Never Look Back

I was abruptly awoken by a harsh knocking on the front door; I groaned and left my bed to go answer it. I swung it open to find disheveled Jack standing over Alex who was on the ground covered in what I assumed was his own puke. My hand involuntarily shut off the air to my nose, trying to get the horrid smell out of my head.
“What the fuck?” My brows furrowed together as my eyes locked on Alex’s current state.
“After we got off the phone with you, Alex drank and drank…and drank until he puked his guts out three times. He keeps mumbling, “I’m so sorry Alyssa, I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what to do so I brought him back here hoping you’d help.”
Jack dragged him in and helped him onto the couch; he lay with his eyes shut and his mouth open. I grabbed a wet wash cloth and began rubbing off all the vomit around his mouth, on his hands and down his neck.
“Jack, can you bring him a shirt and some shorts of yours that he can change into?” I asked and he nodded and ran to his room. Seconds later he brought back a Glamour Kills shirt and some sweatpants. Jack helped me in taking Alex’s shirt off; I continued to wipe off any leftover puke and wriggled him into his new shirt and pants.
Jack then got bored and retreated back to his room which left me to care for Alex. I made him drink some water and I placed a cool wash cloth over his head. I squatted next to the couch in front of his and ran my fingers through his hair, he looked so vulnerable sleeping. I smiled as I looked at him, rubbing my thumb along his jawline. An hour ago I thought I was through with Alex and was fed up with him but now…I couldn’t take my eyes off of him and never wanted to leave his side.
I watched television until I heard Alex groan and I looked over to see he had his eyes slightly opened. I turned off the T.V. and walked over to his aid.
“Alex? Are you okay?” I whispered in his ear and his eyes slowly opened to look at where the voice had come from.
“Alyssa?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
He squeezed my hand, “I’m so sorry I did that to you, I was an ass and I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Alex, I forgive you,” running my fingers through his hair again.
“No, I was horrible to you for nothing, don’t forgive me so easily. I want you to mean it.”
“What do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to hold a grudge against you for doing something stupid like I did earlier? No, Alex I forgive you, I don’t want this to go on any longer than it has.” I argued softly to him, he blinked slowly, trying to stay awake.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” he choked out and I could see tears barely beginning to well up in his eyes. My heart yearned to hug him, kiss him forever and tell him he would never lose me, that I wasn’t going anywhere but I couldn’t do that yet.
“I’m still here, you haven’t lost me,” I whispered to him. I kissed him on the cheek before I stood up to fetch him something to eat. I had no idea what he would want, so I decided to go with making him something light that won’t hurt his stomach or head. Peeling the banana and cutting it into sections, I then took it out to Alex. He chuckled when he saw it sitting in its plastic bowl. He thanked me and sat up to eat the pieces while we talked.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, genuinely curiously.
“Get wasted? I wasn’t going to, I was just going to have a couple drinks with Jack only to get you a little mad…then after talking to you and hearing how sad and disappointed you sounded...I don’t know, I guess I thought you’d leave me and I didn’t want that feeling reminding me every second so…I did the only thing I knew would help me escape it all.” He looked at the ground for a moment before coming back to reality and taking another bite of his banana.
“Can we go to school tomorrow?” I asked gently and he looked up at me, smiled and nodded with his cheeks full of banana, making me giggle.
My head snapped up to the front door opening quickly, Patrick stomped in, obviously frustrated. He shoved the door close and his eyes locked with mine.
“What’s going on?” He asked as neared the couch and saw Alex nibbling on his bananas.
“Nothing, Alex wasn’t feeling well so I gave him a banana to try to make him feel better,” I lied coolly.
“What’s the matter?”
“Migraine,” He accepted it as a possibility, although fairly unlikely and headed into his room. I sighed a huge sigh of relief when he left, feeling guilty about lying to him to his face in his own home but I doubt he would even want to hear the truth.

