If I Could Change Your Mind

Alex wakes up hours later to the sound of heart monitor blaring BEEEEEEEP. “Goddammit Jack, I’m trying to sleep, shut up for once!” Alex throws his pillow in the direction of the beeping. “Excuse me, Mr. Gaskarth.” The doctor scolds. Alex opens his eyes and remembers he’s at the hospital, not on the bus. The doctor is standing at the heart monitor, pushing buttons while the obnoxious beeping noise blares throughout the room. Alex starts to struggle to sit up, but the doctor says “No, don’t sit up, I’ll be right with you, I have to fix this first.” “Are you trying to kill me?” Alex asks, smirking. “I might as well after what you did...” The doctor grumbles, sounding annoyed. “Whoa whoa whoa, whatever I did to your daughter was an accident, if I had known she was yours I wouldn’t have done it...I USED A CONDOM!” Alex shouts, defending himself. “WHAT?!” The doctor exclaims, his head snapping to look at Alex. “Oh, it’s not about that...never mind then...” Alex murmurs, his cheeks burning even though it had been a joke. “I know, I don’t even have a daughter.” The doctor says, smiling. Alex gives him the WTF face, but the doctor waves it off. “Never mind, I was just playing along. But you did injure the person in the car you hit. She’s alive, don’t worry. Just not in good shape, like you. You have a concussion but luckily no brain damage, you woke up very early after your coma which helped, but you do have a broken arm and two broken ribs, some minor cuts, except for near your temple and on your leg, they needed stitches. You will have a scar from both, but it should be okay. You lost a lot of blood, so we injected more in you, so you’ll have to stay here for another day to make sure your body doesn’t reject it. Any questions?” “Yeah, can I have more pain killers? I ache all over...” Alex complains. He needs Jack. Jack would make him feel better. Or even better, a beer. “Oh, and Mr. Gaskarth. Lay off the alcohol. There was extremely high levels of it in your blood. You can get arrested for drinking and driving. You already know the effects of it.” The doctor’s eyes narrow at Alex, before he leaves, closing the door behind him.
Alone in the room, Alex picks up his cell phone and presses speed dial number 2. "Hello? Alex?" Jack's voice is groggy on the other end. "Hey Jack, what's up?" Alex smiles brightly into phone. "Well, since it's 2:30 in the morning, I was asleep." Jack laughs. "Oh, sorry..." Alex hadn't checked the time before he called; he feels bad for bothering Jack. "Nah, it's okay, are you okay Alex? Do you need me to come over there? 'Cause I can just steal a nurses outfit and sneak in." Jack jokes, though his voice is full of concern. "I'm okay with that, male nurses are hot." Alex laughs, "Don't worry Jacky, I'm fine, I just wanted to talk to you...are you coming to visit me tomorrow?" "Yeah, first thing, like usual. Are you sure you don't want me to come now?" Through the phone Alex hears Jack open his drawer to pull out some clothes. "Yeah, it's fine, I just...miss you. And I uh...I need to tell you something later..." Alex whispers. "Why can't you tell me now?" Jack questions, yawning. "Because, it's better if I tell you in person. I'll let you go back to bed if you want." Alex fumbles with his the edge of his blanket, wishing he hadn't said anything about having to tell Jack something. Alex had no idea how he was going to tell Jack he loved him back. It made him nervous. "No, no, I like talking to you..." Jack yawns again. "Fine, I'll talk to you till you fall asleep." Alex says, pushing the nervousness out of his head. "Ooh, can you tell me a bedtime story? Please?" Jack pleads, hopeful tones in his voice. When they were younger, whenever Jack had a nightmare or would feel so bad, even after cutting, he would call Alex up no matter what time it was, and he would calm him down by telling him a bedtime story. Alex told the best bedtime stories. Jack tried to do the same for Alex, but his stories were never as good.
Alex sighs "Fine, give me a minute to think of one..." Jack gives a happy "Yay!" and Alex starts. "Once upon a time..."
Barely 2 minutes into the story, Alex hears Jack snoring on the other end. Alex smiles to himself and whispers softly "Good night Jacky, I love you." and hangs up the phone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Knock knock." Jack calls, entering Alex's room. Alex is very pale, but he lights up when he sees Jack. "Hey, how you feeling?" Jack sits down on Alex's bed. "I've been better. I ache all over, and I have a wicked headache, but aside from that I'm okay." He replies. “Did you ask for more painkillers?” Jack asks. “Yeah, but they’re starting to wear off again. But that doesn’t matter, now that you’re here I feel a thousand times better.” Alex smiles at Jack, meeting his eyes. Jack blushes slightly and looks away. “So...you wanted to tell me something?” Jack changes the subject. “Oh yeah...Jack, I have a confession to make...” Alex starts. Jack stares at him with anticipation and slight confusion. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a long time...Jack I-” Just then, the door swings open loudly.
