Guitars and Love Notes

The next morning after making sure that Jack was sober enough to drive himself home and then tell him goodbye, Alex decided to take Zack’s advice. After hearing what Zack said last night at the party, Alex realized that if he was lucky enough to have two parents who wanted him, he should embrace it.

“Hey mom, do you want to go see a movie?” Alex asked as he sat down at the breakfast bar behind his mom who was currently working on washing the breakfast dishes from their breakfast with Jack.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go with Jack?” she asked slightly shocked by the fact that after weeks of him pushing her away he suddenly wanted to do things with her.

“I’m sure. I’ve kind of been stupid these last few weeks,” he said looking down while pulling at his sweatshirt sleeves so that they were covering his hands. “You’re going to be gone soon. I know that I’ll still be able to talk to you and that we will still see each other, but while you’re still here twenty-four-seven I should take advantage of it.”

“Not that I’m complaining because you want to spend time with me, but what brought about this change of heart?” she asked as she turned around and looked at her son while drying her hands.

“A friend made me realize how lucky I was to have some time with you before you left,” he said with a smile as he pulled out his phone and pulled up the movie times. “So what movie do you want to go see?”



“So anything else you want to do, or do you just want to go home?” his mother asked as they walked out of the movie theater and into the mall.

“Why don’t we just walk around and window shop,” he suggested as he started walking towards the music shop with the plan of looking around.

“Alex in case you forgot I’m your mother and I know you. You can’t just walk around and window shop,” she said with a laugh as she followed after her son to wherever his heart desired. “Did you find anything interesting?” she asked her son as she watched him flip through a bunch of CDs looking excited every once in a while before getting sad again.

“Yeah, just sucks that I don’t have money for any of them,” he said with a shrug before he shoved the row of CDs back with the intent of leaving the store before he found more CDs he couldn’t afford.

“Pick out five of them you want, my treat,” she said with a smile before walking towards the front of the store knowing that Alex would need some time to decide on just five of them. Ten minutes later when he finally joined her she smiled and asked if he found anything he liked.

“Would it be okay if maybe I got six?” he asked nervously holding up the stack of CDs. “Two of them are on sale for six dollars.”

“Fine, let’s go pay for them. Maybe I’ll even let you listen to one of them on the way home,” she said with a smile as they got in line and she pulled out her wallet.

“Mom, I really am sorry I pushed you away so much. I hope you know that I still feel closer to you than I do with dad. I just really wish that I could go with you because… well frankly I’m going to miss you,” he said smiling over at her as the line inched forward.

“I know sweetie, and I’m going to miss you too. I just want you to know that I want you to stay here because your life is here, all your friends are here and I don’t want to pull you away from that. I want you to have the best life you can and that’s why we to America, and that’s why I don’t want you going back with me. I’m not saying you would have a horrible life back in England, but I want you to stay here and be the best you can be."

“Thank you for that,” he said with a smile, finally understanding why his mother was leaving him. She may have told him the same thing before, but this time around he actually understood how strongly she felt about this, mainly because he was actually listening to her rather than cursing her for leaving him behind.

“Anywhere else you want to look?” his mom asked as they walked out of the store with his bag full of CDs safely in his hands as though they were prized crown jewels.

“Honestly, as much as I’ve enjoyed this day with you, I really want to go home and get these on my iPod,” he said, his excited smile never leaving his face.

“Alright, but if it’s alright with you can we stop and get some food first?”

“Glad you suggested that, I’m starving. I was planning on just having a pop-tart when we got home, but going out to get lunch would be even better,” he said with a smile walking towards where they parked quickly causing for his mother to yell at him to slow down numerous times.

“Where do you want to go eat?” she asked as they got in the car and she started it.

“Subway’s good with me.”

“What is with you and Subway? I swear you eat there more than you do at home.”

“Could be true, but at least it’s tasty,” he smiled as he opened up one of the new Blink-182 CDs he had just picked up and pushed it into the player trying to educate his mother on modern music.

“What exactly are we listening too?”

“Blink-182; one of the all-time best bands,” he said as though it was a fact that everyone needed to know. “I have most of their CDs already, but somehow this one slipped through my radar and I just had to have it.”

“Well I’m glad I could help you complete your collection.”



After spending a weekend catching up with his mom and making sure their relationship was going to be as solid as a rock when she left, Alex walked up their stairs happily making Jack question him once again.

