Are You Scared Yet?

A piercing tri-tone wakes me up the next morning and I groan. Slapping around my end table, I squint when I hit the snooze button and noise doesn't stop.

Groaning again, I heave myself up and snatch my phone off of my dresser.

"What do you want?"

Alex laughs from the other end of the phone.

"You're quite the morning person, aren't you?"

Rolling my eyes, I walk back over to my bed and flop down on it.

"Yeah, well, what else did you expect after waking me up before my alarm? Which, by the way, I set for nine," I say, glaring at the red 7:37 flashing on the clock.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I came up with the perfect way to set off 'Jack's week of horrors' and I got excited, okay?"

My stomach drops and I swallow thickly.

"'Jack's week of horrors?'" I ask. "You are so unoriginal. I expected more from you."

I burrow my face into my pillows and use my feet to pull the blanket back over me. I close my eyes.

"It's hard to be original about a holiday that's been around, for like, ever, okay?" Alex says, clearly growing annoyed with me already.

"Mmhm."

"Don't go back to sleep on me."

"I'm not!"

"Uhhuh. Anyways, what's better than kicking off the month of Halloween than watching a bunch of horror movies?" he asks.

Damn the excitement in his voice, and fuck what it makes my heart do. There's no way in Hell I could say 'no' to that tone.

I bite my lip and stretch out my legs; a last ditch effort to give myself some energy after staying up until three.

"Halloween is literally just one day," I point out, lazily. "Also, we're at the final stretch of October. You're a little behind when it comes to kicking off the month."

Alex groans at my points. I feel a bit bad for ruining his cute excitement, but it doesn't last long once I remember that he's about to put me through hours of cheap thrills that will probably, sadly, actually succeed in scaring me.

"Whatever, Jack. Just be over in an hour, okay?" he says.

Alex doesn't wait for me to respond, and hangs up after he's done. I drop my phone on the bed before shoving my face into my pillow and groaning tiredly.

I find the will to pull myself out of bed again.

"Fucking crushes," I mutter, "this is going to be the God damn end of me, I swear."

I grab a change of clothes and, after a brief moment of hesitation, snatch my anxiety medication off of my dresser.

Fuck.

-
"You're late," is the first thing Alex says when he pulls his front door open.

Yeah, well, you wouldn't be in a hurry if you didn't thrive off of being scared like a fuckin' adrenaline junking.

Jesus, I need to calm down.

"Sorry," I end up saying instead.

Alex rolls his eyes playfully and ushers me in. His living-room has been made into an all out home movie theater, with popcorn bags, candy, pizza, cereal (fuck, it's only ten, isn't it?), various kinds of pop and-

"Holy shit!" I exclaim, "did you make nachos?"

He nods enthusiastically as he shuts the door behind us.

"I know it's only ten, but I figured this was a pig out day anyways," he explains.

I vaguely register his words as I gravitate to the food. I've understood the term 'over the moon' but I suppose this comes close to it.

"So, I figured we could start some of the older stuff, like Children of the Corn and Psycho, which okay, I know it's not scary per say, but how can we have a scary movie marathon without appreciating the movie that set the tune for all horror movies to come? After that, we can get to the newer stuff, like the Insidious and Paranormal Activity stuff, and Ouija and that one movie that happens over Skype, I think?" he rambles, shifting through all of the movies he rented from the rental place down the street.

And, I'm back on Earth. Earth, Jack Barakat is home and he didn't miss you.

At least the mystery of where the pizza from the unmarked box came from. The rental place was cut in half last year and a wood stove pizza place named 'Mario's' was put in right next to it. They have a rent three movies get a pizza free promotion. At least I know that the pizza will be good, I guess.

"I think the Skype one is called 'Unfriended," I say miserably, flopping back onto his couch.

I arrange the pillows behind us comfortably as he walks over and joins me.

"I'm just going to warn you, I'm not as brave as you; I might need your support, affection, and reassurance that there's really nothing in my closet," he says seriously, as the opening scene in psycho appears on screen.

Brave. Yeah, right.

He sits close and holds his pillow to his chest. He sits with his feet on the edge of the couch.

As the movies go on, he’s true to his word, scooting closer and closer until I can feel his weight on my left hip. Alex sat right on the protruding bone, but I don’t say anything because his closeness is an easy reassurance that I’m not going to die.

The movies from a time before we were even born are easier to get through; the effects are terrible, laughable even compared to what you can do in terms of movies now, and it’s an easy distraction from what it is that I’m supposed to be scared of.

Alex’s always been a nervous eater, but how he managed to scarf down the food that was meant to be eaten warm, I’ll never know. Even the pizza seemed to lose its charm at lunch time, when we flipped open the top in between movies and found it to be as cold as it is outside.

