Status: 1/1
A Little Like Love, a Lot Like Hell
1
The sort of beautiful part of knowing someone's taking advantage of you is the funny feeling that can sometimes settle in your heart when you trick yourself into believing you can tell the difference between when they're taking advantage of you and when they love you. It's a feeling right on the edge of love, a feeling that's definitely related but not by any clear blood line. They're in the same ballpark but parts of completely different games, still you grin like a fool and thank god you're getting to play anything at all.
You've been conditioned to watching him leave when he thinks you're asleep and by the same token trained to believe he loves you when you wake up and he's still in bed beneath you. When strong arms are wrapped around your waist and your head is lying on skin more perfect than any other set of flesh and bones god could ever create you feel invincible. A sense of pride that usually eludes you fills and overflows from every organ in your body and the euphoria of knowing you're enough sets in in the most dazzling, radiant of ways. The light that pours from you wakes up the boy beneath you and you study his sleepy smile intently, memorizing every inch of it so you can play it back in your head later.
Everything you have is rooted firmly in that moment, in any moment he is paying attention to you and no one else.
But then the name slips and he tells you he has to get back to Alex and your heart snaps and your eyes flood with unwanted understanding and you fill with the usual sense of defeat. There's a quick kiss, a flash of a smile, a whisper of I'll see you in a bit that you choose to hear as I'll love you forever and then you're alone but not surprised.
Jack Barakat spends a lot of time alone. More time than people would think, more time than you're willing to let them think. Image is all that matters, so long as the world thinks you're happy then you can force yourself to think the same. Long fingers tap out lies in 140 characters or less.
Jack Barakat is happy.
Jack Barakat is happy.
Jack Barakat is happy.
You compose the same message in different words and phrases and jokes until its all anyone can see.
It's all everyone sees but you do it on purpose because it makes your tears more appealing later. Later when he's trying to leave and you fake a stutter and let a few tears fall and suddenly he's kissing you again. Suddenly he's whispering you're lovely and you cry for real at the overly kind words because you know you're a disgusting traitor.
And maybe your thoughts wander to Alexander. And maybe you know he cares for Zack in a way you'll never be able to replicate or improve on. But maybe you push all that to the side and focus on the lips mouthing at your neck and kissing down your body until all you can think is zackzackzack.
You let those feelings overtake you and pretend it'll last forever when you know in reality it'll be over before you can even stop the tears still falling down your face because you know he isn't trying to show you how much he loves you. He's trying to take advantage of a biological certainty that'll put you to sleep and let him get back to the only man he'll ever make love to.
He takes advantage of you and you know it and he knows it and Alex knows it and Rian knows it and if you had any sense of shame or dignity it would be something you'd stop but in stark opposition to shame it makes you proud.
You hope your name is always in the back of Alex's mind. You hope when he's alone in the room across the hotel hall from you he's drowning in the same jealous desperation that keeps you from sleeping or eating or breathing properly. It's all you can ask for to be a doubt in the back of his mind and a nagging voice at the bottom of Zack's heart. A voice that whispers but what about Jack while the rest of his body screams that he'll always love Alex best.
Those are the things you wish for at every 11:11, every shooting star, every set of birthday candles, or breeze of dandelion fuzz. All you've ever asked for is for Alex to remember your name and face long past the day he finally snaps and you lose the only job you've ever held. When he lies in his bunk and knows that Zack is with him but only because you're in Baltimore. All you can hope is to be a reason he cries quietly against the neck of a boy you hope he one day realizes he's not worthy of.
That's all you have, just a sick, twisted, dream that your "best friend" one day realizes that he's not as great as the whole world tells him he is, that one day he wakes up and he feels like you because he feels like he's never been enough for anyone or anything. You wait with fingers crossed and ears peeled to hear Zack reassure Alex that he's nothing, the same way Alex likes to remind you that you're nothing.
When the lights are low and Zack is far away and he catches you alone and holds you by your shirt collar and growls to stay away from his man or else things are going to get ugly and you just smile. A happy expression that comes at the price of a bloody nose or black eye but that you can't stop from making because you know the secret no one else knows.
