In the Rearview

As it turns out, he wasn't pushing as hard as he thought he was. A week has passed since he found Alex at the cafe and since then, Alex has taken to him better and faster than Jack ever thought he might.

"I still have a lot of things to unpack," Alex is telling him as he wipes down the table beside Jack's. "Mostly just picture frames and things like that that my mom packed up for me."

The cafe is packed. It's Friday afternoon and the high school just let out and there's a table of six teenagers in the corner making a mess of sugar packets and straw wrappers. Jack ignores them and dumps another sugar into his iced tea and decides he might as well just ask what he wants to ask.

"Do you want any help?"

The question doesn't sound as weird to Alex as Jack thought it might. But he shrugs his shoulders and Jack thinks he can see a little bit of a blush on his cheeks.

"You don't have to do that," he says, standing up straight and looking around at the other tables, seeing if they need to be cleaned up as well. "It's boring. I don't even know what I'm looking at."

Jack frowns when Alex walks away towards the counter to deal with customers who have just walked in. It hurts Jack when Alex talks about his amnesia like that. It's barely been a week since they met again and while Alex has shown no signs of remembering anything from his past, Jack knows that it could happen at any time. And he's not sure what he's going to do when that starts happening. If it starts happening. But he knows that Alex not remembering is not very likely.

He knows that if he was smart, he would stop this now. He'd end all of this and cut all ties and just leave Alex and the idea of having something with him again behind. But he's not smart. He's selfish. And a moron. But at least he'll admit it.

Jack goes back to his textbook in front of him, ignoring the guilt and instead focusing on the paragraphs about business law. But he looks up five minutes later just in time to see Zack Merrick giving Alex what looks to be a pep talk behind the counter, moving his hands around dramatically to get his point across. He's gesturing towards Jack’s table but maybe that's just a coincidence, Jack thinks - until he gives Alex a gentle push and goes back to making coffee while Alex takes a few apprehensive steps back towards the tables.

"What's up?" Jack finds himself asking when Alex is close enough. He's wringing his hands and blushing and Jack feels bad for him. "You alright?"

For a second, he thinks maybe Zack told him to stop associating with him or that Jack was being creepy and to tell him to back off or something along those lines. But then Alex smiles and starts looking more bashful than embarrassed and Jack relaxes a bit and lets him go on with it.

"I was thinking..." He says, a quick glance over his shoulder at Zack telling Jack this was not his idea at all. "If you really meant it when you asked if I needed help unpacking...maybe you could come over and we could rent a movie or something and unpack?"

Smart Jack would say 'no thanks' and be done with it and get out of dodge before something goes all wrong. But he smiles and nods and says "That would be great" and suddenly Jack thinks he might need to really re-think his intelligence level.

- - -

"What exactly are you going to do when Alex starts to remember who you are and what you did to him?"

"Who knows."

Matt isn't a fan of that response, and he makes that known. Jack hears his Sports Illustrated magazine slam down onto the coffee table in frustration. "You moron. He's going to hate you all over again and you're just setting yourself up for it."

It's true - Alex will probably remember and all the hate and betrayal he felt the first time will just come flooding back to him. And this time it will probably be even worse, considering Jack's kind of betraying him all over again.

"I'm going before you try and change my mind," Jack says, picking up his keys from the bowl on the table near the door. He looks at Matt and smirks at him, hand on the front door handle as he tells him, "I'll text you if I'm not coming home tonight."

Matt shouts "I hope he tells you to go to hell again!" just before Jack can get the door closed.

Alex only lives a few blocks away (although, in this small town, almost everything is only a few blocks away) and it takes Jack less than ten minutes to get from his apartment to Alex's front door.

He dressed casual for this - mainly because he hasn't done laundry in weeks and jeans and a t-shirt were all he had, but also because he has no idea what Alex wants this to be. He could just be looking for a friend. Or maybe he wants something more. Either way, Jack is good with it.

Casual turns out to be best, because Alex is wearing jeans and a hoodie and the hoodie has little Styrofoam packing peanuts stuck to it, and it's all Jack can do not to laugh.

"I started unpacking," Alex explains, picking the pieces off his hoodie and avoiding eye contact, "But I got bored, so I ordered pizza. And we can put on a movie if you want."

"Sure, I'm good with whatever you want," Jack assures him, following him inside and Jack has a feeling this night is not going to be what he expected.

- - -

Alex's mom packed up all of his things when he decided to move. When Jack asks him why, he realizes maybe he should have kept quiet instead.

