Status: One more chapter to go.
Atelophobia.
1
Atelophobia is the fear of not being good enough or imperfection. This is classified as an anxiety disorder that can affect relationships and makes the person afflicted by it feel like everything they do is wrong.
It was 4PM when we finished our set in Paris. I laid down on my bunk and started listening to music to get down from my high.
Music was my favourite subject when I was a teenager. I could express my feelings and take everything out of my mind only using a pen and paper. I started writing when I was around fourteen -which helped me grow up- and reading books that I wasn't supposed to read for tests at sixteen. I promised myself that if I ever had kids I'd make them read and write every single day because I didn't want them to live just one life in their entire life.
What helped the most was that only the music teacher read what we had written. He never showed anyone and he was always there if we needed help.
I found myself writing a kind of diary every day for about a year. Every night at exactly 11:30PM I scribbled down what I felt during the day with the format of a poem and read it over and over again until I was satisfied with what I had written. It's not like I was going to win a prize for doing so, but I liked to keep my writing clear.
I didn’t enjoy moving schools, but as my mum had told me several times, ‘You didn’t fit in that kind of school anyway, you will in this one’ but that never happened. I never got used to schools and I didn’t know what my problem was because I had always gotten decent grades –not straight A’s but neither F’s-, I could live with what I got, my parents couldn’t though.
Everything started when I was around 14 and my parents got concerned because I got a B on almost all my subjects. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, I honestly thought it was pretty good. My friends back then got A B C and even D’s and their parents were okay with it, because we were only 14 and didn’t even know the meaning of life or why a fork isn’t called a trident. I was oblivious to what kind of vibe was surrounding me.
So my parents pushed me to study harder until I got straight A’s and an impeccable behaviour around my teachers. They made me give up on my friends, pushing them away from me whenever they tried to be friendly towards me.
I didn’t really get why my parents wanted me to be a little nerd, it was useless seeing as every time the exam week started I needed to leave and start studying in another school.
My manners changed, I learned to stay quiet when my parents talked about bringing me to a new school across the country. I didn’t whine or complain about it, I almost got used to it and everything. For a long time, they convinced me of the schools not being strict enough, public enough, or simply big enough, and I started to believe they were just lying.
I started blaming myself for travelling so much, for keeping my dad away from his job, for paying so much money to stay at a school just for half term, for not being intelligent enough and what not.
My life slightly started to change when I met Alex and the other guys in my senior year when I moved to Baltimore.
I found out that our music teacher was Alex's dad back then. It was really cute because they looked alike and acted like they were complete strangers. I sometimes looked over at Alex who was sitting next to me like in every other class and found him smiling up at his dad.
After we all met, I was sitting next to Alex in math -which we both hated- and ripped a piece of paper from my notebook, writing 'Hey, Alex?' on it. I threw it to him and it successfully fell on his table.
He read it and turned it around to reply 'Yeah?' on the other side.
I ripped another piece of paper and wrote down 'I kind of realized that you play guitar and well, I've always wanted to learn how to play. Could you, maybe teach me?' I handed it to him and he read it immediately.
I lowered my head when I saw our teacher glaring at us. I heard him whisper my name and a turned to face him. He smiled and nodded.
That was the start of my best and at the same time worst part of my life.
5 years later.
"I quit this band, man" I heard Jack scoff as he wandered once again in our unfamiliar shared duplex. I looked over at my phone to check the time; 7PM.
I bought the house for the two of us a few months ago. It wasn't that big but it wasn't small either. I didn't want to waste money on a huge and luxurious house knowing that our real home was the van we lived in 300 days out of the year. I didn't want to stay at my parent's house for all my life so I thought it'd be a good idea to live with my best friend as long as he was okay with that.
It was the end of All time low's European tour and we got to go home for a few weeks before tour started again.
Jack started joking about quitting the band when he was diagnosed with Atelophobia -fear of not being good enough. That's what the doctor said anyway.
I couldn't comprehend how on the earth would Jack feel like he wasn't good enough because we all know -friends, family, fans- that he's fucking amazing at playing guitar, satisfying other people with his dumbness, and an uncountable amount of facts. He's the best person anyone could ask for. And I was and still am really glad to be best friends with him.
He had been distant lately though. I want to believe that his fear -Atelophobia- was what made him feel down all the time but it had passed almost a year since we all found out about it and I don't think he improved in any sense.
“Seriously, I’m not even that good at guitar! You should just go and find another guitarist. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to die alone in this shithole everyone calls life. For fuck’s sake…”
He kept walking into other rooms and talking to himself, an old and quite horrible habit of him.
