Disconnected

Alex sighed softly in content as he leaned back so that he was laying on his back in the grass. He lifted a hand, turning his head to the side slightly so that he could make sure he had Cara's attention. She turned to look at him from the movement of his arm.

"You see that star?" He pointed over to the brightest star in the night sky.

Her eyes followed his arm to where he was pointing at. "Yeah," she nodded. Alex nodded, too, then he stayed silent, continuing on with his star-gazing. She turned to him with a frown, "... Are you really just gonna stay silent after asking me if I see that star?" She asked, clearly amused.

"Huh?" He turned to her before letting the corners of his lips turn up into a shit-eating grin. "Oh I was just checking to see if you were blind or not. You can see perfectly fine."

Cara's lips parted and a small scoff of amusement left her lips, but she nodded anyway. "Thanks for the eye exam."

"Hey, s'no problem. That's what friends do, you know?" He turned towards her as he drawled out, a cheeky grin pulling at his lips as she rolled her eyes, also turning her attention back to the star littered night sky.

"If the band fails, you could be an optician."

"Dude," he said so seriously that Cara turned to face him. "– That's actually a good idea."

"Oh my God," Cara laughed, shaking her head. "You are something else, Gaskarth."

Alex shot her a half-grin, propping his head up on his open palm. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Good," she smiled over at him – eyes twinkling under the light illuminating from the moon. "Different is good. I mean... I've never kissed a guy and then went on a date with him, so that was definitely something different."

Alex felt his cheeks warm up a bit, even though they were laying on the little patch of grass that was void of snow whilst in the winter weather. He bit on his bottom lip, "About that..." he trailed off unsurely. "I'm sorry about kissing you."

She pursed her lips a bit, eyebrows knotting together. "I'm not too sure if I should be offended or flattered by your apology..."

He laughed, "Why must it be either?"

"Well..." she started thoughtfully. "Offended; because you're apologising for kissing me, like I'm a bad kisser – "

"– You're not a bad kisser," he interrupted quickly, and she laughed lightly.

"– Or flattered; because you're probably the only person who would apologise for kissing a stranger at midnight, and then ask them out for a proper meal and stuff."

Alex raised a brow, "Am I not the first stranger who's kissed you at midnight?" He asked curiously. Cara shook her head, and both of Alex's thick eyebrows raised high on his forehead. "Seriously? Was he drunk?"

"Probably just a little," she shrugged. "But thing was he only kissed me because I was the closest person who wasn't kissing anyone, next to him. I'm pretty sure he would've kissed this other guy, but the guy kissed his girl companion before the bloke who kissed me could kiss him." She explained, a frown forming on her pretty features as her lips formed a small, thoughtful pout.

"Kiss doesn't sound like a real word now."

"That's exactly what I was going to say!" Cara laughed. She shook her head in amusement, turning to him with a little grin on her painted lips. "I've never done this before."

"Go out at midnight with someone you know no shit about?"

"Yeah, exactly that," she laughed lightly, nodding in agreement as she idly fiddled with her fingers. "But it's nice. I like this."

Alex flashed her a lopsided grin, "I like this, too."

And he really did. It was already half three in the morning, and all the two had done was talk and talk and talk some more. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, and they hadn't even played the whole dumb 20 Questions thing. They just spoke about whatever came to mind – be it about music, TV shows, movies, or the lady that had walked by them – decked out from top to bottom in fluorescent green clothing, making them both start singing under their breaths, with the exact same song. Diamonds by Rihanna, to be exact. Alex still actually really knew nothing about Cara, apart from the basic of basics facts about her. He didn't even know what she worked as, or if she was getting some fancy ass degree in uni. He didn't even know her last name, if he were to be honest, but for some reason: he already felt like he'd known her for so much longer than the three/four hours that they had been acquainted.

Alex had never met someone like her before. And by that, he didn't mean someone who was beautiful and funny and a seemingly nice person. By 'someone like her', he just meant someone that he instantly got on with and just clicked with.

He'd heard about there being this one person that everyone had. A soulmate – if you will. Only that this 'soulmate' of yours, could literally just be a best friend to you, and nothing more, nothing less. A friend soulmate or something You would instantly get on well with this person, even if you'd just met, and you would feel so comfortable around them that you would find yourself questioning if you had really only just met the person. Silence while with this person wouldn't be uncomfortable and unbearable; you would find it to be relieving and beautiful, even, because you didn't have to fill the silence with mindless and meaningless chatter so as to avoid the lingering cloud of self-doubt that would have you wondering about what bad things they could be thinking of you.

He thought that Jack was his friend soulmate. They'd met back when Alex had just transferred schools, and they literally became as close as a set of brothers within a couple weeks of knowing each other. Alex assumed that's what the whole person thing was like.

But now that he'd met Cara, he was rethinking it.

He was sat with her – someone he literally just met – in complete silence, while laying down in the grass. But unlike any other situation, he didn't feel the need to start talking about the latest episode of Breaking Bad or the last record he'd purchased and how amazing it was, just to fill the silence so that he could reassure himself that Cara wasn't thinking bad thoughts about him.

Alex turned to look at her, observe her side profile. Cara was most definitely one of the most beautiful people he'd ever met, and he'd definitely met a lot of beautiful people. Some people were beautiful in the way they thought, or the way they spoke. Some of them were beautiful because of how they looked like – even though everyone protested that beauty came from within. He wasn't about to be a pretentious twat and completely, and whole-heartedly agree with that statement.

