Never Look Back

Alex's POV
“Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.” I muttered desperately. This wasn’t the way I planned this date, and now I’ll probably never get another. I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight like that but of course Alyssa had to go off and have her own adventure. The part that drove me the most insane was that Patrick forgave me so quickly.
“Alex, take a load off. She’s doing fine; nothing that happened was your fault. She’s like her mother, she likes to do things herself and go off brave but come back hurt.” I sighed but thanked him for trying to soothe me. Jack on the other hand wasn’t making the situation any better.
“You killed my sister you asshole! She’s fucking dead! ALYSSA! WAKE UP!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, Patrick grabbed ahold of him and led him out of the room. I could hear him faintly whispering, probably trying to explain that Alyssa wasn’t actually dead.
I sat at the end of her bed, her eyes opened slightly, she groaned and placed both her hands on the side of her head.
“Alex? What happened?” Her eyes were now fully opened and her beautiful hazel eyes stared back at me, patiently awaiting an answer. “Why does my head hurt?”
I sighed, I was gonna have to tell her sooner or later. “We went skating remember?” She nodded and I continued, “Well, you were going really fast and you weren’t paying attention and you ran into a big guy and fell on your head really hard.”
“Is that it?” She asked.
“Alyssa, you got knocked out cold from it,” I said softly.
“Stop screaming at me, you’re being so loud,” she whimpered and pulled the covers over her ears. We had called the doctor who came by to examine Alyssa while she was practically half asleep noted that she had gotten a concussion from the fall and gave us a list of symptoms and precautions we should take.

*One Hour Earlier*

“How’s it looking?” I asked rubbing my clammy hands on my jeans.
“Well by the way she’s acting; I do believe she’s suffered a concussion. Just let her rest for about a week and I’ll check up on her again when she’s more awake but you’ll want to take her in to check for any possible brain damage but I don’t think she’s experienced any, this looks like a pretty severe though so she might take awhile to fully recover.” He stood up from where he knelt by her bed and turned to us. He was short and stout with a large nose and large glasses, even the little stereotypical lab coat and clipboard.
“Be careful around her, she might get over emotional, fatigue, vomiting, unbalanced, impaired vision, very sensitive to light and noise and unable to remember recent information,” He continued. “All you have to do is just keep her in a dark room, speak quietly, eat fever foods and be calm and patient with her.” Patrick, Jack and I all nodded and he left the room to talk alone with Patrick.

**

“Sorry,” I apologized softly. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged, “fine besides the pounding headache…thanks for being there for me.”
I laughed cruelly and she looked questionably at me, “It was my fault that happened to you, you should hate me.”
She shook her head, “no-no-no it was me, I’m just an idiot who thinks she can go off and do anything. Thank you for taking me and then caring for me like you are right now.”
“Yeah…you don’t think that maybe I could possibly take you out again to make up for this time? I’d really like to start over.”
She laughed and nodded, “me too.”
I took her all in, how beautiful she looked at that very moment and just the thought that I could possibly have a shot with her. I’ve never felt this way about any girl before, like you just can’t let them out of your sight and you just want to be around them all the time. By this time, I would have laid three girls easy but now all the sudden I found myself with her every second I could get. Girls like Lisa have always been lined up, ready for whenever I want them, even asking for it.
Lisa…she was hot. She was smoking hot…blonde hair, amazing body and not to mention GREAT in bed. I’ve never said no to her before as she never said no to me either. I just couldn’t, every time I thought of Lisa my mind always brought me back to Alyssa.
She shut her eyes, those big hazel eyes that looked right through your soul and knew exactly what you were thinking. I loved those hazel eyes.

Alyssa’s POV
It came once again; I clutched my mouth and sprinted to the bathroom, relieving myself of everything I had eaten that day. I groaned and flushed the toilet, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. This was the fourth time tonight that I had woken up to vomiting; I cringed at the taste of the burning acid that settled once again in the back of my throat. The weekend had gone by too fast and was full of vomit and sleeping, I barely had time for breathing. It was settled that I was going to school tomorrow, there was no way I could afford missing a day since I was already behind everyone else.
“Alyce?” I heard a small voice ask. I turned to corner out of the bathroom to the hall and there stood Alex, his face full of worry and concern.
“Hey, what are you doing up?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I heard someone get up and run to the bathroom and I knew it was you and I got worried so here I am,” he said and shrugged.
“That’s sweet, Alex thank you but you should go back to bed it’s late.”
“Are you okay?”
“Alex-“
“I won’t be able to sleep unless I know.”
I sighed in defeat, “I’m fine.” He nodded then spun on his heel back to Jack’s room, even though it was a school night he decided that he wanted to stay for my sake of course. I headed back to my room for a hopefully vomit free rest of the night. I lay back down and drifted back to sleep, my dreams disappointingly nonexistent.