You know nothing can ever get worse for you, you know you're being manipulated and used by the man you love but who has no feelings beyond pity and obligation towards you.
Alex warns you to stay away and you warn Zack with the same words just to watch him smile oh so reassuringly as he lays you back on a hotel bed or a dressing room couch or against a bathroom wall and tells you that Alex is not the boss of him. I'm my own man he tells you, a cocky undertone flowing through his words as he breathes them against your ear, I do what I want and what I want is you. And then his soft lips are pressing against your own chapped and torn apart lips that occasionally split from the same words that Zack's just whispered because Alex does not like to hear them but you can't always contain your selfish joy and every once in a while you have to gloat.
Every once in a while you find yourself watching tears fill Alex's eyes as you innocently ask where Zack was the night before. Every once in a while you find yourself asking why Alex is crying, if there's something wrong with his and Zack's relationship and then smirking as you deliver the final blow wrapped in the guise of a careless shrug of, because there's nothing wrong with me and Zack's relationship. And Alex punches you and Rian hates you and even Zack yells at you for it later, screams that you have no right to make his boyfriend cry and that you need to stop causing problems in his relationship and get used to being the slut he and everyone else sees you as because that's all you'll ever be.
All you'll ever be is a slut, the words fill your mind and heart until you become physically ill. Alcohol is the only thing that can stop the hurt and fever of embarrassment from overtaking you and its what you fill yourself with to pass the time until Zack doesn't hate you. Until he's rubbing your back as you throw up overpriced drinks in a nightclub you don't know the name or location of. You let yourself fall into him and whisper apologies you don't really mean as you allow yourself to fill with that same pride from all the mornings he stayed while he whispers that you don't need to apologize at all, that you mean so much to him and he just wants to take you back to the hotel and make you his again.
He's taking advantage of you again, you're not stupid or drunk enough to not know that but then again this has always been the sort of beautiful part to you so it surprises no one when you wrap your sweaty limbs around him and smile the whole way back to the hotel because maybe he's taking advantage of you but that's so damn close to learning to love you that you could never even dream of asking for anything more.
He has you broke to the point that you've accepted that he'll never love you and whether you know it or not, for him, that'll always be the beautiful part.
You've been conditioned to watching him leave when he thinks you're asleep and by the same token trained to believe he loves you when you wake up and he's still in bed beneath you. When strong arms are wrapped around your waist and your head is lying on skin more perfect than any other set of flesh and bones god could ever create you feel invincible. A sense of pride that usually eludes you fills and overflows from every organ in your body and the euphoria of knowing you're enough sets in in the most dazzling, radiant of ways. The light that pours from you wakes up the boy beneath you and you study his sleepy smile intently, memorizing every inch of it so you can play it back in your head later.
Everything you have is rooted firmly in that moment, in any moment he is paying attention to you and no one else.
But then the name slips and he tells you he has to get back to Alex and your heart snaps and your eyes flood with unwanted understanding and you fill with the usual sense of defeat. There's a quick kiss, a flash of a smile, a whisper of I'll see you in a bit that you choose to hear as I'll love you forever and then you're alone but not surprised.
Jack Barakat spends a lot of time alone. More time than people would think, more time than you're willing to let them think. Image is all that matters, so long as the world thinks you're happy then you can force yourself to think the same. Long fingers tap out lies in 140 characters or less.
Jack Barakat is happy.
Jack Barakat is happy.
Jack Barakat is happy.
You compose the same message in different words and phrases and jokes until its all anyone can see.
It's all everyone sees but you do it on purpose because it makes your tears more appealing later. Later when he's trying to leave and you fake a stutter and let a few tears fall and suddenly he's kissing you again. Suddenly he's whispering you're lovely and you cry for real at the overly kind words because you know you're a disgusting traitor.
And maybe your thoughts wander to Alexander. And maybe you know he cares for Zack in a way you'll never be able to replicate or improve on. But maybe you push all that to the side and focus on the lips mouthing at your neck and kissing down your body until all you can think is zackzackzack.
