Should I Write Myself Out of the History Books?

Fuck.

Jack wasnt READY for this. He needed lots of mental preparation, maybe three weeks notice that he'd be sitting next to someone this fucking attractive.

But life wasn't that easy.

Sure, he should be pretty pumped that this guy, who is talking to him and interested in him, is going to be sitting next him, but it didn't stop his hands from gathering sweat and his legs from shaking furiously. Zack bumped his leg against Jack's shooting him a warning glance. Jack was hyper-aware as Alex sat down next to him, trying to be careful not go make too much noise as he dropped his bag and the teacher droned on.

Watching Alex out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but notice how nice his hands were. They were a little rough, like he played an instrument or something. That just made Jack more nervous. He was betting the kid was like some amazing guitarist or something and he was just so much cooler than Jack.

Alex looked up, catching Jack's eyes and catching him staring. He gave him a small smile. Jack blushed, quickly flicking his eyes down to his lap to ignore the bubbling feeling in his gut.

"Hey," he heard Alex, his voice lowered to an almost inaudible level. Jack didn't look up. "Hey," he iterated. "Can I borrow some lead or something?" Jack let out a breath, kind of realizing how rid he was being. He looked up to Alex's expectant eyes.

"I, uh, I can give you a pencil?"Jack said, reaching into his backpack to retrieve one. Alex flashed him that smile again that made Jack's stomach flip.

"Thanks," he whispered, and turned his eyes back down. That's when Jack noticed the boy's schedule. Next to the little box that read 'Grade' was a scribbled in '10', as if it had said something before but was then fixed without a care.

"You're a sophomore?" Jack hissed, incredulous. Then he blushed because--really?--that had to be the first thing he actually said to the boy where he wasn't stuttering. "I uh, shit, I wasn't accusing you, I, uh, just thought you were a senior..."

"Well, it's good to know I look older, huh?" Alex whispered back, smirking again. "Makes my ID a little more convincing." He laughed. "But, ye--"

"You couldn't pass for twenty-one," he deadpanned, mentally kicking himself again. Alex just grinned and Jack knew he didn't mind.

"Says I'm eighteen. I just use it to get into shows." He shrugged and Jack was kind of, maybe, a little, obsessed with this kid now. "But, yeah, I'm a sophomore." He said, looking down as Jack's teacher glared at them. Jack just grinned. "That doesn't weird you out, right?" He asked as the teacher walked away. It was the first time Jack had seen the boy nervous and Jack wasn't sure of it fit him. Jack tried to hide his surprise.

"N-no! It's fine." He said with a small smile. Alex just grinned back and looked down at his paper. With that, Jack looked ahead, trying to pay attention to the teacher. Every so often, he snuck a glance at Alex, not really minding when their eyes met.

*

"He's a sophomore?" Rian repeated, eyebrows raised. They were sitting outside, situated on a grassy plain between Jack's next class and Rian's. Jack nodded, taking a bite of his sandwich. Rian was somehow eating the school lunches, something Jack would never do even if his life depended on it. So what if he had to wake up ten minutes early to make lunch? At least he didn't come down with some mystery sickness every week or so.

"It's not that weird." Zack said thoughtfully, shrugging. "I mean, Matt’s dating a sophomore." He said, referring to one of his friends.

“Flyzik?” Jack asked for clarification. Zack nodded, reaching over Rian to dig through Jack’s lunch, retrieving a bag of Lays. He ripped it open, downing half of it in one go. “Hey, no fair, asshole!”

“Should’ve eaten them quicker, dipshit.” Zack said, leaning back. Jack did the same. It was pretty sunny out for a November morning and the boys wanted to soak up as much of the shine before it disappeared beneath a blanket of snow and absolute gloom.

“So Flyzik’s dating a sophomore?” Jack stated, pulling them back to the topic at hand.

“Yep, and he’s a senior. So if that’s not weird, you actually making a move on Gaskarth wouldn’t be weird.” Jack shrugged.

“What would be weird is if Jack actually grew the balls to actually talk to him.” Rian piped up.

“Hey, no, fuck you, man! I totally talked to him today.” Jack interjected. Rian looked to Zack for confimation and the boy just nodded. Rian gave him an impressed look.

“And?” He urged.

“Uh. I, uh...”

“What’d you guys talked about?” Jack frowned, looking down at his lunch.

“You don’t remember?” Zack gasped. Rian laughed and started doubling over. He put his lunch down, clutching his stomach.

“I just, I don’t know! I was shocked I could actually talk to him without throwing up.”

“He just some dude.” Rian stressed.

“Yeah, but he’s fucking gorgeous ” Jack said, laughing as Rian and Zack made mirrored gagging noises.

*

At four am on Thursday morning, Jack found himself on the floor of his bathroom, head in the toilet, puking up what seemed like everything from the past two weeks.

*

When Jack woke up next, he was curled up in his bed. His clock read ‘12:43’ and taped to his phone was a note from his mother stating that she had called the school, he was excused, there were cans of soup in the cupboard, blah blah blah. He was too tired and his stomach hurt too fucking bad to think about anything at all. He groaned and flipped over, hoping the new position would ease his pains and lull him back to sleep.