I sometimes wished he wouldn't talk about quitting the band even if he was only joking, because I was scared of him leaving any day. I didn’t want to go through that, I didn't want to lose my best friend.
"Shut up, Jack!" I shouted so the sound of my voice could reach the second floor.
"Why are you yelling? I'm right here" He said walking over to the kitchen.
"Sorry, I thought you were upstairs" I admitted and followed him into the kitchen.
He filled a brand new glass no one used before with water and swallowed it, then put it in the sink and sat down on a chair next to the black table.
"Why is it so cold here?" I turned around and looked at what was he wearing. Black skinny jeans that fit him perfectly, hugging his little ass, and just a plain shirt.
I was wearing a sweater that was at least two sized bigger than it should have been- but I really liked those ones-, skinny jeans and converse. I knew we were going to be cold because America is colder than Europe in general so I brought a thick sweater in my backpack just in case I was cold during the flight.
"You're just wearing way too little close. I'm going to unpack stuff and put my pyjama then. You should do the same" By pyjama I meant sweat pants and a different hoodie but he knew what I meant.
"Alright. I'm going to the bathroom" He said heading up and into the bathroom. I just nodded and turned around to take a look at our house.
I looked down at hour multiple bags and sighed, then started unpacking them. I started with Jack's backpack; Phone, wallet, sunglasses, water, headphones, earphones, iPod, passport, a hoodie -why is he so stupid I thought- and his new keys.
I heard the bathroom door shut. Knowing that he'd take a while, I grabbed his phone and checked his DMs on twitter. There was nothing interesting so I took a look at his messages. I saw a few messages I had sent him when he was too drunk and nowhere to be found, Cass' messages and Jasey's.
I didn't know that they were talking again.
Zack, Rian, Jasey, I and basically every crew member of our band met Jack the first day of our senior year back in Baltimore. He found himself forced to move schools because he was bullied at the other one -which I found out a year after we met.
-
Our little crowd and I were having lunch when Jasey ran into Jack, who was looking at his feet like he used to. They bumped into each other and apologized for doing so. Jasey told him that he could sit with us if he didn't have any other plans, so he did.
We introduced ourselves and continued chatting. Jack didn't talk much, he only played with his food and nodded at what we were saying when we looked at him.
I kept glancing at him as we talked about Rian's new girlfriend Cassadee -which was really interesting- but it was more interesting to look at this boy's face when he zoned out and whenever he raised his head and brushed his blonde and black bangs off his face, I found him looking over at Jasey.
She gave him a little smile every time he looked at her. I'm glad she did because that made Jack smile too. That's when Jack started walking the way to hell.
-
"What are you doing with my phone?" I didn't hear his footsteps -he must have taken his shoes off- of course he has you dumbass. His voice was harsh and rough compared to mine.
"I didn't know you and Jasey were talking again" I handed him the phone which he took immediately.
I turned and continued unpacking our bags. He didn't reply for a long time. I finished unpacking and placing all of our stuff in their places.
Sipping on my black coffee, I prepared some for Jack too. He liked it with a quarter glass of milk, heated for fifty seconds in the microwave and just a tiny bit of sugar. He sat down next to me and placed his hands on each side of the mug to warm his hands before thanking me.
"She started texting me at the beginning of this tour" He said after drinking half of the coffee.
I nodded slowly even if I wanted to slap him across his face. After everything the girl's done to Jack, I really hoped he was kidding. Turned out he wasn't.
"I see. What do you guys talk about?" I asked sipping once again on my almost cold coffee. He shrugged first but I wanted an answer so I waited for it.
"Y'know, stuff" He said. His voice was becoming more and more irritating to my ears with each word he spoke. I hated that feeling. I loved my best friend, and I supposed he loved me back; we were best friends and best friends trust each other with everything and anything in any moment of their lives.
You know when someone means the world to you but they seem they'd do anything to piss you off or hate them? Like when you feel you're fed up with other's shit and you just want everything to end?
I didn't want that happening between Jack and I. I didn't even want to think about it. If Jack pushed me away, then that meant we wouldn't be able to do our stupid jokes on stage, drink all night and end up at a hotel because we were way too drunk to get to the bus- plus Matt would be really pissed it that happened. What about the band though? We wouldn't work out if it wasn't for Jack. We were four band members -apart from the crew-, no one more no one less and Jack was one of said members. If he quits then I quit.
"What stuff?"
