You Could Be My Compass

The first thing Alex noticed about Mr. Barakat, aside from the simple fact that he was there at all, was that there was an intense smell of alcohol surrounding him. He tried not to gag. The second thing he noticed was that he looked like he’d been up all night. Or for several days. Before he had the opportunity to notice anything else, he asked, “Is your father home?”

Alex shook his head, letting him in. “He and my mom are both at work. He’ll be home at eight, I think.” Nothing about Jack’s return?

Jack had finally gotten off the couch, and when he saw who was now in the house, all thoughts of going back to sleep disappeared. “Dad!” he shouted excitedly, running towards him. He knew he was acting like a six year old, but he didn’t care. “You’re back!” He stopped short when he caught the scent and, like Alex, tried his best not to choke. Whiskey wasn’t a smell he was accustomed to.

“I came home early,” he needlessly explained. “I need to talk to Gaskarth.”

Alex and Jack exchanged a look. Alex’s look said how much has he had to drink? Why does he need to see my dad? Jack’s look said isn’t he happy I’m home? Is work really all he cares about? Alex’s look changed to say I’m sure he’s happy you’re home. Jack’s changed to whatever. Alex’s switched once more to let’s just get out of here.

They had this nonverbal conversation in under five seconds.

Alex led Jack’s dad to the couch. “He should be home in a few hours. Uh, you can stay here if you want.” The guy was stumbling enough that he didn’t trust him to make it back to his own house. And then he and Jack went upstairs.

“Not a hug or a smile or a hello?” Jack vented without any prompting, pacing through Alex’s pets’ room. “He didn’t even look at me! God, I bet the only reason he came back before he planned to is because of some business-related bullshit.”

Alex sighed, sitting against the wall and letting his gecko walk across his hand. He knew it’d be a while before he could get a word in.

“I have really low expectations for him already!” he fumed. “Oh, hey, I haven’t seen the gecko yet. What’s his name?” So easily sidetracked.

“Captain Jack.” He’d been hiding the day Alex had introduced Jack to all the other pets.

“Cute. Anyways, what was I saying?”

“Low expectations.” He should’ve just let him forget what he was upset about, but he had to get it all out now before he blew up at his dad. That was one scene Alex never wanted to see.

“Right. I have crazy low expectations for my dad. The bar is set so low, I figured it’d be impossible for him to go below my expectations. But look at this. He somehow managed it. All I even expected out of him was maybe a nice phrase about how much he missed me. He doesn’t even have to mean it! It just would’ve been nice for him to put a little effort into pretending to care.” He quit pacing and sat on the floor on the opposite side of the room, right next to Jack the Ripper.

“Jack,” Alex whispered. “Don’t make any sudden movements. If you slowly move away from him, he might not attack.”

“What are you…oh!” He didn’t have the chance to move before the cat was jumping into his lap, bumping its head on his chin and…

Purring.

“What the hell?” Alex exclaimed.

“Yeah, this one’s vicious,” Jack said, rolling his eyes and cautiously petting the cat. Sarcasm aside, he’d seen Alex’s scars from Jack the Ripper. Along with the one on his neck and chest, he had lots on his arms and legs that hadn’t warranted a trip to the emergency room but were still pretty deep for a cat.

“Aww, he likes you. That’s never happened before! He attacks everyone. He’s even made my mom bleed and nobody disrespect her. Oh my god, this is great!”

Jack laughed at Alex’s rambling. “If you say so.”

Jack’s dad walked in, holding something in his hand. “Jack,” he mumbled, not looking directly at him. “I noticed you’ve had a growth spurt since the last time I saw you. While I’m sure Alex doesn’t mind, you don’t need to keep borrowing his clothes.” He offered him his credit card. “Go buy some new stuff. When you get home, we’ll all discuss what happened.” And then he left.

“He noticed I’ve gotten taller!”

Alex could feel his heart breaking a little at that. The fact that something so small made Jack so happy. His dad noticed he’d grown in the past five years, and that was enough to make him look so delighted. Instead of saying anything about it, he just grinned and said, “Let’s go shopping!”

