It's Gonna Be My Year

We made it to New Orleans that day and the first thing we did was visit the cathedral. It was beautiful. It was massive and white and had 3 spires jutting from the top of it. We were allowed to wander around the church with a tour guide so we stayed there for an hour. Jack seemed a little overwhelmed with it all and he held onto my hand the entire time.
The tour finished at 5 so we looked around for a caravan park and decided to go check out the French Quarter that night. That was my parents’ idea. I didn’t really know what was in New Orleans other than the French Quarter so I was cool with anything. Jack was ok with it as well but he hadn’t said much since the church.
“Hey Jack, are you alright?” I asked him. He seemed very daydreamy.
“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine,” He said, sounding a little unsure.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I didn’t want to come across as pushy but sometimes it helps to talk about your thoughts. Get everything out into the open and suddenly it wasn’t as heavy on your shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m actually perfectly ok for the first time in a long time,” Jack said.
“Why so good? Not that there’s anything wrong with you feeling like everything’s ok. Quite the opposite.”
“I don’t really know. I think I just got a bit of comfort in seeing where my parents met. A time where everything was actually good. It gives me hope that one day everything will be good for us. Everything will be good for us,” He explained confidently.
And if that wasn’t going to jinx us I didn’t know what would.

The next day we were all pretty tired because we had spent a while in the French Quarter so we headed off a little later than usual. It was my turn to pick a place and I picked San Francisco. We’d never been so I was interested in what it was like. I really wanted to visit the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.
Jack was actually interested in Chinatown because he’d only ever visited the one in Baltimore.
I got a text from Rian that night.
‘Hey Alex how’s the trip?’
‘It’s been awesome so far. We’ve been to New Orleans and we’re travelling to San Francisco.’
‘That’s sounds great. I’ve never even been to California.’
‘Really? Well how’s school? Last day tomorrow right?’
‘Same old, same old. Yeah it is. Can’t wait til break. Ok sorry dude, gotta go.’
‘Cya.’
‘See ya.’

Rian seemed fine. I just hoped he wasn’t getting lonely. Jack and I had decided to start on our school work tonight as we had quite a few assignments because of all the school we’d been missing. I helped Jack with English and he helped me with Maths and we both just got confused with French. Why did we even have to learn a different language? At least it wasn’t Latin or some shit like that. I may even use French one day.
The next 2 days was just more travelling and more homework. Mine and Jack’s relationship was getting stronger every day. I was learning more and more about him and I’m sure he was learning about me too. It was nice to share a bed too, especially as it was getting cold as we got closer to the middle of winter and it’s not like our caravan had the best heating system anyway.
Jack seemed so happy too. He was always jumping around and excited about everything and I was so glad Mom and Dad had invited him on this trip because it was doing him a world of good.

“Hey Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. Alexxxxxx,” Jack was poking me and whispering. I opened my eyes to see Jack’s right in front of me. I sat up quickly and smashed our heads together.
“Oh shit,” I groaned.
“Why did you do that Alex? Why would you do this to me?” Jack whispered dramatically, clutching his head and curling into a ball on his side. I just rolled my eyes and flung myself on top of him. My boyfriend could be such an idiot.
“You’re the one who scared me,” I pointed out. He was kinda lucky I had sat up and not just resorted to punching him. Then he could complain.
“Why did you wake me up again?” I asked. I was a tiny bit curious because every other day I’d woken up long before Jack had. Normally reading or just lying there thinking.
“Because breakfast is ready,” He replied.
“Really? Ok then what’s for breakfast?” I asked. I went to stand up but Jack caught me around the waist. I turned to look at him and I’m sure the confusion was clear on my face.
“Ok well breakfast isn’t ready as it’s only 4am,” Jack said sheepishly. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed how dark it was before now.
“Uh, then why did you wake me up?” I made sure to stay quiet now, my parents were only a few meters away and I really didn’t want to wake them.
He muttered something I couldn’t hear.
“Uh, what was that?”
“You weren’t holding me,” He said whilst looking down at the blanket subdued.
“I just, I find it difficult to sleep unless you’re holding me because I know you’re in the same bed as me now,” He explained further.
“You haven’t let go before so I just thought if I woke you up we could go back to sleep with you holding me again. I’m sorry it’s silly it’s just I’ve been awake since 2 trying to get back to sleep and nothing else has worked,” He said, even more quietly than before.
I took his chin and turned his head up to look at me. Now that my eyes had adjusted I could see that he had bags under his eyes.
“You wanna go back to sleep now?” I asked gently. He nodded. I made him lay down, back to me so we were spooning.
“You don’t have to be afraid to wake me up, ok?” I said to him.
But he was already drifting off and didn’t seem to notice I was saying anything.
I just wondered why he’d been so afraid to wake me up.