Solitude

Alex should've known today was going to be awful.

On a normal day, Alex would've slammed his hand on the alarm, silencing it at exactly 6:32 AM, rolled out of bed, shoved his feet into worn converse that he should've gotten rid of ages ago, hopped into his car, and drove himself to school, getting there at 7:00 AM on the dot.

And it would've been a normal day except 1. he woke up late, and 2. his mom's rat dog, Nora—which he has a love-hate relationship with—ate his left sneaker, which resulted in 3. him searching for another pair and having to get a ride with his mom because 4. his car was snowed in—due to his laziness and forgetting to put it in the garage.

All of this resulted to Alex being in the backseat of his mom's minivan at 7:03 AM, shoveling coco puffs into his mouth. Nora, the rat dog formerly mentioned, is in the front seat, where Alex should be, because “she gets car sick in the back” and Alex thinks he'll be the one to get sick this time.

“Is that healthy?” she asks, glancing at the crumbs on the front of his shirt. And Alex thinks, no, no it isn't. Which is why he continues to practically inhale the chocolate-y puffs. Anything healthy is disgusting, something he'd observed since he was a child.

“Mom, let me be. Breakfast is breakfast and it's not like I could've made oatmeal and dragged it with me,” he whines as she stopped at a red light. She purses her lips and doesn't say anything else as she steps on the gas pedal, launching the car forward. His stomach follows the actions of the car and now Alex regrets not grabbing a banana instead of cereal.

“How's school?” she questions, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. Alex groans in response. He hates the way she's staring at him, like she's expecting her son to be some star student. And he should be, but the truth is, he isn't and that's a shame in itself.

“Fine.” And she doesn't say another word on the matter.

Once she rolls into the parking lot—completely missing the entrance and hitting the curb—Alex opens the door, goes to grab his backpack and quickly realizes he left it at home. With a pout, he looks at his mom who had her own look as well, one that said “Alex, stop being so irresponsible”—seriously, she said that at least once a week. She always gave in though and this time was no different. Alex watched as his mom drove away and shouted “you owe me!” through the car window.

And really, Alex does owe her for loads of stuff like buying him his favorite cereal and not embarrassing him in front of his 7th grade crush, Jenna McDougall—easily the hottest 13 year old around. He thinks about this as he walks into his homeroom eleven minutes late, earning him a ton of looks from people he doesn't care about.

He looks towards the back and sees his friend Rian grinning with a smile you'll only see in a colgate commercial. Alex sits beside him and nudges him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Why are you late, Gaskarth?” Rian whispers, holding his hand in front of his face. Alex doesn't know how to answer without sounding dumb so he shrugs. He can hear it now “if you don't do your work, you'll stay stuck here” and he'd rather not give Rian the satisfaction of saying it.

Rian gives in and puts his hands up in response. Alex is moody and no one wants to deal with a moody Alex. Once chemistry starts, Rian shares his workbook with Alex, saving his ass once again.

Rian flips through the book, searching for page 178. “No doubt you'll get detention,” he says. “Good luck with your mom. You'll probably get your ass kicked.” Rian starts scribbling something down on a sheet of paper. It's paired work so Alex just lets him do all the work. Really, Alex should help out but he isn't up to it. He'll make it up to Rian somehow.

Alex rolls his eyes, clicking his pen to the point where it sounds weird if he didn't do it. “She'll never know. Not like they call home.”

Rian sits there staring at Alex for a few moments. He's not even breathing and Alex reasons he'll pass out soon enough.

“They do call home, Alex.”

“Fuck.”

--

Alex didn't do work the entire day, seeing as his mom forgot to bring his bag. Rian, as always, was right and his bitch of an English teacher gave him detention as soon as class started. “I'm disappointed in you, Alex” to which he replied, “me too”.

He walks into the auditorium, staring at the ground the entire time. This was the only class that Alex didn't need any supplies for and for that, he was grateful. He stepped onto one of the risers, trying to duck behind the people that were chatting mindlessly about dates—a foreign concept to Alex who hasn't been on a date in about..well, never.

Tay is on the other side and he waves her over but she doesn't see, due to the fact that the freakishly tall kid is blocking her view. He contemplates asking Austin to move but decides he'll just catch her after class.

David, the vocal instructor, raises his hands and everyone goes silent. Word is that David used to be in a band (an awful one at that) but was kicked out and Alex wasn't exactly surprised. David can be a huge dick if you aren't like him.

“Now,” he says, sitting on the piano bench. He cracks his fingers before giving a slight nod and playing the first opening notes of a song that—you probably guessed it—belonged to his former band. Everyone began singing along except for Alex and a few others. Those unlucky bastards were primarily backing vocalists.

Alex stood there with a bored expression, a few sounds leaving his lips here and there. He was good enough to be a soloist and he deserved it more than anyone in that choir. Really, that was the truth, not just arrogance. All in all, Alex had nothing to be arrogant about.

He mouths a "fuck you" in Jack's direction, purely because he couldn't stand him. It made him feel a bit better until some girl thought it was directed at her instead and began to cry. Alex couldn't stand her. Nice voice—and ass as well, if he had to admit—but so incredibly whiny that he found it hard to believe anyone could stand her for more than a few minutes.

“N-no, Hayley, it wasn't for you—” Alex stammers, trying to save his own ass before—

"You!" David booms. His usually pale skin had transitioned into a tomato-y red—similar to Hayley's hair—in anger. Alex shuts his eyes tightly. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid. Again, Alex mouths a "fuck you" except it was aimed at Hayley this time.