“Alex!” Kelsey exclaims, rushing over to the side of his bed, and pulling over a chair. She didn't acknowledge Jack's presence. “Sorry I didn’t come sooner, I just... I just didn’t know what to say.” Kelsey rubs the back of her neck nervously and places her other hand on Alex’s. “I’m sorry.” she whispers, barely audible. “Umm...” Jack says awkwardly, feeling like he's intruding. “I’m just gonna....” He takes a pause as he points to the door. “I’ll visit you later.” “Wait! Jack” Alex calls after him, but Jack was gone, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Kelsey...” Alex trails off. He doesn't quite understand why Kelsey is here, so he doesn't know what to say. “Alex, you don’t have to say it.” Kelsey smiles slightly at him, rubbing circles on his hand with her thumb; an attempt to calm her nerves more than anything else. Alex gives her confused look, since he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, let alone why she was here. Kelsey quickly notices his confused face, “When I heard what happen...” She began to subconsciously play with the shiny silver band on her ring finger, a habit she started to do ever since Alex gave her the ring. In all honesty, she hadn’t taken it off, even after they broke up. “I...I...You know you can talk to me about anything, Alex? Yeah, I was upset about the break-up too, but I... If you regretted it, we could've figured out something out. You didn’t have to go and try to hurt yourself over it. I would never want you to do hurt yourself because of me.” Kelsey stared out the window at the sky as if it were the most interesting thing she’s ever seen, but she was just doing anything to avoid eye contact with him. If anything she was annoyed by the birds tweeting in extremely shrill voices. “If you wanna get back together I unders-” “No.” Alex voice was flat and monotone. He pulled his hand away from Kelsey’s, causing her to finally look him in the eyes. “What?” she barely choked out, her voice was coated with pain. “Do you actually think I did all of this because of you? How self-centered can one girl be!” Alex thought out loud, his words were harsher than he meant them to be. “It has nothing to do with you!”
Kelsey stood up and kicked her chair back, staring at the light bulb at the lamp to stop herself from tearing up. “Alex, I....What was I suppose to think? You attempted to kill yourself less than a few hours after we broke up! I was so worried about you!” Scared and hurt tones were heavy in her tired voice. “I don’t feel the way I used to, Kelsey.” Alex began, trying to sound sympathetic, because he really didn’t want to hurt her. “I...I like someone else now.” Her head snapped up, her eyes grew big. “So you... you were cheating on me?” She didn’t try to hide her tears this time, she just let them streak down her face, her mascara leaving trails of black on her rosy cheeks. “No! No no.” Alex quickly replied, realizing how bad of a turn this conversation took. “Did this stupid ring mean anything to you Alex?” Kelsey asked, holding her promise ring in the air for him to see. “You can have it back, give it to whatever slut you were fucking behind my back!” She threw the ring at Alex with as much force as she could, before storming out of the room, crying her eyes out.
“Well that was...pleasent.” Jack says, walking back into the room, with a cup of coffee he got downstairs after Kelsey came. He had just arrived in time to see the end of their fight. “Yeah, really...” Alex trails. “So I take it you broke up with Kelsey?” Jack asks. “Yeah, I did. And I’m glad I did.” He says. “You guys seemed happy, what happened? Did you get in ANOTHER fight? I wasn’t even there, it wasn’t my fault this time!” Jack questions, giving a little laugh. “Haha, it’s not your fault, I just realized I didn’t love her. There’s someone else.” Alex’s voice is hushed as he talks. Jack tilts his head to the side, giving Alex a questioning glance. Jack felt a slight pang that there was someone else now in the picture. Can’t Alex just be alone long enough for Jack to have a chance?
Alex smiles at Jack’s confusion. “I think you’ll be surprised who it is,” Jack looked down, he didn’t want to hear who this “someone else” was. “You see Jack, I’m looking straight at that someone else.” Jack looks up, his eyes widen; he must be dreaming or Alex must be high on the medication the doctors have been giving him or something. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it, but Jack...I’ve always known it, even if I tried to deny it. It’s always been you that I’ve been in love with. Don’t give me that look, I know you feel it too.” Alex says, his eyes full of love. “Wait...you know? How do you know?! How long have you known?!” Jack inquires. “Rian told me a while ago. I know it was the reason you cut.” Jack looks down at the ground, ashamed, when Alex brings up his cutting. “But Jack, don’t you see? If Rian hadn’t told me...it might’ve taken forever for me to figure it out. But now, after everything, I know. Jack, I love you, and I know I look a mess and broken and I’m kind of smelly because it hurts to get up and take a shower so I haven’t but hear me out...we should be together.” Alex moved his hand so it was touching Jack’s, “Whataya say, Jack? Will you be my boyfriend?” Jack sits back, his jaw practically on the floor. Was this real? Was Alex really asking him out?
“Ummm.... I don’t know Alex...” Jack replied. Alex’s face dropped, not noticing Jack was kidding. “I’m a pretty expensive boyfriend, you sure you can afford me, Alex?” Alex face lit back up, a slight smirk on his face. “I think I can handle it” “Then...Yes! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, Alex, I can’t believe it!” Jack bursts; no longer able to hold his excitement, he jumps up from his chair and over to Alex’s bed. “Well you better believe it Jacky.” Alex opens his arms wide and Jack hugs him, as tight as he could without hurting him. He pulls back slightly, whispering “I’ve been waiting for so long to do this.” Jack then closes his eyes and leans in, sparks flying as their lips connect for the first real time.