Jack wasn't exactly one of those people who opened to people all the time. He kept everything to himself unless it got real bad and couldn't handle not talking about it anymore. Since he only told me, it was me who was always there to hold and help him -which I'm grateful of- in those circumstances.
I sometimes wished he had told someone else too because it's not like I'm the healthiest and best friend out there. It's not like he annoyed me or anything along those lines but I also had my anxiety problems and I felt like I couldn’t deal with everything all at once.
"None of your business" He said in a dead tone lowering his head.
I knew he didn't mean those words, he couldn't. I was kind of pissed off and upset at the same time.
I was there after all he put me though. I was there when he needed me and wanted me. I kept it a secret from the others, I bought a house for us two with my own money, I ended relationships because of him, I snuck out at night because he needed to talk to me, I've spend nights at his house worrying about him, I told my mom to talk to his mom when things got real bad, I can't party when the tour is over and we want to have fun, I can't do relationships again, I'm so sick of it.
"It is my business if I keep wasting-" I sighed. "-spending my time with you all the time" I sighed again.
We were finished with our drinks by then. I put my mug in the sink and sat back down on my chair waiting for his reply.
"She's been helping me. We've been talking and texting just to keep our friendship going until we meet next week" He said faking a little smile.
"You aren't meeting her" I said. "Did you forget all the nasty things she said to you? How bad she hurt you when you were at your lowest? I'm not going to let that happen again. And if you go meet her, I swear with everything I have that I won't be here to support you anymore" For once, I meant those words because he was doing this to himself.
He didn't answer so I got up and went upstairs and into my room. I closed the door and hoped for the best. I put my pyjama on laid on bed scrolling down through Twitter. I searched Jack on there and looked at his last tweets.
Jack Barakat @JackAllTimeLow 2h
Finally flying back home! I hope Alex treats me like a lady this time.
Jack Barakat @JackAllTimeLow 10m
Alex is a grumpy old man.
I laughed a little at the fact that Jack seemed a happy dude in front of everyone else. The fans didn't have to know about his personal life even if some of them really cared about him and us.
We didn't want to let them down so we pretended that we were happy, hiding behind the shadow that contained all of our sadness and problems.
Jasey was kind of our main problem and nightmare.
They became really good friends back in high school. They started hanging around on the weekends, going to parties without our little group of friends, getting wasted and sleeping at each other’s as much as they could.
I have to admit that it kind of hurt to know that Jasey and him were sleeping in the same bed over and over again; that was Jack and I’s thing.
There was something mysterious about Jasey, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was but I knew Jack was not safe with her. Jack believed that they were a cute couple, but that didn’t turn out well for him one night Jasey was sleeping over at his.
Jack told me that they had sex, just like every time Jasey went over to his house for those long moths, but something felt wrong that night, according to Jack.
Both of them laid down in bed as soon as they came down from their highs from being on top of each other. All of the sudden, Jasey told him to leave her house, her voice harsh and rough. Jack was confused to say the least; they had been hanging around for more than three months, and not once had she told him to leave after an amazing sex session.
Jack propped himself on his elbows and asked why, which apparently irritated Jasey even more. Jasey got up and dressed quickly, walking towards the door and standing at the door frame pointing for Jack to leave her room.
He shook his head and demanded for an explanation, that angered her more, and Jack was getting sadder and sadder, thinking about the previous events, trying to find something he had done or said wrongly; but couldn’t quite figure out what was making her so angry.
“Don’t you fucking see it? All we do is go to parties, get drunk and fuck. You think I’m some kind of doll you can use and then put away? I know you don’t talk much, but you could at least pretend to listen to me whenever I talk. All you do is stare at Alex and zone out. This isn’t even a real relationship Jack, everyone thinks we’re just fucking, which we are, but I thought you wanted to be something more than fuck buddies. You know? You are useless. You do nothing but stay quiet and not. No one likes you, and you know it. Why do you think you have changed school so much? Because no one liked you back in those schools, and nobody likes you now either. Get over it, you don’t fit in anywhere. I’m sure your parents wanted to change you too, get a better child, one that would be good enough for a girl and for yourself. You are worthless Jack. Get the fuck out of my house and don’t bother talking to me at school anymore. Go get new friends”
The truth is that Jasey was the one that was forced to leave our table and our friendship as soon as we knew what happened. Jack was so much better than that.
That exact night, he called me asking for me to pick him up from Jasey’s house, and I knew something was wrong because I could make out a few sobs coming from him as he spoke into his phone.