The next day at school, wearing what I would’ve yesterday, Alex, Jack and I were bombarded with questions.
“Where were you guys?”
“Were you guys having sex?”
“Dude! Are you keeping us from band shit!?”
“No you guys we were gone yesterday just to take a day off and mess around a little,” Alex lied. They all seemed to believe it; they were only “upset” because we didn’t take them with us. Matt seemed the most uneasy and upset about me taking a day off with Alex. But with us still not speaking, he didn’t argue.
The bell rang and Alex and I separated from the group to head to math, holding hands and laughing like what happened yesterday was all just a nightmare. We got stare after stare as we headed down the halls, well actually I got the glares from the females and Alex got the thumbs up from the males. With the exception of the girl whose hair is now purple, with her pleated skirts and gothic combat boots and colorful tights that seemed to be very into our relationship.
“There you guys are! Hey, so I was gonna give you some cute nickname with your names morphed but Alex and Alyssa either way spell each other’s name! How cute is that? So I did your last names, you either got Baragarth or Gaskat…your names just don’t work well together.” She continued her rambling.
“Anyway, how cute is the name Alyssa Gaskarth? Adorable! You guys are holding hands! I can’t get over you guys.”
Alex and I slowly walked passed her and finally made it to our class; we sat seconds before the last bell rang.
“Gigs coming up, you excited?” Alex whispered to me while keeping his head forward as to not alert Mr. Barlow.
“I’m not the one playing, I should be asking that question to you,” I whispered back.
“Stoked. Never played in a high school before which is also why I want to shit my pants even though it’s not that important of a gig. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re the same age as us…”
“You’ll be fine; you always are when you get nervous.”
“You have too much faith in me, when I screw up its really bad.”
I shrugged even though I knew he couldn’t see me, “you still have yet to screw up.”
“Mr. Gaskarth and Ms. Barakat, do you have something to share with the class?” Mr. Barlow asked and I felt every eye stare at us, I felt my face blanch.
“Uhh, All Time Low is playing at Dunbar High School on Friday at 8:00 so everyone should come to it even though it’s a dance. It’s in Washington D.C. for those of you who don’t get out much,” Alex joked and people around him chuckled.
“Thank you for the update Mr. Gaskarth, moving on...” Mr. Barlow continued but I had already tuned him out.
The next period I had was with Jack of all people, which Alex walked me to. I sat next to him at our lab table and set everything up for our lesson today which was posted on the board. The bell rang to begin class and Ms. Sheppard came out from behind her desk to greet us.
The class was fairly dull but Jack made it fun by talking to me the whole time and joking around. He raised his hand to ask questions that were extremely obvious but he was seriously confused and answered questions that were way off, I finally told him to stop raising his hand. That only caused him to blurt out the answer which made for an unhappy Ms. Sheppard.
When school was finally over for me I had realized I forgot to take my own car to school, so I was stuck here for another hour. I paced the halls, went to the bathroom, studied in the library for a bit but time seemed to drag on.
As I rounded a corner to pace down another hall, I almost ran face smack into Matt. I couldn’t help but gasp.
“Alyssa,” he said and stopped me with his arm.
“Hey Matt,” I replied, giving him a fake smile. I stared at the ground, nervous as to where this was going.
“I’m sorry for being a dick, I should be happy for you and I am in a way,” he said. “I just want us to be friends again.”
I nodded, “me too, you’re forgiven because I’m tired of fighting with everyone.”
“Well do you want a ride home? I’ve kinda noticed you walking the halls like a ghost,” he chuckled.
“Yeah thank you, that’d be nice.”
~~

“I have our next gig already set up,” he boasted. “It’s next Saturday at Blue Moose, guess who I got to come.”
I shrugged, “I don’t know, who?”
“Danny Rosario!” My expression remained blank. “He’s the owner and recording manager of Hopeless Records, I sent a demo of a couple songs of ours and he was interested. He wants to see what they sound like in real life and how the crowd reacts to us.”
“Holy shit Matt that’s awesome! Did you tell the guys?”
“No, no one knows except you and me.”
“When are you going to tell them?” I asked.
He shook his head, “I’m not. I’m not going to until the shows over so that they won’t be nervous going up and screw up.”
“You think they’ll screw it up?” I asked, shocked.
“I don’t wanna put that kind of pressure on them, I just want them to get up there and act like it’s a normal gig.”
I sighed, I wouldn’t tell them since he didn’t want me to but I thought he should since the boys are gonna have to get used to that kind of nervousness, he obviously doesn’t have much faith in them if he thinks they’re gonna mess up bad every time they get nervous.
The rest of the way home was silent and when we pulled into my driveway I let myself out and left without a goodbye, something that didn’t bother me.
Patrick wasn’t home when I came in, I figured he stayed overtime or maybe he had a meeting of some sort. I realized that I was emotionally and physically exhausted from the last couple of days; things with Alex have been up then down and then back up in what seemed like only a matter of minutes. I hoped we wouldn’t fight over dumbass shit like we did. But, we but heads; we both like to challenge the other. We both like to get a reaction out of someone and that doesn’t really work with the two of us because we’ll just go back and forth.
I slouched down on the couch and rested my eyes for only what I thought would be a minute.

