Painting Flowers

Three days after the mishap at the party, and I'd succeeded in ignoring Alex for each one of them. It was pretty difficult, since we lived right next door to each other and we were in most of the same classes together, but I just arrived late to every lesson and was first to leave when the bell sounded for break or lunch. I blanked him every time we passed in the halls, although I couldn't help but notice how desperate and sad his large eyes looked peeking out from beneath his dark fringe.

I didn't let it get to me.

He deserved this.

(At least, I tried to convince myself he did.)

I just couldn't believe I'd been completely wasted for my first kiss with Alex. I didn't know if we would have any more. I didn't know if I wanted us to have anymore. I didn't know anything; my mind was just a total clutter of messed up thoughts about Alex, and if I liked him in that way or if I didn't, and I thought that it was kind of like those dramas that May watched about some girl fretting over if she wanted to choose the sporty guy or the smart guy and how she was just a total spoilt bitch. Well, my situation wasn't that I was stuck between two guys- it was one guy, my best fucking friend, or nothing. And nothing was looking pretty damn attractive right now.

I was still deep in thoughts when I reached home after another day of school, dropping my bag into the floor, kicking my shoes off and running up the stairs, taking them two at a time so that I could reach my room and be alone in quicker time. I slipped through my bedroom door, closing it behind me and striding over to my bed which I instantly collapsed on, spread eagle and staring at the ceiling. Ceilings didn't have to go through the confusion of going to second base with their best friend when they were drunk and ending up totally lost about their sexuality and their thoughts and everything. Lucky fuckers.

I thought for a while.

Maybe we should've just laughed it off when we both woke up, half naked, next to each other. Like, 'Whoops! Nearly fucked you last night! It's a common thing, whatever, d'you wanna come over and play xBox?' But nope. No fucking way would fate be that kind; instead, Alex said he liked it and he'd been waiting for it for ages and that he really wanted to go out with me and ugghhhhhhh.

Feelings are fucking shit.

'Cause I had no idea if I liked him back. I mean sure, kissing him again would be nice. I bet he had soft lips. Fuck. No. Bad, Jack. Stupid, Jack. Stop thinking about making out with a guy, Jack.

This was confusing.

Yes, I wanted to kiss Alex again. Yes, I wanted to see what his lips felt like again. Yes, I wanted to push him up against a wall and grind against him again, and hear him moan my name and pull at my hair. Yes, that made me a fucking weirdo.

"I don't know," I thought aloud, sighing and grabbing at my hair. "I don't fucking know anymore. I just... I'm so confused. I don't know! I don't fucking know! What the fuck am I supposed to do?!"

"Teenage angst," a voice said from outside of my window, and I shot up like a rocket, eyes widened as they met Alex's from behind the window pane. He was awkwardly squatting on the end of a branch, holding on to my house's windowsill. I was almost expecting a playful smirk to be on his face, but he just stared at me blankly.

"Fuck," I groaned, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead. "Alex, what do you want?"

"Let me in," he said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. I couldn't tell if he were mad or scared or anything because his face gave nothing away, he just looked right back at me and repeated his words of "let me in."

So I stood up from my bed and made my way over to the window, clicking the lock button and sliding it upwards so that I could see Alex for real, not just through a pane of glass. His expression still didn't change, though, because he just stayed staring at me, and I stayed staring at him and we were just looking at each other for what seemed like forever.

Eventually, I dropped my gaze to the floor, and I heard a slight 'thud' as Alex stepped inside of my room beside me. Right, so avoiding my problems was now out of the equation, and I'd just have to face my problems like a man. Too bad I was still a child in my head.

"Jack," Alex said softly from beside me, and I looked up at him through my fringe. He looked sad now. Good to know he wasn't an emotionless robot. "I'm sorry, but we need to talk."

"I don't want to talk," I said, staring down at the carpet again. I felt sick. "I don't want to think about what happened. But I can't really stop."

"Well, then speak to me about it," he said. "I've missed you a hell of a lot, I've been lonely and had no-one to talk to about anything."