As soon as I got there, he was disorientated, barely making a sound when he hugged me tight when he saw me. I didn’t question what had happened; instead, I brought him home, we laid on his bed, him hugging my side as he cried and cried until he had no more tears to waste on that bitch.
He told me everything Jasey told him a few days after that night, and we decided to stay away from her for a while, which turned into forever, and told the rest of our group of friends a lie so that they wouldn’t want to go near her.
Jack had tortured himself from that exact time; believing that every little thing that went wrong was his fault. I had tried to assure him otherwise, but he would end up mentally hurting himself even more.
He stopped eating because he thought her mother wasted her time preparing food for him; he stopped sleeping because he wanted and needed to study to get good grades and make his parents feel proud of him; he stopped hanging out with everyone and stayed at home to finish homework. It fucking hurt me knowing that he was hurting so much.
I hadn’t had experienced those feeling towards anyone before, so I told him that I liked him as more than I friend, and realized that we both shared that feeling. That soothed his heart a little, and started doing simple things like eat again after two months of not doing so.
Jack went to his normal state of mind again, he was the Jack I had met, if not even cuter and weirder, which was also adorable.
Knowing that Jasey and Jack had been talking made my heart literally hurt for obvious reasons. But just for my luck, just texted me that he wasn’t going to meet her for his own good, and to go up to our room.
I smiled to myself and headed towards our bedroom where I found him lying in bed wearing sweatpants and a Green Day shirt, cuddled into the left side of the bed where my body should have been.
He wasn’t sleeping though; he shuffled a little at the sound of my body entering the room and nudged at his pillow. And damn, I was a lucky to have him.
I changed into sweatpants and a Foo shirt and slid myself underneath the covers, instantly feeling a pair of arms wrap around my waist. I smiled and pecked him on the lips, earning another smile from him.
“My stomach hurts” He said pouting excessively. I laughed and put my hand on his stomach, rubbing circles over his soft skin before he put my hand away giving me a sad smile.
I knew what exactly meant. He had never understood that he was everything I have ever wanted, everything I could have dreamed of. He kept saying how I could find someone better than him in a blink of an eye; telling me off to go find some groupie or to go back to my ex.
I was quite preoccupied about it at first, but I got used to it really. I would still tell him that he was the only thing I needed, and that he was good enough if not too good for me. I have told him that and more until now.
“Alex..” He whispered.
“Stop it Jack. Don’t worry about me not liking you, okay? I love every bit of you, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, and that will never change, so be confident about yourself and let me love you”
I linked our hands together, tangling our legs together and placing my hand on his stomach again, giving him a reassuring massage.
He only nodded in response, trying to get over with the conversation, but I knew that he wasn’t feeling completely sure about anything at the moment, and I wasn’t quite done with our night conversation yet.
I have always tried and will always try to make him believe he was an amazing person and believe in himself since the first moment he had told me about all the trouble he had gone through with his parents and school.
“You know what I love the most about you?” I asked in a whisper seeing as his eyes were slowly closing, probably because of the lack of sleep we were suffering on the van and the tiredness from the sleepless and irritating flight home.
“That I make you feel bad whenever I’m down?” He half joked.
“No, silly. You. I just love you so much; I don’t think you appreciate it” I confessed.
He nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck and muttered something I couldn’t understand. He didn’t hear himself well either, so he pulled away from me and cleared his throat.
“I do appreciate you, and I love you too, so much, okay? I just don’t understand why you would choose me over all those fans or just people who are willing to have you”
“Because I love you, Jack. And I don’t love any of them. I’ll make a list of the reasons why I’m with you and not anyone else tomorrow, okay? It’ll take a while though”
I gently brushed his skunk hair off his fringe and kissed his forehead before resting my chin on top of his head. I felt him sigh into my chest before he kissed it.
“I love you, no matter what I say, I do”
“Good, because I do too”
“Goodnight, Lex”
“See you in the morning, cuteface”
And just like that, we closed our eyes and hoped for another peaceful day to come into sight the next morning.
With Jack by my side and me by his, we could go through anything and everything together.
-------------------------
A/N:
Jeez. I'll never get used to write this much in just a fic (oneshot)
Well.. I meant this fic to be a chaptered one but I run 3 chaptered fics already and I wanted to get over with this so I have kind of written down everything that came up to my mind right now.
