If I Said Your Smile's All That Mattered, Would You Save My Life?

Alex swore she was the one. He kept talking about her for hours, never feeling the need to shut up like I so wished he would. It's not like I didn’t want to hear about his new girl of the week, but I just had other things on my mind. On top of that, I felt a fever coming on and I did not want to be sick right now.

But it was a nice Saturday. Alex had taken me out to lunch, which was nice, even though I knew he only did it because he wanted to talk about her. I had already forgotten her name, despite how many times he had mentioned it. It shows how little I was paying attention. I simply hoped she wasn’t another Courtney.

"So how long have you known her?" I asked, dipping a fry into some fry sauce and stuffing it into my mouth, grease residue all over my fingers.

"Couple days," he replied, as if it didn’t matter that he was saying he loved a girl he met a couple days ago. I could never understand Alex. He dated a new girl each week, most of them just being for sex. But he never said he loved any of them, despite how long he may have known them. This must have been a bit more serious than I thought.

"That's all?" I asked. There was something about it that I just couldn’t understand. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. I took another fry and stuffed in my mouth so that I didn’t say anything else.

"It takes no time to fall in love, but it takes you years to know what love is," he sang, quoting the amazing Jason Mraz. Then he said, in a bit of more serious tone, bit still happy and light because it was Alex, "And we both know that I have many years of love under my belt."

I laughed. "Right you are," I said. Alex smiled at me. "So when are you gonna ask this fair maiden out?"

Alex, his cup of soda at the tip of his lips, took a long drink, as if he was buying time from the question, which surprised me once more. This didn’t seem like something he would avoid. At all.

"I don't know if I can ask her out. I'm scared." Not that was beyond surprised. My jaw dropped, along with the few fries I was holding in my hand. I just sat there, still. I didn’t know what to say.

"But, but, you're Alex!" I managed to stutter out, my voice loud, causing everyone around to look at us. I shrunk down in my seat. "I mean, how can you be scared of asking a girl out? Most of them practically just jump in your pants." My voice was a light whisper, I wasn’t sure if Alex even heard me.

"That's it exactly," he retorted, his voice a zealous tone. "She's not just gonna jump into my pants I just don't know what do with that. It's just so odd for me."

"Aw, Alex," I said, a bit awkward. I wanted to make him feel better, but I was never good in this type of situation. Only having guy friends made me more of a sarcastic jerkface than anything else. I wrapped my arm around him in a half hug thing. "Any girl would be lucky to have you. Just not ever girl wants to see the inside of your pants within the first few hours of knowing you."

"Like you," Alex said, smirking. "I don't think you want to see the inside of any guy's pants, actually." He paused for a second, and then added, his voice loud enough that I was so sure the whole world heard, "YOU LIKE GIRLS, DON'T YOU?"

My eyes widened in shock, confused. I sunk even lower in my seat, not wanting to be seen by all the eyes that were now on me.

"Alex, you idiot! Of course I don't like girls," I said, my words filled with venom. "I just, I don't know." I let out a sigh. I know I like guys, of course. But most of them are just such idiots that it's hard to actually like one."

Alex nodded. "Well then, Constantine, you need a fuck buddy." The few people that had stopped listening in on our conversation turned and looked back at us the second Alex mentioned a fuck buddy. I so wanted to yell at them to get their own lives, but I was too annoyed with Alex to bother.

"Yeah, 'cause that would help."

"It does. Really, it does, Constantine." Alex took another drink of his soda and smiled at me. "We just have to find out who would be perfect for you."

I let out a sigh, giving in. There was no way I could convince Alex that I didn’t need sex like he did. He wouldn’t understand. "Well, I might know someone," I said. I then began to tell Alex about everything that had happened with Nathan and how he liked me. With each word Alex's smile seemed to grow just a bit more.

I soon finished. My story must have been boring for everyone stopped listening in, noticing that we weren’t going to have any random outburst anytime soon. Alex took yet another drink of his soda – having finished his food within the first ten seconds we were here – and then smiled at me.

"So all we have to do is set you up. But that probably won't be hard. He'll probably be asking you out come Monday. And then everything will good. Now all I have to do is figure out a good way to ask out Laura."

"Can you not just be like, 'so there's a movie I want to see, you should come with'?" I asked.

"Movie's are just so generic. I want to be a bit more romantic."

I smiled. "Well, dear Alex, you've come to the right place."

Having never actually had a boyfriend and only having being kissed by some of the guys late at night when they were drunk and I was the only one around – or when Alex wanted to make some big dramatic show – I had lots of time to think about the perfect way I guy could ask me out.

I told Alex all of them. Well, almost all of them. There were some mature ones that he didn’t need to know about. But soon enough we had the perfect way for Alex to ask out Laura. He soon rushed off, kissing me on the cheek, to go and get everything ready for him to ask her out, leaving me to pay the bill he had said he would.

I sighed but smiled anyways, paying the check, which used up all the money I had. I got up to leave, my fever feeling like it was coming on so much stronger than before. I was just about to open the door when everything around me began to spin, becoming blurry and incomprehensible.

And slowly the world blended into one and I fell to the ground, the fall making every fiber in the body ache. But it didn’t last long. Soon the world was gone.