Playing the guilt trip card, I thought. The oldest trick in the book. "Alex, I don't know what I want. I have no fucking clue. Can you just leave me alone til I sort this out?"

"There's two of us in this problem, we both kissed each other, I'm just better at accepting it," Alex said and yeah, okay, that was true. I'd kind of freaked out a lot when I woke up next to him, but that was only because he was my best friend, and not to mention a guy. It was weird and wrong. But hey, sometimes wrong can feel right.

I stayed silent for a moment. "I'm so confused."

"It doesn't have to be confusing," Alex said quietly, and I glanced up and- wow okay, he was close to me. Like, half a foot away. When did that happen? "Just... did you like it?"

"Did I like what?" I asked, gulping and searching his eyes with my own- they were really dark, almost black due to his dilated pupils.

"Did you like it when we kissed?" he questioned, and his voice was so faint that it felt as though I were hearing this conversation from a few rooms away, banging on the walls in between with my fists and yelling at myself to fucking kiss him already. But I stayed still, my eyebrows raised and throat dry.

"I..." I finally choked out, "I was drunk, I don't remember a thing..."

Then he looked at me for a little longer. "Do you want to try again?"

"I don't know," I said. It felt like I didn't know anything, which was probably true. "I don't know, Alex. I'm... I think I liked kissing you. But I honestly fucking can't remember anything that happened that night, I just... woke up next to you, and..."

"Left," he finished coldly. He was still standing right beside me. "You left. Which was a pretty shitty thing to do, if I'm honest." I just looked at him. Alex sighed, and I could feel his breath on my face. "You seriously need to grow the fuck up and realise that we're both stuck in a situation, and we can't go back to normal unless we do something."

"Well, what can we do?" I demanded, squaring my jaw and knitting my eyebrows together.

Alex stared at me for a few moments, narrowed eyes examining my face, almost like the answer to his question was writing on my face in French and he was trying to decipher it. But then suddenly, his palms were on my cheeks and he was bringing his head towards mine and he was closing his eyes and- oh. We were kissing again.

I was frozen in shock whilst I looked down at Alex, my arms glued to my sides and my mouth still against Alex's open lips. His eyes were lightly closed, eyelashes fanned out on his cheekbones, and I could count the freckles on his nose (well, I could see them, but I couldn't actually count how many there were because my brain was ceasing to work at this strange new feeling). He traced his fingers against the skin of my cheeks, rubbing gently as he continued to kiss me, my lips tingling a little from the feeling of Alex pressed against me like this.

It was then that I decided, what the hell? and I let my heart overtake my head, and I left all my thoughts behind as I reached up with my hands and put them on Alex's shoulders, pulling him closer to me and tilting my head to return the kiss. My eyelids slipped closed and I relaxed my whole body. God, this was nice. This was really fuckin' nice. I had no idea why I'd been putting it off for so long, why I'd been refusing to believe that I might actually like Alex more than a friend, when feeling his lips move against mine and his fingers trail across my skin felt so fucking good.

I was suddenly being pushed backwards, and I found myself stumbling into nothing until my back was pressing against a wall somewhere and I was stable again. I leant one arm up to balance myself on the surface behind me, the other reaching to Alex's neck and rubbing gently in circles, my fingers curling at the bottoms of his hair and twisting around. Suddenly, my lips were being opened further, and I felt my lungs be filled with air as Alex breathed into my mouth and flicked his tongue across my own and yeah, wow, he was great at kissing.

Wait.

Alex was great at kissing.

I knew this because he was kissing me.

And I was kissing him.

I was kissing my best friend.

Oh shit.

My eyes flashed open and I pushed Alex away from me, panic seeping through my veins as I looked over at him. He blinked slightly, eyelids fluttering open and his lips red and puffy from being pressed against mine for those weird weird weird few moments, a hand coming up to rake through his fringe afterwards.

He looked good, but there was no way in hell that I would let that stop me from yelling, "What the fuck did you just do!?"