“ALYSSA!” My eyes blinked open to see Jack running towards me with his arms out and now embracing me in a hug. I blinked a couple of times, my eyes adjusting to the bright light and put a hand on Jack’s back in a poor attempt to hug him back. He let go and I rubbed my eyes and sat up, Alex was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Alex?” I asked, I wouldn’t’ve but Alex almost always comes home with Jack after school.
“Uhh, he had to go home because his mom called him for something. I don’t know, I don’t remember.” I rolled my eyes; you could never rely on Jack for anything. I got up and went to my room to call him.
“Alyce?” He asked into the phone.
“Yeah, is everything okay?” I asked.
“Uhh, yeah everything’s fine, is that all you called for?”
“Well, Jack said your mom needed you for something, I didn’t know if anything had happened or not.”
He sighed, “Everything’s fine. I’ll pick you up tomorrow.” With that the line went dead. I stared at my phone then slowly shoved it back in my pocket. What was that all about?
I ignored it and walked back out to Jack who was watching T.V. on the couch.
“Hey! Who should I ask to Winter Formal this weekend?” Jack asked me without taking his eyes off the screen.
“That’s this week?” I asked, I hadn’t seen or heard anything about it. It was already Tuesday.
“Yeah, the announcements have been talking about the dance nonstop for the past month, what do you think that dance on Friday at Dunbar is for?” He asked me like I was stupid.
“Oh, well…I guess I’m not going then,” I said.
“What? No, you’re going!”
“I don’t have a dress or anything; I also don’t have any female friends to go shopping with!” I whined.
“I’ll go with you,” he said enthusiastically.
“You’re approval is not something that I’m looking for but I think you’re the best I’m gonna get,” I sighed.
“Should we go now?” He asked and his eyes lit up.
“Why?” I asked, he had just gotten home and I didn’t really want to go anywhere.
“Because it’s already Tuesday?”
“Point well made, let’s go.”

As I went dress shopping with Jack I definitely now know that I never wanted to go shopping with him again…or shopping in general. He made me try on almost every dress there and act like I was a runway model on America’s Next Top Model. He even insisted on trying dresses on with me, I was permanently horrified.
This whole ‘Winter Formal’ thing was struck up pretty quick, I mean one second I’m learning about it and now I’m dress shopping with my brother…I don’t even have a date. Alex was acting unusual and he never talked to me about any dance, not even that Dunbar was having theirs the night before they were performing. Maybe he doesn’t want to go with me…then that’s okay. I have to accept the fact that even though he’s my boyfriend we don’t have to do everything together like gross newlyweds.
Jack and I wandered into another store that I wasn’t familiar with and found the dresses aisle, most of the good dresses were taken and I was left with the ugly ass ones since I was uninformed about the dance. We picked through them, daring each other to try on the ugliest dresses we could find until I found the greatest dress I have ever seen in my life. It was a strapless navy blue dress that had amazing accents and folding. I showed Jack and he shrugged, I rolled my eyes and ran to try it on.
It was snug but wasn’t too tight to where I couldn’t breathe, I ran out to show Jack.
“Jack look! I love it!” I twirled around in it and stopped to face him. He was holding his phone vertically up to me.
“Are you taking a picture of me?” I asked, serious now.
“Nope, not at all.” He said shaking his head. I giggled then ran back into the dressing room to quick go pay for this thing.