I don't know how I feel about this because I meant to explain what Atelophobia was but ended up just writing pointless stuff and it's barely Jalex-ish so meh.. Tell me what you guys think and let me know if I should change anything,
Thanks for reading guys x
I think I might start taking requests so if you want to contact me ----->
Twitter: adrispov
Tumblr: ijustwannafuckthishustler.tumblr.com
Mibba: Adribarakarth
It was 4PM when we finished our set in Paris. I laid down on my bunk and started listening to music to get down from my high.
Music was my favourite subject when I was a teenager. I could express my feelings and take everything out of my mind only using a pen and paper. I started writing when I was around fourteen -which helped me grow up- and reading books that I wasn't supposed to read for tests at sixteen. I promised myself that if I ever had kids I'd make them read and write every single day because I didn't want them to live just one life in their entire life.
What helped the most was that only the music teacher read what we had written. He never showed anyone and he was always there if we needed help.
I found myself writing a kind of diary every day for about a year. Every night at exactly 11:30PM I scribbled down what I felt during the day with the format of a poem and read it over and over again until I was satisfied with what I had written. It's not like I was going to win a prize for doing so, but I liked to keep my writing clear.
I didn’t enjoy moving schools, but as my mum had told me several times, ‘You didn’t fit in that kind of school anyway, you will in this one’ but that never happened. I never got used to schools and I didn’t know what my problem was because I had always gotten decent grades –not straight A’s but neither F’s-, I could live with what I got, my parents couldn’t though.
Everything started when I was around 14 and my parents got concerned because I got a B on almost all my subjects. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, I honestly thought it was pretty good. My friends back then got A B C and even D’s and their parents were okay with it, because we were only 14 and didn’t even know the meaning of life or why a fork isn’t called a trident. I was oblivious to what kind of vibe was surrounding me.
So my parents pushed me to study harder until I got straight A’s and an impeccable behaviour around my teachers. They made me give up on my friends, pushing them away from me whenever they tried to be friendly towards me.
I didn’t really get why my parents wanted me to be a little nerd, it was useless seeing as every time the exam week started I needed to leave and start studying in another school.
My manners changed, I learned to stay quiet when my parents talked about bringing me to a new school across the country. I didn’t whine or complain about it, I almost got used to it and everything. For a long time, they convinced me of the schools not being strict enough, public enough, or simply big enough, and I started to believe they were just lying.
I started blaming myself for travelling so much, for keeping my dad away from his job, for paying so much money to stay at a school just for half term, for not being intelligent enough and what not.
My life slightly started to change when I met Alex and the other guys in my senior year when I moved to Baltimore.
I found out that our music teacher was Alex's dad back then. It was really cute because they looked alike and acted like they were complete strangers. I sometimes looked over at Alex who was sitting next to me like in every other class and found him smiling up at his dad.
After we all met, I was sitting next to Alex in math -which we both hated- and ripped a piece of paper from my notebook, writing 'Hey, Alex?' on it. I threw it to him and it successfully fell on his table.
He read it and turned it around to reply 'Yeah?' on the other side.
I ripped another piece of paper and wrote down 'I kind of realized that you play guitar and well, I've always wanted to learn how to play. Could you, maybe teach me?' I handed it to him and he read it immediately.
I lowered my head when I saw our teacher glaring at us. I heard him whisper my name and a turned to face him. He smiled and nodded.
That was the start of my best and at the same time worst part of my life.
5 years later.
"I quit this band, man" I heard Jack scoff as he wandered once again in our unfamiliar shared duplex. I looked over at my phone to check the time; 7PM.
I bought the house for the two of us a few months ago. It wasn't that big but it wasn't small either. I didn't want to waste money on a huge and luxurious house knowing that our real home was the van we lived in 300 days out of the year. I didn't want to stay at my parent's house for all my life so I thought it'd be a good idea to live with my best friend as long as he was okay with that.
It was the end of All time low's European tour and we got to go home for a few weeks before tour started again.
Jack started joking about quitting the band when he was diagnosed with Atelophobia -fear of not being good enough. That's what the doctor said anyway.
I couldn't comprehend how on the earth would Jack feel like he wasn't good enough because we all know -friends, family, fans- that he's fucking amazing at playing guitar, satisfying other people with his dumbness, and an uncountable amount of facts. He's the best person anyone could ask for. And I was and still am really glad to be best friends with him.
He had been distant lately though. I want to believe that his fear -Atelophobia- was what made him feel down all the time but it had passed almost a year since we all found out about it and I don't think he improved in any sense.
“Seriously, I’m not even that good at guitar! You should just go and find another guitarist. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to die alone in this shithole everyone calls life. For fuck’s sake…”
He kept walking into other rooms and talking to himself, an old and quite horrible habit of him.