Alex just stared at me, eyebrows furrowing together only the tiniest bit, his eyes falling to my mouth. Maybe he was realising what he'd just done at the same time as me. "I... kissed you," he said, and he glanced back up at me again. He gulped and continued before I could say anything, "and you kissed back."

Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. This wasn't okay. "Why the fuck did you kiss me oh my fucking god you just screwed everything up what the hell I'm so confused why the fuck did you kiss me?!"

"Because I like you, Jack!" he cried, and I felt my stomach twist uncomfortably. "I like you more than a friend, I have since I fucking met you and- and, I just don't know, you've been blanking me, and the only way to stop you was to confront you and-"

"And kiss me!?" I asked. Perhaps I was overreacting a little, but my mind was racing and heart was pounding as I thought 'how the hell could this happen!?'

"You kissed back!"

"I wasn't thinking!"

"But you still kissed me back, so you must have liked it!" Alex said, taking a step forwards whilst I tried to take a step back, but just felt my spine press harder against my bedroom wall.

"Okay, so fucking what if I liked it?" I seethed. "It isn't normal, Alex, I'm not gay, I don't like guys, it's wrong wrong wrong wrong-"

"Not everything has to be normal," he said. "Hell, I've never been normal, but if you liked it, Jack, then you've just got to t-"

"No!" I yelled. "No, Alex, okay? I might've liked it, but that doesn't mean I want to date you or anything like that. D'you know how much shit we'd get from people if they found out that we kissed? Oh fuck oh fuck shit crap fu-"

Alex squared his jaw and crossed his arms over his chest. "I already get so much shit for just going to school, Jack, it couldn't get much worse for me. But you, oh god, you are just worried that your football friends are gonna find out that you've kissed me and you're scared that they're gonna call you queer and they're not gonna want to hang around with you anymore, 'cause you're a self centred dick like that."

I felt anger swirl in my gut and I clenched my teeth, hands balling into fists at my sides. "Fuck. You. You've got no fucking idea, Alex, I- it's not going to be like one if those fuckin' books you read where you tell me you like me and then I suddenly fall in love with you and want to date you and marry you, 'cause that shit's fuckin' gross. Guys liking guys is just... weird."

"Then maybe I'm weird!" Alex shouted. I stopped. "Maybe I'm fucking disgusting and horrible for liking my best friend more than a best friend! But it's not like I can fucking stop it!"

I took a deep breath through my nose, slowly breathing out through my mouth. "Get out."

He frowned at me for a split second, but then put on a brave face again. "Why should I?"

"'Cause you've had your time to talk to me," I said, "and you wasted it by kissing me. Fuck. Seriously, just get out, Alex."

"But we need to sort this out!" he cried.

"Well, too bad, you should've thought about that before you fuckin' made out with me," I said. "God. Fuck. Just go away, 'Lex. Please."

He bit at the inside of his mouth. "Fine. You know what? Fine. I don't care." He turned on his heel and stepped forwards towards my window, which was still open from when he slipped inside of it a few minutes ago (the time that had passed had slowed down, and it felt like forever ago that he'd came in and started talking to me). Alex hitched himself up on the windowsill, ducking his head out into the afternoon air and stepping cautiously over onto a branch of our tree.

"And don't fucking speak to me," I told him, following him over to the window pane and bringing my hands up to grab at the wood.

"I won't. I hate you. So don't fret," he said, turning around and glaring at me for a second, before he spun back to face his own open window and made his way back to his own house. I slammed the window down and locked it, groaning loudly and dragging my fingernails down my face as I turned around to look at my bed and go and lie down on it.

"I hate Alex so fucking much, he's a selfish little prick, who the fuck does he think he is coming over to my house and just kissing me without permission, god he's an asshole, but then why the fuck did I kiss back, oh my god do I like him too, no I don't because I'm straight, I've had girlfriends before, but I liked Alex's lips against mine, that felt nice, oh my god, I hate him but I like him, fuck you Alex, fuck me Alex, fuck," I thought.