"It's so weird," Alex finally says after a few seconds of silence. "They're telling me I'm going to remember everything, but I'm starting to not believe that. I don't know why I woke up in a hospital; I don't know why my mom had to pack all my things up; I don't know why I have all these scars all over me. And it sucks. Because everything is just a mess."

"So you woke up in a hospital? And they didn't tell you why?" For some reason, that sounds a little weird. "Aren't they legally supposed to?"

Alex shrugs. He picks another picture frame out of the box and he stares at it for a moment before sighing and tossing it to the side. "They told me I was in an accident," he explains softly, rubbing at the back of his forearms. "I have scars all over my back and my arms. The doctors claim that by telling me what happened, my memory might get all fucked and that it would be better to let it all come back to me naturally. But whatever."

It must have been an often-argued about topic because he sounds tired of it. He picks up the frame he had dropped moments ago and holds it up.

"I don't even know who this guy is but he's in every single picture in this damn box."

Jack takes it from him, holds it an arm’s length away. The frame is just a simple black one, and the picture inside is of Alex, maybe a year earlier, with a tall, good looking guy with black hair and green eyes and Jack knows who it has to be in a heartbeat.

"He looks...nice," he says, squinting at the photo. "You two look pretty close."

Like boyfriend-boyfriend close but Jack will say nothing.

"All the pictures are like that," Alex sighs, reaching into the cardboard box and pulling out three more frames. "There is nothing familiar about him. His face doesn't trigger anything."

Jack takes the back off the frame and pulls the photo out, flipping it out and reading, "2010, New Year's Eve", before handing it over to Alex. "To be honest, he looks like a boyfriend."

"Yeah... But then where is he now?"

Jack has no answer for him. He doesn't like thinking about Alex being with someone other than him, but he knows it happened. And apparently with this super attractive guy that he was obviously living with. But Alex does pose a good question. Why has he left Alex alone like this?

- - -

It's not that the movie they decided to watch is boring. It was interesting -up until halfway through and the two of them somehow ended up almost on the same couch cushion. Alex's couch is pretty spacious so there's no reason to be so close but here they are, Alex practically in his lap and the movie all but forgotten.

"You probably think I'm nuts," Alex says quietly, fingers playing with the hem of his own t-shirt. His foot nudges Jack's thigh and Jack takes it upon himself to just go for it and he takes Alex's hand in his own. "I can't remember my own favorite candy, let alone my apparent boyfriend, yet here I am practically in your lap watching a movie."

"I don't think you're nuts," Jack assures him, even though he shouldn’t. “It’s not your fault. I’m sure you’ll remember everything eventually.” He shouldn’t say that, either.

“So many times I’ve thought about just calling my mom and asking her to just tell me what happened to me. But every single time I pick up the phone to do that, I chicken out. I don’t think I want to know. I don’t think I want to hear about it. Because honestly, I have this feeling that maybe my life before…before all of this isn’t all that great.”

Jack shrugs, as though he thinks that Alex is just being overdramatic and that he has no clue what Alex’s life could have possibly been like before. “What would make you think that? I’m sure that’s not true-”

“Because these boxes don’t hold all of my things,” Alex interrupts, pulling his hand out of Jack’s grip. He leans back on the couch, turning his body so he’s looking at the multiple boxes on the floor behind it. “I know they don’t. There are more. In storage somewhere. I knew that she was planning on putting more away, but I left before she had the chance. She wasn’t happy but there’s not really much she can do about it.”

He hadn’t allowed himself to really think about it, but Alex’s words kind of confirmed what he had assumed. He’d wondered what happened to all of the things that would remind Alex of Jack – old pictures, letters, those sorts of things. He didn’t want to think that they were gone forever but maybe they’d be better off that way. If they’re still in existence, there’s proof out there that Jack and Alex have a history already.

“Whatever,” Alex sighs, sinking back down into the couch and crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t care. I’m just seeing how it goes and hoping I get some memories back one by one.”

“How does that even work, anyway?” Jack asks, “Like, do you suddenly just remember? Or do things have to trigger it?”

“Could be either, I guess. Remember when I saw you at the grocery store back when we first met? And you suggested I buy Kit-Kat bars?”

Of course he remembers. “Vaguely. What about it?”

“After I actually ate one, it occurred to me – why wouldn’t I buy Kit Kat’s? Like, just the fact that I had questioned it was shocking to me. So maybe that’s how it’s going to work for me.”

Jack sighs. This whole thing is beginning to get exhausting just to think about. Now he has to try and remember to not do things that could trigger Alex’s memories. He doesn’t think there’s anything that he does that could do that but he could be wrong. He just hopes his and Alex’s relationship was long enough ago for any memories to stay dormant.