We Are an Example of Why Not to Fall in Love

Josh's point of view:

I sigh again as I hold back the tears that wanted to spill from my eyes and ring the doorbell in front of me. After a few seconds the front door opens and I look down at the slightly shorter boy in front of me. He looks up at me with an eyebrow raised.

"Josh? Everything alright?" he asks me, letting me in. I step in and he closes the door behind me, locking it.

"Alex, Rachelle broke up with me," I tell him as I sit down on the couch, propping my feet up onto the coffee table.

"Feet down or Mom will kill me,” Alex tells me, and I do as told with a sigh. Alex sits down next to me and looks to me questioningly. When I don’t speak up, he does instead.

“So, what happened?”

“She told me that she wasn’t really in love with me like I was in her, so she just broke it up.”

“Uh...at least she didn’t continue to...lie to you?” Alex suggests, trying to make me feel better about this situation. I smile at him, making him smile back at me.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I tell him. “So how’s you and Jack getting along?”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks way and blushes. After a few seconds he says,

“Really good.”

“Well, that’s good then,” I smile at him.

“Lexy! I can’t find my pants!” I hear Jack call from Alex’s room.

“That’s not my fault!” Alex shouts awkwardly because of my presence.

“Yes it is! You’re the one who wanted s-”

“OKAY! I’ll help you find you fucking pants!” Alex shouts quickly before leaping up from the seat and heading to his room to help his boyfriend.

“Um, I’m probably gonna go home now,” I call out to Alex as I get up. I wait a few seconds for a reply, receiving none, before leaving the house, making sure I lock it on the way out.

As I walk down to my home, I can’t help but think about what went down with me and my now ex. She said she wasn’t in love with me like I was in love with her. Maybe if I help her realize that she actually is, she’ll get back with me? I smile at the idea, but it falters when I realize that I don’t know how to do that. I start brainstorming ideas, a good one popping into my brain. Jealousy could work? Perfect. I smirk slightly.

There’s this kid at school and it’s quite obvious that he has a crush on me, so I guess I’ll try to find out his name. When I find out I’ll ask him out and hope he says yes. I’m quite sure he will, maybe? I’ll just have to find out for myself tomorrow. He’s actually pretty cute too, so it won’t be too bad.

Okay, so the plan’s all in my head now. First I learn the lad’s name, then I ask him out, he says yes, we start going out, I treat him all sweet and stuff, Rachelle gets jealous and wants me back, I get back together with Rachelle and leave the lad.

But then I remember something. Alex and this lad hang out sometimes, so the two may possibly be friends. If I talk to Alex about this, I’ll just have to leave out the part about using him. Yeah, I’ll just do that.

Before I know it, I’ve approached the front door of my house. I fish my key out of my pocket and use it to unlock the door, opening it. I toss the keys onto the coffee table and lock the door behind me.

Let’s just hope the lad says yes tomorrow.

<><><>

I walk over to Alex’s locker, where he’s standing. About five lockers down on the opposite side of the hall is the lad’s locker. I tap on Alex’s shoulder and he turns to face me. He smiles when he sees that it’s me.

“Hey, Josh. What’s up?” he asks me. I point in the lad’s direction.

“What’s his name?” I ask Alex as I look to the lad. He’s staring at me, but blushes and looks away when he sees me pointing and looking at him. I look back to Alex, who has an eyebrow raised.

“Why?”

“Uh… I wanna get to know him.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

No.

“Yeah…”

Alex smiles at me, and I smile back at him, even though I feel bad for lying to him. He’d probably kill me if he found out I was just using the lad.

“Oli likes you too,” Alex says as he grabs his stuff for class, shutting and locking his locker. “You guys would be really cute together. But be good to him, he’s kinda fragile.”

Oli. It’s cute, I have to admit. I nod at Alex’s command, even though I don’t understand what he meant. I say goodbye and head over to Oli. He was shorter than me, around Alex’s height. Maybe two inches shorter?

“Hey, Oli,” I say, earning his attention. He blushes as he looks up at me. He’s actually kinda cuter up close. Drop dead gorgeous, even.

“H-hey, Josh,” he stutters slightly. I smile down at him. I’m just gonna straight out ask him.

“So, you wanna hang out?”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Sorry, sure,” Oli smiles slightly. I return the smile, because this plan is working along nicely. And this also may be pretty fun. Hey, I can like him as a friend and have the plan work. We can hopefully be friends after it ends.

He turns back to his locker and gathers his things. He closes and locks his locker, then turns to walk away.

“I’ll walk you to class,” I tell him as I start to walk by his side.

“You d-don’t have to,” he tells me, but I know that he wants me to, so I do anyways. Alex told me to treat him well because he says he’s fragile, and I also gotta be good to him or the plan may not exactly work as planned.

“But I want to,” I tell him, and like I said before, it’s not exactly a lie.

When we get to his class, we say bye and I walk to my class.