I sometimes wished he wouldn't talk about quitting the band even if he was only joking, because I was scared of him leaving any day. I didn’t want to go through that, I didn't want to lose my best friend.
"Shut up, Jack!" I shouted so the sound of my voice could reach the second floor.
"Why are you yelling? I'm right here" He said walking over to the kitchen.
"Sorry, I thought you were upstairs" I admitted and followed him into the kitchen.
He filled a brand new glass no one used before with water and swallowed it, then put it in the sink and sat down on a chair next to the black table.
"Why is it so cold here?" I turned around and looked at what was he wearing. Black skinny jeans that fit him perfectly, hugging his little ass, and just a plain shirt.
I was wearing a sweater that was at least two sized bigger than it should have been- but I really liked those ones-, skinny jeans and converse. I knew we were going to be cold because America is colder than Europe in general so I brought a thick sweater in my backpack just in case I was cold during the flight.
"You're just wearing way too little close. I'm going to unpack stuff and put my pyjama then. You should do the same" By pyjama I meant sweat pants and a different hoodie but he knew what I meant.
"Alright. I'm going to the bathroom" He said heading up and into the bathroom. I just nodded and turned around to take a look at our house.
I looked down at hour multiple bags and sighed, then started unpacking them. I started with Jack's backpack; Phone, wallet, sunglasses, water, headphones, earphones, iPod, passport, a hoodie -why is he so stupid I thought- and his new keys.
I heard the bathroom door shut. Knowing that he'd take a while, I grabbed his phone and checked his DMs on twitter. There was nothing interesting so I took a look at his messages. I saw a few messages I had sent him when he was too drunk and nowhere to be found, Cass' messages and Jasey's.
I didn't know that they were talking again.
Zack, Rian, Jasey, I and basically every crew member of our band met Jack the first day of our senior year back in Baltimore. He found himself forced to move schools because he was bullied at the other one -which I found out a year after we met.
-
Our little crowd and I were having lunch when Jasey ran into Jack, who was looking at his feet like he used to. They bumped into each other and apologized for doing so. Jasey told him that he could sit with us if he didn't have any other plans, so he did.
We introduced ourselves and continued chatting. Jack didn't talk much, he only played with his food and nodded at what we were saying when we looked at him.
I kept glancing at him as we talked about Rian's new girlfriend Cassadee -which was really interesting- but it was more interesting to look at this boy's face when he zoned out and whenever he raised his head and brushed his blonde and black bangs off his face, I found him looking over at Jasey.
She gave him a little smile every time he looked at her. I'm glad she did because that made Jack smile too. That's when Jack started walking the way to hell.
-
"What are you doing with my phone?" I didn't hear his footsteps -he must have taken his shoes off- of course he has you dumbass. His voice was harsh and rough compared to mine.
"I didn't know you and Jasey were talking again" I handed him the phone which he took immediately.
I turned and continued unpacking our bags. He didn't reply for a long time. I finished unpacking and placing all of our stuff in their places.
Sipping on my black coffee, I prepared some for Jack too. He liked it with a quarter glass of milk, heated for fifty seconds in the microwave and just a tiny bit of sugar. He sat down next to me and placed his hands on each side of the mug to warm his hands before thanking me.
"She started texting me at the beginning of this tour" He said after drinking half of the coffee.
I nodded slowly even if I wanted to slap him across his face. After everything the girl's done to Jack, I really hoped he was kidding. Turned out he wasn't.
"I see. What do you guys talk about?" I asked sipping once again on my almost cold coffee. He shrugged first but I wanted an answer so I waited for it.
"Y'know, stuff" He said. His voice was becoming more and more irritating to my ears with each word he spoke. I hated that feeling. I loved my best friend, and I supposed he loved me back; we were best friends and best friends trust each other with everything and anything in any moment of their lives.
You know when someone means the world to you but they seem they'd do anything to piss you off or hate them? Like when you feel you're fed up with other's shit and you just want everything to end?
I didn't want that happening between Jack and I. I didn't even want to think about it. If Jack pushed me away, then that meant we wouldn't be able to do our stupid jokes on stage, drink all night and end up at a hotel because we were way too drunk to get to the bus- plus Matt would be really pissed it that happened. What about the band though? We wouldn't work out if it wasn't for Jack. We were four band members -apart from the crew-, no one more no one less and Jack was one of said members. If he quits then I quit.
"What stuff?"
