In the Rearview

The first chance that Jack gets to deal with the Alex situation comes on the following Saturday. He gets his coffee and a bagel and sits down in the back on the café, one table away from where Alex had been sitting when Jack first spotted him Wednesday. Jack takes his laptop out of his backpack and sets it in front of him, determined to get a little bit of work done for his online class before doing anything else. He can’t let himself get distracted over Alex before even really having all the information. He can’t afford that just yet.

After a half hour of productive work, Jack starts getting distracted. He gives himself the credit for getting at least a little bit of work done, though. Now he doesn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the weekend. The second that the employee who was talking to Alex on Wednesday comes in for his morning shift, Jack can’t concentrate on anything else. He has so many questions for the guy – most importantly, how does he know Alex? – but he needs to approach this whole thing as delicately as possible. He doesn’t need him getting suspicious.

His name’s Zack Merrick and he lives in the off-campus house across the street from Jack. He lives with some other guy, but that’s the extent of knowledge Jack has about him. They do acknowledge each other when they come into contact, but other than that they have no connection. So getting information out of Zack might be a little difficult. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.

Thankfully, Zack makes it easy for him. He comes over near Jack, wiping down the tables with a white wash cloth, making sure they’re clean enough for people to sit. He smiles at Jack in a friendly manner when he pushes in one of the chairs at Jack’s table and Jack takes that as an invitation to start a conversation.

“Hey man,” he starts, offering Zack an equally as friendly smile in the hopes of appearing like just any other friendly neighbor. Which he is. Totally. “How’s it going?”

Zack seems a bit thrown off by the start of a conversation. He stops walking to the next table, crumples the cloth in his hands and gives an apprehensive, “Hey, Jack…It’s good. Things good with you?”

Jack nods quickly, “Yeah, it’s all good. Everything’s great. I haven’t seen you in a while so I figured I’d check in, you know?”

Clearly, that was not the right thing to say. Zack rolls his eyes and starts heading towards the tables in the back. “Jack, I just waved to you from my driveway yesterday.”

It’s true, now that Jack thinks about it. He did. Zack was carrying a lamp and a plastic bag from CVS. Jack’s pretty sure he went inside and promptly made fun of him with Matt. Well then.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah you’re right. I forgot. Hey, I’ve been wondering something.” And he decides to just jump right into it instead of tiptoeing around it. “I saw you working on Wednesday morning and you were talking to this guy at one of the tables and-”

Zack catches on to what Jack is talking about, quickly laughing and nodding as he starts brushing crumbs off a table. “Alex. You probably saw me with Alex. He’s a new employee – he’ll start working shifts soon. Why?”

Jack’s not sure if he likes that news or not. “He’s working here? I thought he was just a friend of yours.”

“Well, we’re sort of friends, yeah. He just moved here, and I helped him – wait,” Zack pauses, standing up straight and narrowing his eyes at Jack, “You still haven’t said why you want to know.”

Jack waves him off, knowing he really can’t push the conversation any further than this without it getting weird for both of them. “Nah, I was just curious. I’ve never seen him around before. Small town. You know?”

It’s a satisfactory answer for Zack apparently, and he goes back to cleaning and Jack goes back to his laptop, with little more information than he started with. So Alex just moved here recently. And he’s got a job at this coffee shop. And somehow, Zack is his friend. Jack has no idea how those three bits of information all fit together and he has no idea where to start trying to figure it out.

He decides to get out of the shop before he decides to start asking

& & &

Lucky for Jack (or maybe unlucky, he hasn’t decided yet), while he’s at the grocery store trying to restock all the food that Matt ate over the past few days, he finds Alex. It’s not surprising really. It’s the only grocery store in the small town and everyone shops there, so now that Alex is living here, it’s not weird that he’s here. However, Jack’s a little surprised at the timing. He wasn’t expecting this and totally wasn’t prepared for this.

Alex is at the very end of the candy aisle, looking confused and distressed and Jack finds himself walking towards him on instinct, because apparently, that pull he’s always felt towards Alex never really went away.

“You okay?” he asks, as normal as he can make himself sound. It’s not exactly unusual for everyone in this small town to be up in everyone’s business but still. This is Alex. And Jack needs to be delicate. Because this could go either way.

Alex looks away from the shelves and gives Jack a shy smile. Still no sign of recognition at all, not even after hearing Jack’s voice and coming face to face with him. Jack had hoped that an actual confrontation with him would stir up the memories but apparently, no.

“I’m okay,” he assures Jack, sounding exactly the same as he did three years ago. “Just…struggling to pick out candy.” He blushes, as if he knows exactly how strange that actually sounds.

Jack just laughs, resisting the urge to go with his instincts and grab Alex and hug him and never let him go. That probably wouldn’t go over too well with someone who apparently has absolutely no idea who he is. “Maybe you should go with your favorite,” he suggests instead, reaching out and grabbing a package of sour gummy worms from the top shelf. Matt will appreciate them, even if Jack is only getting them because it’s going to hopefully keep him talking to Alex.

Instead of the response Jack was expecting (Alex’s favorite candy was always Kit-Kat bars), Alex just blushes a deeper shade of red. “That’s the thing…I don’t think I have a favorite.”

That throws Jack, but not enough to prevent him from suggesting the Kit-Kat bar that he knows Alex will love and at the suggestion, Alex looks truly relieved. He takes the package off the shelf and tosses it into his shopping cart, which is filled with frozen microwave meals and bags of potato chips and bread. And if that wasn’t a sure sign that this Alex is not the Alex Jack thinks he knows, he’s not sure what would be. Because his Alex knew how to cook – and pretty damn well. He would never buy microwave meals.

“You probably think I’m crazy,” Alex laughs, rubbing the back of his neck as the blush stats to fade from his cheeks, “Not knowing my own favorite candy. They told me my memory would come back sooner rather than later, but I’m starting to think they were lying.”

And Jack has no idea what to say to that.

“Sorry, now you definitely think I’m crazy – I’m telling you my sob story and I don’t even know your name.”

“No, no it’s fine, I promise,” Jack says quickly, holding his hand out for Alex to shake. “My name’s Jack.”

“I’m Alex.”

Feeling Alex’s hand in his own, if only for a few quick seconds, brings Jack back to senior year, when things were good and he didn’t fuck up yet. It does nothing for Alex.

“I saw you the other day in the café down by the beach. It’s a small town so you tend to notice new people,” Jack explains, hoping he doesn’t sound too creepy.

“I’m starting to realize that everyone apparently knows everyone,” Alex says, smiling a bit. His blush is gone and he’s starting to push his shopping cart towards the end of the aisle, signaling to Jack that this conversation is just about over. “Guess I’ll see you around, Jack.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees, watching Alex leave, “See you.”

So his game plan has changed up a bit. Alex has memory loss. He doesn’t remember anything that happened. Jack can use this to his advantage.