Anywhere but Here

Jack returned to an empty dorm.

Surely Alex was lying, right? Zack wouldn’t, couldn’t cheat on him. He paced the room, cleaning as he went, unable to sleep as he thought about it. It was no secret that Alex wanted him back, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to him that he would go as far as to make up shit about Zack screwing around. But that was going too far, wasn’t it? There had to be a line somewhere…so maybe Alex was just confused. He was, after all, a bit intoxicated.

Wait, why was Jack defending him? It wasn’t like he had any reason to, but still, here he was, searching for every possible excuse for Alex.

Zack returned at 3:09 a.m.

“Whose jacket is that?” he demanded approximately two seconds after entering the room. No hello or anything of the sort.

Jack looked down, realizing he was still wearing Alex’s hoodie. He made no move to take it off. “Alex’s,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

“Right, so I leave and when I come back, you’re wearing your ex-boyfriend’s jacket. Well, that’s fuckin’ awesome.”

“Did you cheat on me?” Jack asked quietly.

“Wh-what?” Zack stammered, taken aback by the bluntness.

“Did. You. Cheat. On. Me. Simple question, Zack.”

“I don’t think I have to answer that,” he snapped.

“Fine, even easier question. Were you at a party tonight?”

“Yeah, I stopped by one.”

“Huh.” Jack looked at him, feeling bolder than he had in a long time. “So when you said you were ‘going out with some friends,’ what you really meant was that you were going to go to a party. Awesome.”

“Jack, I don’t—”

“Oh, no, I’m not finished yet, Zack, not even close.” He was actually getting pissed, feeling a real emotion towards somebody, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel pretty damn good. “You have been lecturing me for weeks about trust and being honest with each other. You’ve been shouting at me for being depressed and accusing me of lying to you, but then, oh, it’s perfectly o-fucking-kay for you to tell me you’re just going out with friends, but actually go to a party.” The anger coursing through his veins felt so…so…empowering. Not that he could act on it, not really. “I’m asking you one more time, Zack. Did you cheat on me?”

“Yes,” he said softly, his features contorting into an expression Jack had never seen on his face. Guilt. “I’m so sorry, Jack. I, I didn’t mean to. It only happened twice. It won’t—”

“Two times?!” Jack shouted incredulously, eyes flashing. “Zack, I fucking trusted you and—”

“Oh, don’t give me any of that shit about trust! At least I had the guts to tell you.”

“Yeah, after I brought it up.”

“Let me finish,” Zack said, his voice far from kind. “I was able to tell you, but I had to find out from Lisa about you and Alex. Do you know what it’s like to find out from your boyfriend’s ex’s now-ex girlfriend that he’s cheat on you?”

“No, but I do know what it’s like to accuse somebody of lying to me about my boyfriend cheating on me.” He ran a hand over his face and through his hair, tugging the ends in frustration. Even in his angry state, he was starting to feel bad—no, horrible—for what he said to Alex. Holy shit, he’d been a dick. “Shit, I was so…”

And so they started fighting. It was one of those fights that begins as one thing but explodes, blossoming out into a million other arguments, with every issue in the relationship coming to a head at once. The peak of the fight occurred when Zack yelled, “You know, out of all the times I’ve told you I love you, you’ve never said it back.”

“I have!” Jack protested, knowing it wasn’t true. He’d been spending a while purposefully avoiding saying it.

“No, you always say ‘you too’ or ‘ditto.’ Do you, Jack? Do you love me?”

The damage to their relationship was already done. It was unlikely that they would even remain friends after this. Why lie? “I…well, no. I don’t. I’m sorry.” He sighed, then felt like he owed him an explanation. “I tried, Zack, I really did. But I just feel like I’ve spent our entire relationship lying to you and everyone and myself about how I really feel. I like you, I do…as a friend. I tried to love you like that, but you just weren’t…” He trailed off, unsure of the adjective that Zack wasn’t. He knew what he wanted to say.

And so, it appeared, did Zack. “I’m not Alex,” he finished, his voice considerably softer than it had been. “What about him? Do you love him?”

Jack didn’t really know what to say. Yes, yes, yes, he loved Alex. So much. He’d never quit loving that awkward Gaskarth boy, no matter how hard he’d tried. It just wasn’t happening. But how could he say that to Zack? Even though he’d just admitted to cheating on him—twice—Jack didn’t want to hurt him. Okay, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to hurt him, seeing as he’d just told him he didn’t love him, but it was just that he didn’t want to add insult to injury. Okay, so let’s recap. I cheated on you with my ex. I don’t love you. Oh, and by the way, I’m still in love with him. Yeah, that seemed kind of mean.

But his silence was enough of an answer for Zack. “You do. God, how could I not have seen it before now?” Truth be told, he’d been suspicious for a long time, but he’d been in denial. But Jack didn’t need to know that. “Well,” he said, unable to stop from bragging. “Rian loves me.”

“Rian?!” Jack yelped. “Rian, as in Alex’s room mate Rian, as in never-home-always-out Rian?”

“Yeah, that’d be the one.”

“Wait…you’ve only cheated on me twice, right?” Jack asked slowly, beginning to put things together.

“Mmhmm,” he replied surely.

“What do you define as ‘cheating’?”

“Third base or further,” he responded immediately, like it was the most obvious thing in the world to him. And then it dawned on him that Jack was starting to catch on.

“Huh. And how many times did you and Rian do anything less than third base? How long has it been going on?”

“A few months, maybe a year…I guess about as long as our relationship.” He seemed to have chosen Jack’s way of thinking: their friendship was unsalvageable. There was no reason not to tell the brutal truth anymore.

That isn’t to say that there wasn’t more fighting. They didn’t quit screaming at each other about betrayal and trust and promises and every thought that came to mind until someone from down the hall—Danny, Jack thought was his name—came and begged them to shut the hell up or by god, he’d do it for them.

“So,” Zack asked casually, like he was about to inquire about the weather. “Are we over?”

Why did he even have to ask? “Yeah. Yeah, we’re definitely over.”