You Could Be My Compass

Alex couldn’t believe it. “Jack?” he called out again. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. Wouldn’t that be disappointing? And wouldn’t it be an insult to Jack, if it turned out to just be some homeless guy but he’d mistaken him? But as they each took another step closer, there was no denying that it was Jack. Another fear briefly flitted through his head: what if Jack didn’t remember him?

That fear was squelched as a look of joyful recognition flooded the skinny boy’s face.

And then they were running towards each other and embracing and crying. “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack,” was all Alex could say at first, tears of happiness and relief spilling out of his eyes. It was nice to say his name again to somebody that could actually respond, not to animals and empty space.

“Alex.” Jack only said it once, his voice barely above a whisper, but once was enough. In saying his name one time, he’d given Alex so much more than he’d been expecting from his day. Just hearing it one time from his best friend meant more than hearing it a thousand times from anyone else. He was still clinging tight to Alex, his arms strong for being a skeleton with spaghetti limbs.

“You’re-” He meant to say back. He really did. He meant to say ‘you’re back!’ Like, you were gone for five years and now you’re back and everything’s okay again. Or he meant to say here. Yeah, maybe that was it. ‘You’re here!’ Like, you weren’t here for five years but now you are and life can continue and go back to normal. What he didn’t intend to finish that statement with was: “Alive!” He hated that that was the word that tumbled through his lips, because that made it seem like he’d thought Jack was dead, when he’d known all along that he…

“Of course,” he mumbled shakily, crying harder than his friend. He didn’t seem to care about the word choice. He was just glad to hear Alex’s voice again.

Pulling away at last, Alex kept his hands on Jack’s shoulders and looked him up and down. He was way too thin. He’d always been tiny, but he looked emaciated. Like he hadn’t eaten right in, well, five years. “God, I missed you so much.” He resisted the urge to take him into his arms again. “Right, well, let’s get you home and you can fill me in on everything after you get food and a shower and some clean clothes, yes, in that order. Your dad’s on a business trip—I know, right? What else is new?—but my parents are gonna die when they see you.”

Jack blinked rapidly, trying to process this. Alex was talking a mile a minute, as he always did when he got excited/stressed/anxious/insert almost any emotion fathomable here. Home. He hadn’t been there in so long. Was it still the same? Did his parents live in the house they had five years ago? Did Alex still live next door? One question bubbled to the surface, a question he didn’t even know he wanted to ask because he hadn’t consciously taken note of what Alex had said about his dad. “What about my mom?” He spoke slowly; his voice box was a little out of practice and the result was scratchy and hoarse. Alex didn’t mind. Quite the contrary, in fact. Hearing Jack’s voice made him feel better again, made him forget for a moment that there wasn’t a five year gap.

That question reminded him, though. Jack didn’t know. Damn it, Jack didn’t know and Alex was going to have to be the one to tell him. He sighed. “I’ll fill you in on the way home.” He shouted, “Jack!” His friend looked at him strangely, raising an eyebrow, and Alex laughed, a genuine laugh that hadn’t left his mouth in ages. “Not you, silly. The dog.”

Jack smiled so big it hurt his dried and cracking lips. “Your dog’s name is Jack?” He sounded touched.

“Jack Skellington,” he explained, noting how his face fell, so he added, “But don’t worry, that’s a story I’m sure you’ll love. Now come on, we’re getting you back home and feeding you before you break in half.”

With Jack the dog walking a few steps in front of them, this time at a reasonable pace, Jack the human asked again, “What about my mom?”

Alex chewed on his cheek, a habit he’d had for long enough that he had permanent sores decorating the inside of his mouth. He spent too much time thinking of how to word his answer that Jack panicked. “She’s not dead, is she?”

“No! Of course not. I’m just…I don’t want to be blunt. After you ‘disappeared,’ as they tend to put it, your parents’ relationship kind of went downhill.”

“They got a divorce?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry…” Thankfully, the close proximity of their neighborhood to that park saved him from any more questions, since they were already at his house. “You’re going to eat your weight today. On second thought, that’s probably not much, so you’re going to eat twice your weight. Got it? Awesome.” He led him inside, sent Jack Skellington upstairs, and went straight to the kitchen. “Does soup sound good? We have like eight hundred cans of it because it’s easy and I’m less likely to set anything on fire if all I make is soup.”

“Soup sounds great.” Anything sounded good.

Grinning at his eager words, Alex was quickly setting an enormous bowl of soup on the table in front of him. “Eat.”

After the first bite, Jack groaned, his eyes shutting. “This is the best thing I’ve eaten in five years.”