It didn’t.

He peeled his mother’s note off the phone, placing it carefully on his bedside table, and unlocked his phone. He had a missed call from Zack (who usually picked him up in the morning, so, really, it was to be expected) and a text from both Zack and Rian. There were also a few unopened texts from Danny, just because the kid would always send him weird pictures and factoids throughout the day and, by now, he had just learned to live with it.

‘dude gaskarth keeps asking about you’ Zack’s text read. Jack grinned, not realizing the smile that had stretched apart his cheeks until they started to hurt. Just as he was about to text back, Zack texted him again. ‘pointed out gaskarth to rian. he says if he was gay hed totally tap that and now understands your pain’ Jack breathed out a laugh. At least Rian was on his side now and would, hopefully, stop pressuring him to make a move. He’d do it when he was ready. At least, that’s what he was telling himself.

Then, Jack read Rian’s text. ‘Shit, fine, you win, he’s hot but you still need to ask him out, like, yesterday.’ read Rian’s text and Jack, in his delirious-with-sickness-state, kind of reveled for a few seconds at Rian’s grammar before remembering the bastard had an iPhone and, therefore, did not have to deal with Zack and Jack’s strugles.

Even still, Jack sighed, because, come on, he had totally thought he was off the hook.

‘rian your gay is showing’ he texted back before flopping back down and falling asleep again.

*

At almost exactly 3:10, Jack woke up to a swift pillow in the face. He sat up, gasping, before looking around and seeing Zack and Rian.

“You assholes,” he grumbled before falling back against his bed. The other two just grinned, scrambling to lay on either side of Jack, effectively sandwiching him.

“What’s your deal, Jack-o?” Zack asked with mild concern. Jack wasn’t looking too sick, so the other too weren’t too worried.

“Threw up this morning and now my stomach feels like something crawled its way out of hell and built a home in my intestines.”

“You would make the worst girl ever,” Rian mused.

“Want me to make you some soup?” Zack asked.

“Or some Sprite?” Rian continued and Jack couldn’t help but grin because, honestly, his friends were pretty great. “It’ll make you feel better!” Rian singsonged and Jack laughed, shaking his head.

“Nah, I’m fine. Thanks though.” He felt Rian shrug from besides him.

“So, as much as we care about your decaying health and all, we really came by to talk about your love life.” Zack said in an almost informative kind of way. Jack tried to imagine him as a professor and just laughed at the idea of Zack in shoulder pads and trousers, fucking trousers .

“But also because we care about your health,” Rian added wearily and that’s when Jack realized he had been laughing. Maybe he needed some kind of medicine.

“Anyways,” Zack began. “He’s totally obsessed with you, but in, like, a cute way, okay. He was all worried about you and whether you were okay and stuff and kept trying to ask about you but Winson kept shushing him. I swear, he seemed so out of his element and it was just hilarious .” Jack could hear the smile in his voice. Rian sighed from his left.

“I think what he’s trying to say is that if you don’t ask him out the kid’s gonna implode. Or worse,” Rian started, his voice becoming mockingly dramatic. “He might ask you out.” Zack faux gasped and within seconds that pair were cackling around Jack. Jack frowned.

“I’m glad you guys can amuse yourselves so well,” he mumbled with an eye roll.

*

When Jack woke up the next day, Rian and Zack were gone. He vaguely remembered being woken up around noon earlier as the pair had announced their departure. Jack yawned, sitting up slowly. His stomach felt fine, miraculously, but his body was still a little achey. He looked to his bedside table, and noticed a little box of pain killers.

It was Friday, he remembered as he swallowed two of the pills, and Dulaney High had the day off, starting their Thanksgiving Break a little early due to some teacher scheduling thing that Jack never really cared enough about to pay attention to. Jack was pretty grateful for that because, as much as he barely gave two shits about high school, he also didn’t want to miss a bunch of days and fail all of his classes because some teachers had it out for him (read: Winson).

Just them, Jack felt his phone buzzing. He fished around a little bit before finding it under his pillow. He read who it was from, his heart skipping a beat when the name ‘Alex’ flashed across the screen. He opened the message: ‘hey, feeling better?’ it read. ‘pretty good now, why?’ he sent back.

Not thirty seconds later Alex texted back with a ‘just wanted to make sure you weren’t throwing up a lung or whatever’ Jack breathed out a laugh; Alex sent another text right after: ‘so you think you’re up to go see a show?’

Jack frowned because this was exactly what Rian had warned him about, getting asked out first and all. As much as Jack really, really, really didn’t want to be the one to ask Alex out, he still felt like it was the right thing to do. Either way, it was happening, and Jack decided to just let it. Just as he was about to inform the younger that he didn’t have a fake ID like a certain someone, said certain someone texted him for a third time. ‘don’t worry, it’s all ages! :)’

‘why the hell not :)’ Jack texted back.