Jack wasn't exactly one of those people who opened to people all the time. He kept everything to himself unless it got real bad and couldn't handle not talking about it anymore. Since he only told me, it was me who was always there to hold and help him -which I'm grateful of- in those circumstances.
I sometimes wished he had told someone else too because it's not like I'm the healthiest and best friend out there. It's not like he annoyed me or anything along those lines but I also had my anxiety problems and I felt like I couldn’t deal with everything all at once.
"None of your business" He said in a dead tone lowering his head.
I knew he didn't mean those words, he couldn't. I was kind of pissed off and upset at the same time.
I was there after all he put me though. I was there when he needed me and wanted me. I kept it a secret from the others, I bought a house for us two with my own money, I ended relationships because of him, I snuck out at night because he needed to talk to me, I've spend nights at his house worrying about him, I told my mom to talk to his mom when things got real bad, I can't party when the tour is over and we want to have fun, I can't do relationships again, I'm so sick of it.
"It is my business if I keep wasting-" I sighed. "-spending my time with you all the time" I sighed again.
We were finished with our drinks by then. I put my mug in the sink and sat back down on my chair waiting for his reply.
"She's been helping me. We've been talking and texting just to keep our friendship going until we meet next week" He said faking a little smile.
"You aren't meeting her" I said. "Did you forget all the nasty things she said to you? How bad she hurt you when you were at your lowest? I'm not going to let that happen again. And if you go meet her, I swear with everything I have that I won't be here to support you anymore" For once, I meant those words because he was doing this to himself.
He didn't answer so I got up and went upstairs and into my room. I closed the door and hoped for the best. I put my pyjama on laid on bed scrolling down through Twitter. I searched Jack on there and looked at his last tweets.
Jack Barakat @JackAllTimeLow 2h
Finally flying back home! I hope Alex treats me like a lady this time.
Jack Barakat @JackAllTimeLow 10m
Alex is a grumpy old man.
I laughed a little at the fact that Jack seemed a happy dude in front of everyone else. The fans didn't have to know about his personal life even if some of them really cared about him and us.
We didn't want to let them down so we pretended that we were happy, hiding behind the shadow that contained all of our sadness and problems.
Jasey was kind of our main problem and nightmare.
They became really good friends back in high school. They started hanging around on the weekends, going to parties without our little group of friends, getting wasted and sleeping at each other’s as much as they could.
I have to admit that it kind of hurt to know that Jasey and him were sleeping in the same bed over and over again; that was Jack and I’s thing.
There was something mysterious about Jasey, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was but I knew Jack was not safe with her. Jack believed that they were a cute couple, but that didn’t turn out well for him one night Jasey was sleeping over at his.
Jack told me that they had sex, just like every time Jasey went over to his house for those long moths, but something felt wrong that night, according to Jack.
Both of them laid down in bed as soon as they came down from their highs from being on top of each other. All of the sudden, Jasey told him to leave her house, her voice harsh and rough. Jack was confused to say the least; they had been hanging around for more than three months, and not once had she told him to leave after an amazing sex session.
Jack propped himself on his elbows and asked why, which apparently irritated Jasey even more. Jasey got up and dressed quickly, walking towards the door and standing at the door frame pointing for Jack to leave her room.
He shook his head and demanded for an explanation, that angered her more, and Jack was getting sadder and sadder, thinking about the previous events, trying to find something he had done or said wrongly; but couldn’t quite figure out what was making her so angry.
“Don’t you fucking see it? All we do is go to parties, get drunk and fuck. You think I’m some kind of doll you can use and then put away? I know you don’t talk much, but you could at least pretend to listen to me whenever I talk. All you do is stare at Alex and zone out. This isn’t even a real relationship Jack, everyone thinks we’re just fucking, which we are, but I thought you wanted to be something more than fuck buddies. You know? You are useless. You do nothing but stay quiet and not. No one likes you, and you know it. Why do you think you have changed school so much? Because no one liked you back in those schools, and nobody likes you now either. Get over it, you don’t fit in anywhere. I’m sure your parents wanted to change you too, get a better child, one that would be good enough for a girl and for yourself. You are worthless Jack. Get the fuck out of my house and don’t bother talking to me at school anymore. Go get new friends”
The truth is that Jasey was the one that was forced to leave our table and our friendship as soon as we knew what happened. Jack was so much better than that.
That exact night, he called me asking for me to pick him up from Jasey’s house, and I knew something was wrong because I could make out a few sobs coming from him as he spoke into his phone.