“Are you okay? You seem really happy, and I don’t know if I should worry,” Jack laughed as Alex sat down next to him.

“I finally got back on track with my mom. I think I might actually be okay with her going now. Like, yeah I would prefer her to be here with me but I’m not as mad about it anymore,” he explained smiling brightly. “It was really nice spending all weekend with her.”

“I’m happy for you dude,” Jack said patting him on the back. “I can only imagine how much better you feel about her moving knowing that you’ll still be close to her.”

As if suddenly remembering something extremely important, Alex quickly spun around and opened his guitar case happy to see that once again the note he had left was gone and there was a new one in its place.

“I wonder if Zack responded to my note,” he said as he quickly unfolded it and started to read it aloud, because he knew if he didn’t Jack would snatch it out of his hands. “Alex, I would love to meet you face-to-face one day soon too. I just worry that I won’t be who you want me to be. I don’t want to disappoint you. As awkward as this might be for me to admit, but I dream about the day you’ll realize that you like me as much as I like you, but I know it won’t happen. Maybe it would be safer to keep our relationship like this. –Z”

“Wow,” Jack said after whistling. “Did you think any about how you feel about Zack over the weekend?”

“Yeah, I was thinking I might want to give him a chance. I asked him out on Friday via that note he just picked up. I really hope I didn’t just make a complete and total ass of myself,” he said as he threw his head back and groaned.

“Once again all I have to say is wow,” Jack said as the bell rang. “Let’s just hope for your sake he doesn’t act too weird in class today or after school when you two meet up for your project.”

“Thanks for reminding me just how often I’m going to have to see him after I made a fool of myself,” Alex said glaring at his friend before they went their separate ways to their lockers.



Walking towards second hour Alex couldn’t help but stop right outside the door and take a deep breath. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was extremely nervous about seeing Zack. But then again he did basically put his heart on the line with the note he left Zack this morning only to read Zack’s note saying he didn’t want anything to happen to them. He just hoped that maybe Zack hadn’t read his note yet.

As he made his way into the classroom he couldn’t help but notice that Zack’s seat was empty yet again. Maybe Zack already read the note and is deciding to avoid me at all costs he thought to himself as he sat down and threw his backpack down onto the lab table before he started fishing out his notebook. Once his notebook was thrown haphazardly onto the table he put his backpack by his feet and prepared himself for another Zack-less hour of Chemistry.

Twenty minutes late, once his notes page was full of little doodles the door to the classroom opened to relieve a sheepish looking Zack walking into the room, handing a bright yellow pass to the teacher. Once she read the note and saw that it was actually signed by a teacher she ushered Zack to his seat.

“Think I can get a copy of your notes?” Zack whispered as he leaned down and grabbed his notebook out his backpack that he had put on the floor.

“I’d say yes if I had actually taken any,” Alex said with a shrug, showing Zack his doodles just to prove that he in fact didn’t take any notes.

“You’re the only guy I know that will show others that his doodles are little hearts,” Zack said with a laugh. “I though only love sick teenage girls filled their notebooks with hearts; although theirs usually have a boy’s name in the middle of them.”

“So are you trying to say that only love sick teenage girls can have love on the mind?”

“No, just honestly I wouldn’t think you had love on the mind so soon after breaking up with your girlfriend.”

“Maybe I broke up with my girlfriend because I loved someone else,” he said staring directly at Zack hoping that the boy would get what he was trying to say. No, Alex couldn’t say for sure that he was in love with Zack, but he could say that he was pretty darn close to it, and he hadn’t even spent more than a few hours working on a project with the boy.

“Well hopefully that someone else shares your feelings,” Zack said quickly turning away from Alex, thinking that Alex could never been talking about him. “Now I just have to figure out who to ask for their notes,” he said more to himself that to Alex, just to get his mind off of things.

“Don’t worry, I know just who to get you notes,” he said with a smile. “Although it will be best if I ask them and not you.”

“Why can’t I ask them?”

“Because it’s Lisa,” he said his smile dropping as he looked over at Zack. “Meet me in the library after school to work on our project and I’ll give them to you then.”

“Why wouldn’t Lisa give me her notes? It’s not like I’ve ever done anything to her,” Zack said looking innocent, making Alex swoon slightly.

