You Said You read Me Like a Book

Physical pain is a bitch. I’ve learned to handle it in the sad addition to the fact that I’m probably one of the biggest klutz to ever have walked this planet; burns, cuts, bruises, paper cuts, grazes, you name them, I’ve got about ten of each.
All in all though, I have only ever broken four bones before; my ankle, my arm, my wrist and Derek Sanders’ nose.
But to my defense, he had it coming. Fucker decided it would be a good idea to flush my goldfish down the watery depths of toilet hell when we were 12.

Emotional pain though, is something close to unnatural for me. No, I’m not one of those “oh my god, life is so rough for me, nobody understands me boo fucking hoo” kind of kid, but getting all emotional, lets-all-talk-about-our-feelings, isn’t something I’ll do unless I’m genuinely drunk as fuck.

I rested my head against the cold backseat window of the old Toyota and sighed.

Us leaving California were purely based upon the emotional pain of the family, though my dad seemed to try to pass it over on something else. According to him, his all time bff slash previous high school band mate was the reason we were leaving.
They hadn’t seen each other since god knows when, back in the days when he had hopes and dreams and hair. So now, to make up for lost time, he would drag me from sunny San Diego to I-didn’t-even-bother-to-check-what-the-weather-is-like Baltimore. Yay…

Don’t get me wrong; I have always tried to live by the quote “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, but I also think that once the lemonade is done, you should find someone whose life has given them vodka, and throw a party.

You see, I don’t mind moving, honestly, I have pretty much gotten used to it, but we had never lived longer in the same place than we had in San Diego. I had done most of Junior High and I thought I’d be able to finish High School there as well, before my dad, of course took me out for moving the last fucking year.

I drummed my fingers against my thigh as Dammit by Blink 182 came on repeat for the twenty-something time. For some reason I’d gotten way too addicted to their music the past year. It was one of my friends back home that had introduced me to them, at first I honestly couldn’t stand them, but, yeah; fuck my opinions, I guess. Maybe I had just started liking them because of the fact they reminded me of every good memory I’d ever had back in Cali; every party, gathering, whatnot.

“Come on Alex, can’t you at least pretend you’re excited about this?” a sigh escaped my dad’s lips as he pulled into the parking lot of a small, white house.
I gave him an overly faked smile as I opened the car door and jumped out.
The fresh cold air hit my like a brick wall, and I crossed my uncovered arms to keep the warmth inside my body and not just floating around aimlessly.

“Isn’t this amazing?” my dad said smiling. The thing about it was that he was born here, raised here; he only left Maryland because of my mom and her “need for adventures”.
I, on the other hand, was born in England, raised in Florida and grew up in California. I had gotten used to the warmth of the south by now, and honestly, 37° weren’t really categorized as “appropriate spring temperature” in my head, especially not when we had left 67°.

“Fucking brilliant”, I replied sarcastically as I opened the trunk of the car and pulled out the box containing some of my stuff and a guitar case.
“Language, mister Gaskarth” dad chuckled before pulling out the last two or three boxes and slamming the door shut.

I grabbed my pair of keys from the back pockets in my jeans and proceeded to slowly opening the creaking door of the old house.
Sadly enough for me, who had been looking forward to something to complain about; the inside looked cozy.
The rooms were small, all painted in some sort of darker white color and the wooden floor went all the way through the house. I found the staircase to the second floor further in by the living room.
The top floor was smaller than the bottom one; it only had four rooms, one of them being a bathroom.

“Dad! Which one is mine?” I tried to avoid yelling, seeing the empty house carried echoes like it was taken out of a bad horror movie
“Whichever to the left!” the response sounded, I shrugged and took the one furthest away from the stairs; privacy is a plus at this age.

The room was simple, square, white and pretty much empty. It held one window with a nice view to… a giant tree branch and the neighbor’s wall, lucky me

I left the guitar in a corner and put the box down on the naked bed, and started going through the stuff. Most of our things would arrive in a couple of days, so we had been forced to pack our necessities in these cardboard boxes so that we would survive a week or so on our own.

I took out some clothes and placed them in an inbuilt closet before grabbing my phone and heading back downstairs to see if my oh-so-beloved father had any ideas when it came to food, seeing we hadn’t bought anything on the way and had no functioning fridge or stove.

After going through the house a couple of times, I had come to the conclusion that he was not here. I had on the other hand found the way out into our new garden. Compared to the house, it looked almost worn out; the grass didn’t seem to have been cut in a while, and the few trees and bushes covering the small area were overgrown and tangled together.