Everyone's heads whipped around to face Alex (who is furiously blushing). "Stop interrupting Jack, Alan," David orders. Alex laughs in response. He figures no one could remember his name but he didn't think he'd be confused for Alan out of all people. He feels like he's suffocating under the stares of a dozen or so people.

The real Alan—who looks NOTHING like Alex—held up a pale hand. "E-excuse me, sir. I'm Alan. That's Alex," he says shakily. Alex feels the same way as Alan. It felt like last week that Alex was the cool kid which whom everyone wanted to share their crayons with (eleven years goes by quickly...) and now no one wanted to even associate with him.

David rubs his temples tentatively while humming some song that Alex's mind couldn't register. "Alan, Alex, whatever, just shut up, okay?" he says through gritted teeth. Alex nods and the entire class turns to the front. For the remainder of class, Alex keeps his mouth shut, refusing to even sing whatever little parts he did have.

"Nice job, Barakat!" David announces, which was not a nice job considering he was off key the entire last half. He proceeds to high five the scum of the earth, Jack Barakat. In all his douche-baggery, Jack grins and says in response, "I know, right?" As if that sub par gesture of gratitude makes him any less irritating or conceited. Jack runs a hand through his skunk-like hair that is approximately eight miles high, Alex thinks. Any higher and it could potentially be an apartment building for any lice that happened to crawl in there.

All of the girls in the class rush to crowd around the demon spawn, swooning if he just looked in their direction. For eight minutes of pure torture, the only things he hears are a dozen prepubescent girls fawning over someone that isn't special or talented in the least. Alex rolls his eyes and mutters “he isn't even that cute” under his breath. Not only does he know how dumb Jack can be, he also knows none of the things he thought were true.

Everyone is rushing to get out of the small auditorium. Jack's dad paid for it awhile back and you'd think he'd make it as big as his ego, but sadly not. Alex slides a pack of gum out of his back pocket, frowning at how his butt flattened the entire package. He takes a piece anyway saying “fuck it”.

He sees Tay and jogs over to her, grinning for the first time all day. She was his best friend and he was always happy to see her no matter what. She returns Alex's smile and her nose crinkles, showing off the silver hoop she got last summer.

Alex knows her so well that he already had a piece of gum ready and holds it out for her before she gets the chance to ask. “Such a gentleman,” she says before taking it. Tay ruffles Alex's hair and falls in step beside him as they walk up the aisle.

“So miss psychic, I've got detention. You know what to do,” he mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets. He can feel her rolling her eyes even though he couldn't see it.

“Yeah, yeah. Call Mr. O'Callaghan a dick again,” she says between chews. He's so close to her that he can smell a mix of mint and ranch dressing. “I've done this so many times I think dick will become his second name.”

Alex appreciates the fact that she's willing to get in trouble for him just so he didn't have to spend hours in detention alone. He can't help but feel selfish for making her do that but the idea was hers in the first place.

Alex stops in his tracks and grabs Tay's wrist, the studded bracelet on her wrist digging into his fingers. He would be tearing up in pain right now if he wasn't distracted by the scene in front of him.

"What?" she whispers in a soft voice, looking back at Alex. He raises a finger and points to something in the distance. Tay doesn't see what Alex does so he positions her head into the right direction. Half of the football team, including Jack, were conversing in front of the door. Their matching royal blue varsity jackets gave Alex the biggest headache. Seems that wherever he goes, Jack's right there to ruin his day.

He can't remember what exactly made him hate Jack but he figures it's something. Even if there wasn't a distinct event that triggered the hatred, Jack irritated him in every way possible. Not only was he incredibly annoying but he was popular for no reason at all. It couldn't be because of his looks because god knows there plenty more attractive guys around this school. Not that Alex was looking, of course. He wasn't at all talented; their school football team hasn't won a game in about three years. Alex finally decides that it isn't one thing and more like a combination of a ton of things that creates the perfect irritating human.

Tay looks at him with wide eyes, "Should I say something?" He shakes his head in response. "I've gotta do this sometime, Tay. Thanks though." And with that Alex gives her an assuring smile and walks to the door without her. Alex has always told himself that he needs to defend himself but whenever the time comes, he chokes. Seventeen years old and he has to have a girl defend him. His father—if he was still around—would not be impressed at all.

"Look, boys. Acorn head has decided to grace us with his presence," a voice says smoothly. Alex didn't even have to raise his head to figure out which asshole was addressing him. Acorn head was always their insult of choice even though it stopped being an actual insult about five years ago.

Faking a smile, Alex proceeds to turn around and face the meat heads who probably wouldn't even remember their last names if they weren't sewn on their jackets. "Ah, not like I haven't heard that one, Jackass," he comments. Alex could practically hear the gears struggle to turn in their heads as they attempted to register his response as an insult.

Jack finally chuckles as he shakes his head before stating the obvious. "You're kind of a loser, Gaskarth." And really, he isn't wrong. Maybe that's why Jack's rudimentary insults got to him, because he was right. He didn't say anything after that and Alex assumes he's done so he turns away from the lanky boy. A chorus of "Jack, you're gonna let him get away with that?" and "dude, that's it?" emerges from behind him. That was expected. The only thing that catches him off guard was when Jack replies, "yeah."