——

While Jack was trying on jeans, Alex got a call from Cassadee. Without even saying hi, she launched into a full-speed speech. He tried his best to keep up. “Oh my god, Alex, so me and Lisa just had the best idea ever!” The she got quieter for a second. “Shut up, Zack. I know it’s ‘Lisa and I.’ This isn’t a formal essay. Just…be quiet. Anyways, Alex. So we had this awesome idea. Since Jack was gone for so long, he doesn’t really know anybody, we should throw him a welcome back party! What do you think?”

Jack came back out, modeling the jeans shyly. “You look great!” Alex said, giving him a thumbs up. “Not you, Cass. No, I’m not saying that you don’t—I can’t even see you right now. I’m sure you look lovely.” He glared at Jack, who was laughing at him without even hearing the other end of the phone call. “Uh, talk to him about it.” He passed the phone to Jack and smirked. “It’s Cassadee.”

Jack was defenseless. Cassadee really knew how to give a killer guilt trip. He could just see her turning on the fake tears and somehow spinning it to make it look like her feelings will be hurt if he says no. Girls were scary like that. They could flip a switch and BAM! Insta-crying. Flip the switch again and they’re all sunny smiles. You can never really tell what they want, so you just have to do something and hope for the best. Poor Jack didn’t stand a chance against an expert like Cass.

Four minutes later, he was handing the phone back to Alex. “How…how did she do that?” he asked, looking like he’d just come back from a battle. That wasn’t that far from reality. “I don’t understand. I didn’t even mean to agree to it!”

Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Mind control. So a welcome back party?”

He nodded. “Apparently. She said she’ll work out all the details. Zack corrected her a few times. I think I’m starting to understand how they work.”

Grinning, Alex said, “But on to more important things. Those jeans—awesome. You definitely need to get them.”

“Isn’t this a little, I dunno, excessive? I’ve already bought three pairs today.”

“Jack, come on, you can never have enough jeans. You’ve seen how many I have.”

That was true. Alex did have way too many pairs of jeans, in a lot of different colors and fits. “Ugh, fine.”

Twelve more pairs of jeans, another call from Cassadee, an apology call from Rian, twenty shirts, and two pairs of Converse later, they were pulling into Alex’s driveway just after his parents.

“Well, this’ll be interesting,” Alex said, quietly enough that Jack didn’t hear him. Or maybe he ignored him.

They left the bags in his car and slowly went inside. Jack’s dad had sobered up and was already deep in conversation with Alex’s parents. His mom turned when they came in. “Looks like we won’t have to wait. Here they are now.”

And so they all sat in the living room and finally heard the story from a mostly-willing Jack. “So they kept me in the backseat, and we drove. And drove. And drove. We only stopped once at a rest stop and they didn’t let me out. I guess they didn’t want to risk anybody recognizing me or something. I looked out the window at one point and it said ‘Welcome to Georgia’ and then we got to a house, so I guess I was in Georgia. The first few days were really awful.” He visibly shuddered, and as subtly as he could, Alex put a hand over his. Jack flipped his hand over and laced their fingers together.

“I wasn’t really quiet. I kept screaming and yelling for help, and they tried to keep me quiet by hitting me and stuff. It worked, and after a couple weeks, we got into a routine. It wasn’t a good routine, but it was structure. I don’t think they actually wanted to hurt me, because after I started keeping quiet, they didn’t hit me again. They fed me. It wasn’t much, but every morning, this blonde woman came in with a little bit of food. She was crying really hard the first day. I don’t thinks she liked what was going on, but she was kinda forced to. I didn’t find out a lot, but I learned that the guy that was driving, she was his girlfriend.”

He took a break to breathe, then continued. “After a while, Anne—the girl that brought my food—started bringing me books. She told me that someday, I’d be back in the real world and she didn’t want me to be uneducated.”

“But Jack, how’d you escape?” his dad asked.

“Anne and her boyfriend got in a huge fight, and I think he may have hit her. That night, she snuck me out into her car and staged a giant part-two of the fight, ending with her storming out. She drove a while and then let me out, said she had to turn back.” He was holding Alex’s hand so tight, his nails were digging into the skin. But Alex didn’t say anything, just let it happen.

Alex’s mother wiped away a tear and his dad smiled. But Jack’s dad stood up abruptly and said, “I have a phone call to make.”

And then he was gone.