“I’m sorry that your first real meal in years had to be canned soup,” he apologized. And then, because he couldn’t wait any longer or he would burst, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Jack knew what he was referring to. Who wouldn’t? Between bites, he said, “Later. With my dad. Maybe your parents, too.”

As if on cue, the door opened, signaling his parents’ arrival. They’d been out shopping—probably returning with more cans of soup and some sort of new form of ‘therapy’ intended to help Alex in some way. Alex leaped up. “Mom, Dad, look what I found!” he shouted, rushing to them and grabbing their arms.

In the three seconds it took to drag them from the front door to the kitchen table, he could see the gears turning in their heads, the ‘oh-god-what-sad-little-animal-are-we-going-to-have-to-take-in-now’ look shared between them. Then he watched their expressions change at the speed of light. “Jack!” they exclaimed in unison, moving to hug him.

“So whaddaya say?” Alex asked, beaming. “Can we keep him?”

——

After Jack finished two bowls of soup, which he swore up and down was the best he’d ever had, showered, and borrowed some of Alex’s clothes, he inquired, “So what’s the story behind Jack Skellington?”

Alex blushed. “It’s stupid and kind of weird.”

“Try me.”

“Fine. Come with me.” He gently took him by the wrist and pulled him to what was once a spare bedroom across from Alex’s room. “Prepare yourself.” He opened the door and stepped inside.

Jack couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, so you’ve apparently become an animal hoarder some time in the past few years, but what does that have to do with your dog’s name?”

Alex shook his head. “For about the first three months you were gone, I was hysterical. I wouldn’t stop crying and I wouldn’t eat. I literally lost so much weight they had to take me to the hospital. My parents eventually put me in therapy and the therapist suggested I get a pet.”

“So you got like a dozen?” he asked, looking around the room.

“Not all at once. When my mood didn’t drastically improve with every new pet, they tried again. And I may have used that to my advantage and asked for a few of them. I’ve got Jack Skellington, who you met.” He reached for an orange cat. “This one’s Jack-o-Lantern.” He knew his cheeks were reddening as he went through the names. The parakeet, he explained, was “Jack Daniels. My dad’s idea.” The lizard: “Jackalope.” The turtle: “Jack Nicholson.” The baby shark: “Jack London.” The snake: “Jackie Kennedy.”

Jack was grinning from ear to ear. “Are they all named Jack?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Weird, right?”

“Yeah, no. That’s only really awesome. Why, though?”

“I missed you so much and having pets named after you made me miss you just a little less. Like they were holding your place until you got back.” He didn’t mention how much he’d talked to them, partially because it was the next best thing to talking to Jack and mostly because they couldn’t reply or flip out over what he said.

Jack was about to pet a cat sitting on a chair. “Who’s—”

Alex cut him off. “Don’t touch him if you want to live!”

Too late. Before any further damage could be done, Alex dove across the room and pushed Jack out of the way. He reached and scratched at the snarling grey cat’s ear, trying to get him calmed down before he could attack. “This one’s Jack the Ripper. Vicious.” With his free hand, he pointed to his neck and pulled down the collar of his t-shirt to reveal a long scar. “I needed so many stitches for this.” He said it with a twinge of pride and a whole lot of fondness, allowing the cat to bite down on his thumb, maybe a little too hard.

“You know, it’s kind of scary how you’re smiling over that,” Jack commented, smirking slightly.

Alex couldn’t think of a retort because, yeah, it was pretty damn scary that he found it smile-worthy. There’s just something about having a cat capable of doing that much damage with only its claws that made him so proud to call it his pet. Then he looked back at Jack. There was blood running from his mouth. He’d been dehydrated for so long that too big of a smile had split his lip right down the middle. “Jack, you’re bleeding!” He pulled his arm away from the cat too quickly in his effort to get to him. A rookie mistake. He knew better than to make sudden movements around that cat. “Agh motherfucking little—”

From downstairs, Mrs. Gaskarth jokingly shouted, “Don’t use that kind of language in my house!”

“Sorry!” he called back, extracting Jack the Ripper’s claws from his wrist and brushing off droplets of blood.

“Alex, you’re bleeding!” Jack mocked Alex’s panicked tone perfectly, wiping at his mouth. “Seriously, it’s only a little blood. My lips are really dry is all.”

“I know,” Alex mumbled sheepishly. “I…I guess I’m just worried about you.” He couldn’t find the words to explain his concern. Right now, Jack just seemed so fragile, like any small injury—a split lip, for instance—could make him fall apart. Or disappear. Alex knew it was an irrational fear, but he had been without his best friend for so long that he couldn’t bear the thought of anything, no matter how small and insignificant, happening to him.