As soon as I got there, he was disorientated, barely making a sound when he hugged me tight when he saw me. I didn’t question what had happened; instead, I brought him home, we laid on his bed, him hugging my side as he cried and cried until he had no more tears to waste on that bitch.
He told me everything Jasey told him a few days after that night, and we decided to stay away from her for a while, which turned into forever, and told the rest of our group of friends a lie so that they wouldn’t want to go near her.
Jack had tortured himself from that exact time; believing that every little thing that went wrong was his fault. I had tried to assure him otherwise, but he would end up mentally hurting himself even more.
He stopped eating because he thought her mother wasted her time preparing food for him; he stopped sleeping because he wanted and needed to study to get good grades and make his parents feel proud of him; he stopped hanging out with everyone and stayed at home to finish homework. It fucking hurt me knowing that he was hurting so much.
I hadn’t had experienced those feeling towards anyone before, so I told him that I liked him as more than I friend, and realized that we both shared that feeling. That soothed his heart a little, and started doing simple things like eat again after two months of not doing so.
Jack went to his normal state of mind again, he was the Jack I had met, if not even cuter and weirder, which was also adorable.
Knowing that Jasey and Jack had been talking made my heart literally hurt for obvious reasons. But just for my luck, just texted me that he wasn’t going to meet her for his own good, and to go up to our room.
I smiled to myself and headed towards our bedroom where I found him lying in bed wearing sweatpants and a Green Day shirt, cuddled into the left side of the bed where my body should have been.
He wasn’t sleeping though; he shuffled a little at the sound of my body entering the room and nudged at his pillow. And damn, I was a lucky to have him.
I changed into sweatpants and a Foo shirt and slid myself underneath the covers, instantly feeling a pair of arms wrap around my waist. I smiled and pecked him on the lips, earning another smile from him.
“My stomach hurts” He said pouting excessively. I laughed and put my hand on his stomach, rubbing circles over his soft skin before he put my hand away giving me a sad smile.
I knew what exactly meant. He had never understood that he was everything I have ever wanted, everything I could have dreamed of. He kept saying how I could find someone better than him in a blink of an eye; telling me off to go find some groupie or to go back to my ex.
I was quite preoccupied about it at first, but I got used to it really. I would still tell him that he was the only thing I needed, and that he was good enough if not too good for me. I have told him that and more until now.
“Alex..” He whispered.
“Stop it Jack. Don’t worry about me not liking you, okay? I love every bit of you, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, and that will never change, so be confident about yourself and let me love you”
I linked our hands together, tangling our legs together and placing my hand on his stomach again, giving him a reassuring massage.
He only nodded in response, trying to get over with the conversation, but I knew that he wasn’t feeling completely sure about anything at the moment, and I wasn’t quite done with our night conversation yet.
I have always tried and will always try to make him believe he was an amazing person and believe in himself since the first moment he had told me about all the trouble he had gone through with his parents and school.
“You know what I love the most about you?” I asked in a whisper seeing as his eyes were slowly closing, probably because of the lack of sleep we were suffering on the van and the tiredness from the sleepless and irritating flight home.
“That I make you feel bad whenever I’m down?” He half joked.
“No, silly. You. I just love you so much; I don’t think you appreciate it” I confessed.
He nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck and muttered something I couldn’t understand. He didn’t hear himself well either, so he pulled away from me and cleared his throat.
“I do appreciate you, and I love you too, so much, okay? I just don’t understand why you would choose me over all those fans or just people who are willing to have you”
“Because I love you, Jack. And I don’t love any of them. I’ll make a list of the reasons why I’m with you and not anyone else tomorrow, okay? It’ll take a while though”
I gently brushed his skunk hair off his fringe and kissed his forehead before resting my chin on top of his head. I felt him sigh into my chest before he kissed it.
“I love you, no matter what I say, I do”
“Good, because I do too”
“Goodnight, Lex”
“See you in the morning, cuteface”
And just like that, we closed our eyes and hoped for another peaceful day to come into sight the next morning.
With Jack by my side and me by his, we could go through anything and everything together.
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A/N:
Jeez. I'll never get used to write this much in just a fic (oneshot)
Well.. I meant this fic to be a chaptered one but I run 3 chaptered fics already and I wanted to get over with this so I have kind of written down everything that came up to my mind right now.
I don't know how I feel about this because I meant to explain what Atelophobia was but ended up just writing pointless stuff and it's barely Jalex-ish so meh.. Tell me what you guys think and let me know if I should change anything,
Thanks for reading guys x
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