Change My Mind, Change My Heart

The name’s Alex.

Or Alexander William Gaskarth if you wanna get technical, but no one uses my full name except for my mum. And even then it’s only when she’s angry.

As you can probably tell I’m far from shy. Don’t get me wrong, I have my shy moments, but I try not to let them show too often. I live with my parents and my older brother in the suburbs of Maryland. Sometimes I hate this small town, but then there are times when I notice the beauty in it. I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with this place. I also have great friends; Jack, Rian, Josh and Zack. Zack is my best friend and has been since the first day we met in kindergarten. Ever since then we sort have been inseparable. So I was kind of bummed when Zack said he didn’t know if he could hang out with all of us after school. But, he finally decided to come and this brings us here.

Josh and Jack are sitting on the floor playing Halo on my Xbox and Rian and I are sitting beside them. Zack is on my bed and seems to be in his own daydream- hmmm...Sometimes I wonder about that boy.

“Jack! You idiot, I’m on your team,” Josh exclaims.

“Sorry, I thought friendly fire was,” Jack apologises. He’s well aware that friendly fire was not on, he just loves pissing Josh off.

“Asshole,” I hear Josh mumble as he waits for his character to respawn.

I move off the floor onto my bed to join Zack. He looks up at me and offers a weak smile along with a shy “Hi”. I return the smile and wrap my arm around his shoulders. I notice him tense for a second, but then he relaxes into the touch. Something is not right with my best friend and I don’t like not knowing what.

“You okay Zack?” He just stares at me for a few seconds and I can see that something is troubling his mind.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night,” he shrugs. I don’t really believe his answer, but I’m sure he’ll tell me the truth sooner or later; I won’t push him.

“Why’s that?”

“Um, up late studying for my English Lit test.”

“Ah, yes. Jack told me you were stressing about that. But you aced it like we all knew you would,” I reassure.

He sighs and then leans his head on my shoulder, “Thanks” he chuckles. I feel his warm breathe on my neck and it makes him shiver- whoa, that was weird.

“What the fuck, Ramsay!” Jack yells from his spot on the carpet.

“Sorry, I forgot friendly fire wasn’t one,” Josh says mockingly before Jack shoves his shoulder playfully

Zack lifts his head up from my shoulder to laugh at their little exchange and I immediately miss his head on my shoulder.

“Break it up guys, before someone gets hurt,” Rian chimes in as Jack and Josh get into a shoving match.

“Jack started it,’ Huffs Josh with his arms crossed over his chest and a pout on his face.

“Yeah, well I’m stopping it,” Rian argues. Zack and I just look at each other before bursting into laughter. Rian has always been like the mother in the group.

After a while Jack stops playing Halo and lets Rian have a turn and sits next to me on the bed. “Hey, I’m starving. What’s there to eat?” he asks. “We could always order pizza,” I say looking at him. He nods his approval and I look to Zack to see him watching Rian and Josh playing co-op on Halo.

“Hey Zack, want to help me order the pizza?” He turns around to face me and nods with a smile on his face. I really love that smile. He follows me downstairs to retrieve the take-out menu from the kitchen. Once we’re in the kitchen, Zack hops up to sit on the counter while I dial the number for the pizza place; his feet dangling off the edge – he looks so innocent.

“Alex, where are your parents?” he asks as I put the phone to my ear.

“Oh, they went to some boring event with my brother. Hence, why I’m here and not there,” I laugh as I wait for the pizza place to pick up. I see him give a small laugh - wait! Did my heart just skip a beat? Well, that was new.

I don’t have much time to figure out what is happening to me, ‘cause in no time the pizza is here and we’re back in my room. We eat in relative silence as we watch some programme on TV. I chance a glance at Zack and he shyly smiles back before returning back to his pizza slice.

“I told you she was ‘A’,” Jack says excitedly with his mouth full.
“First of all, you never told us anything. And second of all, that’s disgusting,” Rian reasons.

“What is?” Jack questions “This?” He opens his mouth to show Rian the food his mouth. Rian grimaces before throwing a pillow at Jack.

“Hey, I need that pillow to sleep with.” I laugh.
---
Everyone has left my house by now and I’m just lying on my bed. I glance at my alarm clock- It reads 10:30 in read numbers. My parents and brother should be back anytime now. I don’t mind though, I kind of like the silence. I like being alone with my thoughts and thinking about the day’s events. Today is no different. I’m silently thinking about how Zack was acting this evening and all those weird things I was feeling.

Like, why did it tingle when I felt his breathe on my neck? Or why did my heart skip a beat when he laughed and his face his lit up. I’ve only experienced those kinds of feelings once before... “SHIT” I say out loud as I sit up with a start. I run a hand through my hair before I utter three words that I never thought I would, “I like Zack,” I whisper to myself.

To be honest, I’m not that surprised- well, I kind of am, but not at the same time. I don’t know it’s complicated. My friends now that I’ve always been sort of bi curious, but I’ve never acted out on it. And I don’t want Zack to think that he’s some sort of experiment for me..... Wait! Who’s to say he even wants me? We’re best friends and it would just make things weird.

“Fuck, I’m so screwed,” I say out loud as throw myself back onto my bed.