“She’s just mad at you because we’re working on this project together and because the other day I picked to work with you over her. It’s all petty little problems she’s making up because she’s still mad we broke up,” he said with a shrug.

“If she’s mad about the break up why would she help you?”

“Because she’s hoping that if she does nice things for me I’ll take her back.”

“Mr. Gaskarth, Mr. Merrick, either start paying attention or you can go down to the principal’s office,” their teacher said making the whole class to turn around and look at them.

“Sorry, we’ll pay attention now,” Zack said looking down at his notebook in shame while Alex, who wasn’t sorry at all continued to draw all over his notebook.



“Here are your notes,” Alex said with a smile as he slid a packet of papers across the lab table so that they landed perfectly in front of Zack.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile as he flipped through the packet before shoving it into his Chemistry notebook. “So how much more work do we have to do to finish our project?” he asked as he leaned slightly over the table.

“Not too much. We basically just have to edit our paper, and make the poster. I’m pretty sure if we keep up at the pace we’re going we can have this done by the end of the week. Then the next two weeks until it’s due we can just sit back and relax and laugh at everyone who is waiting until the last minute to finish,” he said as he started booting up his computer.

Once Alex had his computer booted up, he quickly printed out two copies of their paper, so that they could both have their own copy to go over before pulling out two red pens. Handing a copy of their paper and a pen over to Zack, he quickly started working on revising the paper, just wanting to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

Twenty minutes later Alex was done editing his copy of the paper and looked up to see Zack’s copy was next to him, with the occasional red mark on it and that Zack was now searching through his backpack. He curiously tilted his head as he watched Zack take everything out of his bag and set it on the table in front of him. Once the backpack was finally empty, Zack tipped it over and shock it as though it would make whatever he was looking for suddenly appear.

“Looking for something?” Alex asked with a laugh.

“My chemistry notebook,” he said as he started shifting through his things on the table. “I’m surprised I didn’t notice it earlier when we were in class. I guess I left it at home… wait, I couldn’t find it this weekend either,” he said as he started putting his books away. “I guess I left it in my locker. I better go get it.”

Before Zack could get too far Alex leaned down and pulled Zack’s notebook out of his bag and tossed it to him. “You left it on Thursday when you ran out of here so quickly,” Alex explained as Zack looked up at him. “I was going to give it you Friday, but as you know you weren’t here for me to give it to.”

“Well thank you,” Zack said with a smile as he finished putting everything back into his bag. “I probably would have looked in my locker once we were done here only to think I had lost it.”

“No problem,” he said with a smile. “So can I see what corrections you’ve made?”

“Yeah, take look,” he said as he slid the paper over to Alex. “And I assume you’re going to make me type up the corrections.”

“I would really appreciate if you did,” he said with a big smile as he compared the two.

“So should I bring the poster board tomorrow or do you want to bring it?” Zack asked as he watched Alex flip through their paper, coping the notes made on one page to the other.

“I can bring it as long as you can bring some glue and scissors,” Alex agreed not even looking up at Zack as he continued on with his work.

“Can do,” Zack said as he reached over and grabbed Alex’s computer, along with the first edited page of their paper and started making the needed changes to their paper.



The next morning before he got out of his car Alex put his newest note to Zack in his guitar case and stepped out of the car. He couldn’t help but be a little nervous about the note, especially since he was trying to get Zack to meet him on Friday, while Zack was trying to keep them from meeting up, even though they talk every day in class.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Jack asked as Alex sat down and put down his guitar case.

“Not sure yet,” he said with a hopeful smile. “Any good parties I should know about this weekend. I’m going to need a good pick me up depending on how this week goes.”

“Well, it would be the same place we’ve been going to for the last few weeks, but I hear that it’s going to be even better because their football team won some game. I don’t really know,” he said with a shrug as he reached behind Alex and pulled the guitar case closer to himself before opening the lid and pulling out the new note. “Alex, like I said in the past few notes I’m not ready for a face-to-face meeting in which you will learn who’s really writing you these notes. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, mainly because I know I’ll never be good enough for you and you’ll never return my feelings. Maybe it would be best if I stopped these notes for a while so you can get over your desire to meet me. –Z”

“Are you serious? He wants to stop leaving me notes. That cannot happen, ever,” Alex said as he pulled the note out of Jack’s hand and started reading it on his own, trying to see if Jack was just playing a cruel joke.

