

“No problem, bro. It was good a party, from what I witnessed at least,” I laugh, because I really didn’t see that much of the party. I was kind of frozen in one spot.

“Thanks, that means a lot” he reassures me with a smile.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, Shoot”

“How do you know Alex Gaskarth? He doesn’t go to our school right?”

“Oh, he’s friends with this kid I work with, Josh Ramsay. I don’t know much about him, except that he goes to Magee Secondary and he’s in the same year as us.

Josh must be the guy that was freaked out by my staring earlier. And I kind of guessed he was the same age as me.

“I see.” I say slowly nodding my head to this new info.

“How come you wanted to know about Alex?” Martin asks with his head cocked to the side.

“No particular reason” I quickly respond with a smile.

Martin just gives me a puzzled look before shrugging it off.

“Anyway, I’ll see you at school on Monday,” I say before heading out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, see you”

Phew! I think I dodged a bullet there. What would happen of Martin knew I liked Alex? Would he tell Josh? And then would Josh tell Alex? - Oh God, I can’t let that happen.