Yes, someone with a pretty face and an ugly heart did no equal to a beautiful person. But if one were to look up the word in a dictionary: they'd get the definition that literally said if someone thought something was beautiful, it was pleasing the senses or the mind aesthetically. And the synonyms would be words like attractive, alluring, good-looking, etcetera.

He agreed with the statement, to a certain extent. But he wasn't about to deny that Cara wasn't a beautiful person. Anyone could look at her and instantly fall temporarily in love – if that was a thing – because of how goddamn beautiful her face was.

"Why are you staring at me?" She mumbled, turning to look at him with the corner of her right lip turned up higher than the left.

"Because you're beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago that I wasn't going to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence. My life could literally end right now, so why should I disallow myself from looking at beautiful people?"

Cara blinked, then her little grin turned into a smirk. "You think you're clever, don't you?" She asked with a small chuckle, and Alex raised an eyebrow, feigning innocence. "You just quoted John Green. Oh yeah, I noticed."

Alex pouted, "I didn't quote the full thing, though."

"Do you want me to Google 'John Green quotes', because I will."

"Okay, okay, I quoted John Green! I'm a twenty-six year old frontman of a pop punk band who reads books targeted to teenage audiences. Sue me."

Cara let out a short laugh. "You know... I just assumed that you saw the quote on Tumblr, or something. But you just admitted to reading the whole book." Alex groaned, face-palming himself. "So tell me, Mr. Twenty-six-year-old-frontman-of-a-pop-punk-band... Did you cry?"

Alex shot her a flat look, getting to his feet and dusting the back of his dress pants as he did so. "Let's go for a walk." He said instead, offering her a hand so that he could pull her up.

The smirk never left her face as she accepted his outstretched hand. "You're avoiding the question. Oh my God, you cried?"

"Do you fancy getting a coffee or hot chocolate or something?" Alex asked, still completely ignoring her question.

"Yup, that's definitely a yes. The frontman of a pop punk band cried while reading a John Green novel."

"No, I didn't."

"Oh, you totally did."

-----

Alex pushed open the front door to his home quietly, so as to not attract his dogs' attention – since it was almost half four in the morning and he knew that his neighbours wouldn't appreciate his puppies barking in greeting at the ungodly hour, be it new year's, or not. Once he shut the door behind him, his brows knotted together lightly. Even if he was being as quiet as he could, his dogs would still be able to hear him and they would still come jogging over – their little nails clicking against the floor as they went to greet him, with half-lidded and sleepy eyes or not.

His eyes caught sight of a figure on his sofa then, and he held his breath.

He really didn't want to have to fight a house intruder who decided to fall asleep on his sofa for some fucked up reason, because even though he looked tough, he really wasn't. He could pack a couple of strong right hooks, but that was probably it. Basically, Alex Gaskarth was useless lest he had a baseball bat or a guitar to defend himself with.

Plus, if he got into a fight and got his ass kicked, then he wouldn't get to meet up with Cara the next day/later that same day. Well, he could still meet up with her, but he didn't really fancy her thinking that all he did while he was home from tour was get into fights with random people or something.

Alex took in a breath, edging towards the sofa. The person was snuggled into a thin blanket, their face buried into a cushion. As he walked closer, he made out the sleeping figures of his two dogs on the sofa as well, easing his nerves.

If his dogs were cuddled up to the 'house intruder', that could only mean that one of the people who had the keys to his house were in his house. Getting closer to the sofa, he let out a sigh of relief at the sigh of the patch of blonde hair amongst the black.

"God, Jack," he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He moved to the younger, shaking his shoulder lightly. "Jack, wake up," he spoke, poking his side and shaking his shoulder at the same time.

"No, 'm sleepy," Jack murmured in his sleep with a whine, turning so that he could bury his face between the cushion and the back of the sofa.

"Yeah, I know, but if I let you sleep here, you're gonna get mad at me because your back will hurt and shit," Alex spoke simply, pulling on his arm. "Come on. Go to the spare room."

"Won't get mad at you," he mumbled in response, pushing Alex's hands away from him.

Alex fixed a flat look in his friend's direction. "Won't get mad at me, my ass. Come on. Go. Spare room. I don't even know why you're in my house," he sighed, pulling Jack's arm so that he was basically pulled off of the sofa.

Jack mumbled something incoherent, but he got to his feet anyway, moving towards the spare room as Alex followed behind him – making sure that he didn't trip along the way. Jack eventually collapsed onto the bed in the spare room, not even bothering to pull the sheets down as he landed face-first into the pillows.

"'Lex?" He slurred, before the aforementioned male stepped out of the room.

"What?"

"Cuddle?"

"No."

"Cuddle?"

"No."

Jack didn't respond then, more than likely having already fallen asleep; leaving Alex to shake his head at his best friend. Jack was going to be moaning and groaning about his hangover the rest of the next day, and probably eating Alex's food, but this time, Alex actually didn't really give a damn. Because he'd had a fantastic new year's, and though he'd never admit it to the skunk haired male, he was glad that Jack had pushed Alex in Cara's direction – or he'd have never met his person.

And that would have been tragic. Almost as tragic as how The Fault In Our Stars ended, because yes, Alex Gaskarth did read the book and yes, he did cry.