Thankfully, I can fill up on pop and candy easily, so I didn’t go hungry; it just wasn’t the best kind of meal to be choking down. After all the movies I was forced to watch, I’d say I’d earned it.

At some point, his parents came home, but they flitted around and ignored us, having grown used to our movie marathons over the summer.

When we get the newer movies, the fear sets in. Alex gets closer, and clutches my arm so hard I’m sure it’ll bruise. My eyes bulge out of my head, but I refuse to let myself jump.

Sometime around eight at night I excuse myself to the bathroom to swallow down some anxiety medication. I wipe at the tears that leak from my eyes roughly; four months of finally not having panic attacks and relying on the shit to keep me stable down the drain. Fuck, my phycologist would be disappointed.

I push the thought to the back of my mind and return to the living-room. Alex’s basically trembling in his spot on the couch, but grins when I walk back into the room.

“Dude, check it out!” he says cheerfully, holding out his hand so I can see it shake. “I’m so fucking scared right now, dude, this is so cool!”

I nod and sit down next to him, wondering how the Hell he gets so much joy out of being scared. Before I can come up with a conclusion, he’s starting the movies again.

We finish the last one at three in the morning, and Alex whines when it’s over. He curls his hand that’s clutching my t-shirt tighter and gives me a pitiful look.

“I’m too tired to get up,” he says.

Rolling my eyes, I push him off of me. I stand up and take a few seconds to let my shaky legs adjust. My stomach rolls at the new position, and I scowl at the realization that I’ll probably have to slam back a couple more pills if I ever want to sleep tonight.

I take the movie out while Alex yawns and stretches, feeling my self-esteem plummet further as my hand trembles so much I have to fight to put the disk in its case.

“Scared yet?” Alex asks from above me.

I look up at him and lie, “No.”

He nods and we walk back his room after turning the TV off, deciding that we’ll clean everything up tomorrow. Or, more accurately, his mother will clean it before she leaves for work tomorrow.

He climbs into bed and I set up a make-shift one on his floor, taking the three extra blankets from the foot of his bed. The floors get cold in the fall and winter.

When the room gets silent, and all I can hear is Alex’s steady breathing, my bladder decides to make itself known. Of course all of the shit we drank would come back to haunt me now.

I prop myself up on my elbows, but the dark hallway suddenly seems very daunting. I drop back and cross my legs. Even wetting the bed seems like a better option than tempting fate like that.

For the next half hour, I toss and turn, trying to sleep but bladder not letting me. I contemplate just pissing and dealing with the embarrassment and cleanup in the morning. Just when I decide, that no, I can’t do that, Alex makes a weird noise and sits up.

His hands go right to his crouch and he squeezes himself. Normally when he does this, we’re in public and my initial reaction is ‘stop being such a fucking baby and go to the bathroom already’ but he’ll whine about his bladder-shyness and how gross public bathrooms are until he’s annoyed the hell out of me enough that I drive him home.

Tonight, however, it’s a blessing.

“You okay?” I whisper into the dark.

Alex jumps in surprise and looks down at me.

“I have to pee,” he says, squeezing himself for emphasis.

He starts to rock back and forth and I know it must be bad, because there was one time when our friend Rian really pushed his holding abilities to the limits, because no we are not leaving an amusement park we drove two hours to get to just because you decided that you needed three bottles of Mountain Dew, and besides you’d piss yourself before we got home anyways, so just go fucking use the restroom.

Only, he didn’t and he went home with soaked pants and a bruised ego, so I know that soon after the rocking comes small puffs of pain because he’d much rather hurt himself than use a public toilet where, God forbid, someone might be able to tell that his body actually functions normally.

However, I have no idea why he’s just sitting here now.

“Okay,” I say, “Then go.”

Alex bites his lip and looks at the hallway. Oh.

“…Are you scared?” I ask quietly.

Alex’s response is one of his puffing noises, and I stand up. I reach out for his hand and he looks up at me.

“Are you going to make fun of me?” he asks.

I roll my eyes and yank him out of bed. He grips my hand tightly as venture down his hallway. Flicking on the bathroom light, I open the door for Alex to go through. He looks from the room to me, and back again.

“Come in with me?” he practically begs.

I scrunch up my nose.

“Dude, I’m not going to stand in there while you pee.”

“Sit in the tub.”

“… Fine.”

Fuck those puppy dog eyes of his, I think, following him into the bathroom. I sit in the tub and face the other way as he does his business, humming loudly. It was something about not letting people hear him go, I think.

After he’s done, it’s my turn and then we both wash our hands. When we make it back to the room, Alex pulls me into the bed with him and latches on.

I don’t mind, because his arms feel nice around my waist and his small puffs of breath against my neck is reassuring, but then he ruins it by giving me that stupid look of his again.

“Will you check under the bed for monsters?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”