You let those feelings overtake you and pretend it'll last forever when you know in reality it'll be over before you can even stop the tears still falling down your face because you know he isn't trying to show you how much he loves you. He's trying to take advantage of a biological certainty that'll put you to sleep and let him get back to the only man he'll ever make love to.
He takes advantage of you and you know it and he knows it and Alex knows it and Rian knows it and if you had any sense of shame or dignity it would be something you'd stop but in stark opposition to shame it makes you proud.
You hope your name is always in the back of Alex's mind. You hope when he's alone in the room across the hotel hall from you he's drowning in the same jealous desperation that keeps you from sleeping or eating or breathing properly. It's all you can ask for to be a doubt in the back of his mind and a nagging voice at the bottom of Zack's heart. A voice that whispers but what about Jack while the rest of his body screams that he'll always love Alex best.
Those are the things you wish for at every 11:11, every shooting star, every set of birthday candles, or breeze of dandelion fuzz. All you've ever asked for is for Alex to remember your name and face long past the day he finally snaps and you lose the only job you've ever held. When he lies in his bunk and knows that Zack is with him but only because you're in Baltimore. All you can hope is to be a reason he cries quietly against the neck of a boy you hope he one day realizes he's not worthy of.
That's all you have, just a sick, twisted, dream that your "best friend" one day realizes that he's not as great as the whole world tells him he is, that one day he wakes up and he feels like you because he feels like he's never been enough for anyone or anything. You wait with fingers crossed and ears peeled to hear Zack reassure Alex that he's nothing, the same way Alex likes to remind you that you're nothing.
When the lights are low and Zack is far away and he catches you alone and holds you by your shirt collar and growls to stay away from his man or else things are going to get ugly and you just smile. A happy expression that comes at the price of a bloody nose or black eye but that you can't stop from making because you know the secret no one else knows.
You know nothing can ever get worse for you, you know you're being manipulated and used by the man you love but who has no feelings beyond pity and obligation towards you.
Alex warns you to stay away and you warn Zack with the same words just to watch him smile oh so reassuringly as he lays you back on a hotel bed or a dressing room couch or against a bathroom wall and tells you that Alex is not the boss of him. I'm my own man he tells you, a cocky undertone flowing through his words as he breathes them against your ear, I do what I want and what I want is you. And then his soft lips are pressing against your own chapped and torn apart lips that occasionally split from the same words that Zack's just whispered because Alex does not like to hear them but you can't always contain your selfish joy and every once in a while you have to gloat.
Every once in a while you find yourself watching tears fill Alex's eyes as you innocently ask where Zack was the night before. Every once in a while you find yourself asking why Alex is crying, if there's something wrong with his and Zack's relationship and then smirking as you deliver the final blow wrapped in the guise of a careless shrug of, because there's nothing wrong with me and Zack's relationship. And Alex punches you and Rian hates you and even Zack yells at you for it later, screams that you have no right to make his boyfriend cry and that you need to stop causing problems in his relationship and get used to being the slut he and everyone else sees you as because that's all you'll ever be.
All you'll ever be is a slut, the words fill your mind and heart until you become physically ill. Alcohol is the only thing that can stop the hurt and fever of embarrassment from overtaking you and its what you fill yourself with to pass the time until Zack doesn't hate you. Until he's rubbing your back as you throw up overpriced drinks in a nightclub you don't know the name or location of. You let yourself fall into him and whisper apologies you don't really mean as you allow yourself to fill with that same pride from all the mornings he stayed while he whispers that you don't need to apologize at all, that you mean so much to him and he just wants to take you back to the hotel and make you his again.
He's taking advantage of you again, you're not stupid or drunk enough to not know that but then again this has always been the sort of beautiful part to you so it surprises no one when you wrap your sweaty limbs around him and smile the whole way back to the hotel because maybe he's taking advantage of you but that's so damn close to learning to love you that you could never even dream of asking for anything more.
He has you broke to the point that you've accepted that he'll never love you and whether you know it or not, for him, that'll always be the beautiful part.