“Guess you’re going to have to tell him that when you see him in class,” Jack said with a smile knowing that Alex wouldn’t really do that, because then Zack would want to know how he figured it out and then Alex would have to admit that he went through Zack’s notebook.

“Yeah, not going to happen,” Alex said with a laugh. “I’ll just trick him into meeting me on Friday.”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” he asked watching his friend shove the newest note into his backpack and zipping it closed.

“I’m not sure yet, I still have three days to think of something. Hopefully I can come up with something good,” he said with a shrug as the bell rang and the boys grabbed their bags and headed off to their own classes.



Friday morning Alex woke up an hour earlier than he normally would just so he could perfect his note to Zack. He knew that it might not work, but he figured he could at least try to get Zack to meet him.

Grabbing a fresh, brand new notebook off his desk, he quickly flipped open to the first page and started pouring his heart out onto the paper.

Zack,

I know you're probably reading this going "fuck, how does Alex know who to address this to?” Well the answer is that the day you forgot your notebook at school I kind of flipped through it when I was on the phone with Jack that night and noticed the handwriting. Yeah, I know it was your notebook and I probably shouldn't have looked through it but, well really I don't know why I did it; I just did.

All in all what I'm leading up to is that you've got to meet me tonight. I already know exactly who you are and I'm still asking you to come, so obviously I'm interested and I won't turn you down. If you don't show up it will just make chemistry extremely awkward since I'll have to be sitting by you every day knowing that you turned me down before you really gave me a chance. If not for me, please meet me tonight for you. Just so you know that you do and will always have a chance with me.

I will admit in the beginning when I found out you were the one leaving the notes I wasn’t too sure about meeting you. I thought that I couldn’t go through with it if it was a boy, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I could go through with this; that I really wanted to go through with this. So for the last time, please meet me tonight. I promise you won’t regret it.

--Alex

Reading his note over and over again, Alex decided that it would be best to just shove it in his guitar case and leave it alone, because every time he read it he thought of something he could add, or something he should take away. He really wanted to make the note perfect, but he couldn’t afford to spend his time stressing out over it and changing it around to make it worse than he already felt it was.

With it safely in his case he walked down the stairs and made his way into the kitchen with the intention to make breakfast. Walking over to the cupboards he quickly looked through them and found himself something to make for breakfast.

“Moring Alex,” his mother said with a smile as she walked into the kitchen and started the coffee machine. “So what’s got you so worried?”

“Who says I’m worried about anything?” he said as he pulled a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and poured it over his cereal.

“Alex, I’m your mother. I can tell when something’s got you worried; so what’s got you worried?” she asked once more as she pulled out a coffee mug along with some cream and sugar.

“You love me no matter what right?” he asked as he jumped up onto the counter and started eating his breakfast. “Like, no matter what I did, in the end you would still love me?”

“Alex, what’s this all about? Of course I would love you no matter what you did. You’re my son and nothing, and I mean nothing is ever going to change that,” she said as she walked in front of him and grabbed his chin forcing him to look at her. “Whatever you did or whatever you’re going to do, at the end of the day I will still be your mother and I will still love you. Now why don’t you tell me why you are so worried today.”

“I think I might like a boy,” he said pulling away from his mother’s hold while setting his cereal bowl to the side. “I’m trying to get him to go out with me tonight, but I don’t think he’s going to show, and I think if he doesn’t it’s going to break my heart.”

“Are you sure this boy is even interested in other boys? Maybe he’s not interested in boys and doesn’t know how to tell you,” she said, not even batting an eye at the fact that last week her son was dating Lisa and this week he was trying to ask out a boy.

“Yes, he’s been leaving notes in my guitar case every morning giving me encouraging words about your divorce with dad. He’s specifically said in quite a few notes that he was interested in dating me, but now that I’m asking him out he’s saying he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to meet in person,” he said still not looking at his mother, while stirring his cereal around in the bowl just for something to do.

“Maybe he’s just scared,” his mother said with a shrug as she went about making her coffee. “You just need to prove to him that you’re serious, and you really feel something for him and think that this thing between you two could work.”

“What if he still refuses me?” Alex asked finally looking up at his mother with sad eyes.

“It’s better to have tried and failed then to have never tried at all,” she said with a shrug before walking out of the room, knowing her son and knowing that he needed time alone to think about what she had just told him.