“Ah, there you are!” I swirled around; my dad was standing behind me beaming, with his arms around the shoulders of a man I had never ever seen in my life
“Bassam, this is my son Alexander! Alex this is my best friend Bassam” he chuckled as the stranger pat him friendly on the back before reaching his hand out to shake mine

Bassam didn’t quite look like I had expected him to. He was on the short side and rather thin, his hair had started to fade grey certain places and his brown glasses seemed at least two sizes too large. The warm smile on his face was inviting and it almost immediately made me calm down a little.

“Pleasure to meet you Alexander” his smile widened enthusiastically as I shook my head
“Please, call me Alex” I returned the smile, though a little less eager

“I think my son is about your age, tell me, you’re a junior, right?”
“Um, in fact, I’m a senior” I scratched the back of my head awkwardly
“Oh, a year older than my son! I expect you to see him around then” his smile did not once leave his lips

Though his comment did not seem to make much sense. If his son were the year under, I’d expect to see him a whole lot less.
I wasn’t given much time to question his words, because his new ones interrupted my train of thoughts.

“But come one now! Dinner is ready and we’re not leaving friends to eat take away by themselves! Come eat with us?” he gesticulated for us to follow him, something my dad didn’t seem to even reconsider

“Of course, of course my friend… Alex, lock the door please?”

--

The walk to the neighbor’s house was the longest ten meters I have ever walked. I was awkwardly tagging along behind the two grown up men gossiping like teenage girl about whatever I did not and could not follow.

Their house looked a lot similar to ours, a little more furnished obviously, but more or less the same size and color pallet.

“Joyce!” my dad suddenly exclaimed and pulled the woman that had just appeared in the doorframe in to a tight embrace
“Oh, Peter, you still haven’t changed, have you?” she laughed and almost shyly hugged him back

My first notice was that her confident voice didn’t quite match the careful and think about actions of her body. She seemed sure of herself and of what she said, but she would move as if small animals surrounded her, lightly; to make sure she wouldn’t scare them away.

Behind her stood a tall, skinny-looking guy, he seemed a lot more reserved than the others and kept his black hair half covering his eyes.

“Jack, this is Alex, he is Peter’s son!” Bassam exclaimed and gave me a push towards him

Me being unprepared for the sudden reencounter between my back and Bassam’s palm, ended up stumbling towards the boy in what could seem like a badly prepared chest bump, but my hands seemed to automatically grab a hold of the boys hips and pull him closer to me for better support.
We were now standing there in a “this-is-so-not-how-guys-should-hug” hug, I was quick to withdraw my hands and take a step back.
His face had flushed red and his dark eyes were fixating on the floor
“Nice to meet you dude”, he mumbled, scratching his arm in an uncomfortable manner

“Good to see you’re already getting along” Joyce exclaimed, oblivious about what just happened and what it might have looked like, before shooing us all inside.

--

Have you ever sat at a table, wishing there was a possibility for Satan’s personal workers to come and snatch you for a short time period vacation in the pit?
My mind was desperately trying to remember any demon summoning spells from that Halloween night in eight grade when we had snuck into the town’s so called “haunted house” to see how scary the night could actually get
(Turns out it couldn’t actually get scary at all, but we didn’t know then)

As the conversation went cheerfully across the table about everything from jobs to which rock group that was entitled to call themselves “the best modern rock group”, I found myself not really eating, just carefully picking the food, trying not to seem like a spoiled brat not enjoying what this woman obviously had put time into making.

“Yes, Jack here turned 17 this June, he skipped a grade, so you two will most likely end up having some classes together” Bassam suddenly grinned and gave me a friendly pat on the back, he obviously seemed proud of his son
Jack on the other hand looked as if he wanted to disappear behind the deep red curtains that for some reason covered all the walls of the dining room.

“Ah, there’s an example, Alex has always been a smart kid, just haven’t been giving all his attention toward school, not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, at least not at this age, but you know, he get’s a little childish sometimes” my dad was rambling again, he did that from time to time, and usually it ended up going out on me

I notice Jack snicker as my grip on the silver cutlery fastened

“I apologize for my lacking adult conversational skills” I began, still trying my best to loosen the hold on my knife and fork.
I had obviously gotten the attention from everyone around the table, seeing these were the first words I had spoken since the meeting in the garden earlier

“If thy really want to, let me commence my mature way of speaking right here in this moment” I cleared my throat before once again opening my mouth

“Briefcase… taxes… government… student loans… healthcare-“
“thanks Alex that’s enough” my dad cut me off and gave me a stern look
I shrugged an moved my focus back to pushing the food across the plate and back again, I glanced up only to see that the boy across the table was biting his lip trying to hold in a laugh
--

After this the dinner went on for what seemed like forever, hours went by talking about all the off-school activities Jack was attending, how amazing Jack’s grades had been the past 17 years and how amazing of a son Jack was
The only conclusion I had come to was that: Jack Barakat, was a complete and utter geek, whom I had decided not to like...