“Alyssa…Alyssa…ALYSSA!” I opened my eyes to see Jack’s face inches from mine.
“Jack! God dammit leave her alone, you’ll upset her!” I looked over to see Alex rushing in after him. He was held his breath when he saw me and Jack, like he was scared I was gonna explode because he shouted in my face.
“Jack…” I said quietly and calmly. “Get off of me and leave before I chuck your flimsy little body across the room.” His eyes grew wide and he quickly jumped off of me and ran towards the door. I slowly got up and faced Alex, he looked hesitant.
“Your fine,” I sighed and he visibly relaxed. I peeled off my pajamas to expose my matching black underwear and I heard him suck in a breath, I ignored it and threw on a pair of denim holey skinny jeans, a black cutoff shirt that exposed my shoulders and black converse. My hair remained in it bun and turned to Alex for feedback.
“I approve but don’t you think a warning before you went all half naked on me would be appropriate?” He asked raising an eyebrow at me, I giggled and his expression soften. “Do you think it’s a good idea that you’re going to school after you got a pretty bad concussion and you vomited about five times last night?”
“I’m going, I already talked to Patrick last night and he tried to fight me off too but I want to go to school so I’m going,” He sighed in defeat.
He was wearing black skinny jeans, a white Love is the Movement shirt and black Nikes, his highlighted hair was tousled and flipped perfectly. I followed him out to the living room where Jack was already distracted with television.
“Jack, let’s go,” Alex called to him and he shut off the TV and followed us out to the car. Jack decided he wanted to drive us to school and with surprisingly no argument from Alex even though it was his car we were taking. He sat in the back with me as Jack studied the road with extreme concentration, making Alex and I laugh.
“Jack, do you even remember how to drive?” I asked.
“Yes!” He called whiningly back to me.
We made it alive to say the least and Alex and I of course walked to our first period together, but today went better than the others, people actually knew me now and talked to me.
“Hey, Alex and Alyssa! You guys going to the game Friday? Its home and it’s against Ampleton!” A boy named Jake Kyder said enthusiastically. The Ampleton Gators were our rivalry school; apparently we were big enemies with them.
“Oh, actually I don’t know, Alyssa do you want to go?” Alex asked turning to me.
“Yeah sure,” I shrugged. I’ve never been to any of our ‘Curley Crusaders’ football games.
“Really?” Alex asked furrowing his brow, like he never would have guessed that I would want to go and actually say yes.
“Yeah,” I said again and he shrugged. We continued walking and stopped to talk to a couple of people along the way but the girls we came up on, I was not expecting.
“Alex!” She gushed and hugged him for a second too long. “Who’s this?” She looked at me like I just insulted her. It was the same girls who confronted me in the bathroom the other day, lying right through her teeth that she didn’t even know me even though I told her my name that day.
“This is Alyssa Barakat, Jack’s sister who moved here not that long ago,” she didn’t put her hand out to me or smile to me or even nod to me…she just simply stood there and stared me up and down.
“Alyssa, this is Lisa and her friends behind her are Victoria and Kendall,” they copied Lisa.
“Nice to meet you!” I said as sweetly as I could. There was silence to follow until Alex spoke.
“Well we should get going,” He pushed through them to our class, which was only across the hall.
“I don’t think they like me,” I said as we sat down in our spots and the bell rang immediately after that.
“Don’t get involved with them, they know how to get a reaction out of people and with your concussion and all I-“
“You think they would try to get a rise out of me? Why?” I asked, confused.
He shrugged, “I don’t know, they’re kinda obsessed with me and with you hanging around me I’m not sure what they’ll try.” I sighed, it seemed like no matter what I did, some people took every stupid opportunity they could to hate me.

The rest of school went by fast including lunch and I found myself already getting a ride home from Matt. We sang to Blink 182 the whole way and cracked jokes at some of our classmates. He opened my door for me and gave me his usual hug goodbye, I decided not to tell him about the concussion, mostly because how it happened was embarrassing and I was on a date with Alex when it happened and I thought it would upset him. I jogged up the steps inside as he backed out of the driveway, saying hello to Patrick as I came in.
“How was school?”
“Fine,” I said and ran to my room. I was hoping for some alone time before the boys came home, knowing Alex would stay for dinner again.