Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (17/?)
Title: Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (17/?)
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Author's Note: At the bottom.
Masterpost.
I was tapping through a digital deck of cards a couple days later, leaning on the stone façade of the local theater, frowning in the cold air as my thumb flicked across the screen. A message popped up at the top, notifying me of another text from Alex as I rubbed my hands against my thighs, getting the fabrics of my jeans and hoodie to catch on each other so my sleeves shifted to rest over my knuckles. Patrick Stump was singing Thriller in my ears, and despite the fact that I fucking loved that song and I was actually out of the house, spending my time on something not completely dissatisfying and useless, I was in a pretty pissy mood.
Kellin had begged out of the trip in order to go to church - or something - on that Sunday afternoon, I’d been alerted through Alex half an hour ago that Josh had been taken off to his grandparents house instead of showing up for Warm Bodies, and Alex himself, the A plus guy he was, was late. So late that the movie was supposed to start in five minutes and I was still alone outside the theater, not even in the heated interior of it because I felt like too much of a pathetic loner standing in the corner of the lobby, next to the fucking ridiculously huge cartoon character cardboard cut outs, by myself.
All I wanted was to be sipping a coke and wiping buttery popcorn grease on my skinny jeans while watching that stupid First Look thing they do before the film starts with teenage brunettes who I knew from gym surrounding me. But, apparently, that was too much to fucking ask for, because, no, I was huddling in on myself against the Baltimore wind, legs crossed in a way that probably made me look like I needed to piss because my jeans had torn straight across the left knee when I was bending over to tie my shoes that morning and my leg was cold, tapping my foot impatiently to the beat of my music.
I scowled upon reading Alex’s latest text, promising that he was almost there and it was just a minor bit of traffic holding him back, and going back to my game of solitaire. I really, totally, passionately hated solitaire, but I also could not stop playing it.
Just as my song switched over to (Coffee’s For Closers) I realized that I had completely screwed myself over and had no possible way to win my game. The ace of hearts that I needed to unravel the rest of the solitaire game was stuck somewhere in the only remaining uncovered stack of cards, and even my phone admitted that I was fucked after displaying the dreaded ‘No useful moves detected’ message when I resorted to clicking the hint button.
So it was with a somewhat annoyed, surprised yelp that I turned around when a poke landed on my shoulder, coming face to face with a grinning Alex who said something that I could not hear.
I pulled out my ear buds, uttering a ‘huh?’ and looking Alex up and down as I coiled up my wires and phone, tucking it into my pocket and wrapping my arms around my waist to press the material of my t-shirt closer to my cold skin.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Alex assumedly repeated, giving me a sheepish grin. And even though I was still chilled and slightly ticked off, I really couldn’t do anything but smile back and reply that it was fine as we headed towards the entrance together, because Alex’s hair was a little bit ruffled from the wind, and he was wearing these tight black jeans and thin white v-neck and blue button down rolled up to the elbows, which actually made no sense because the weather was just tipping over towards winter and the sky was overcast, and that boy must have grown up in fucking Antarctica or some shit because how was he not freezing to death, exactly?
But he had his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans and his sneakers kind of shuffling along the pavement and those annoyingly cute dimples were on show, so screw if he should rationally be wearing a jacket. He looked good either way, even though I was slightly baffled by the clothing he’d chosen, especially when I felt his goose bump wrist brush against my fingers as we made our way inside.
A couple minutes later, I was trying to decide between M&Ms and Junior Mints by the cash register, ticket tucked safely into my pocket and astonishingly large bucket of popcorn and water bottle already on the counter before me. Alex had scurried away to get something to drink, taking the Sour Strips he’d picked out with him as I did my best to not fixate on the fact that there was almost a one hundred percent chance that Warm Bodies had started. Maybe the ads were still playing.
Alex and I paid together and split the cost, since it was not a date, even though I kind of/sort of/definitely had a crush on him and all his fucked up strangeness. God, I did not understand anything about myself and what I wanted anymore.
By the time we actually got settled in out fifth row seats, an unknown amount of the movie had already been shown. I just sighed upon realizing that, quickly sinking into the monotony of the zombie groans happening on screen and tearing open the chocolate candies I had decided on as quietly as possible, wincing at the loud crack of my water twisting open. Fucking unnecessarily noisy packaging.
The film itself was pretty shitty. Me and my lack of ability to focus on things that weren’t incredibly interesting and engaging spent most of it biting M&Ms in half and then grinding the shells between my teeth, wondering what Travis Barkers was doing at that very moment before contemplating how Travis Barker would feel if he knew that I, a sixteen year old boy who affected his existence in absolutely no way whatsoever spent more time thinking about his band than my schoolwork, and, of course, trying to time my grabs in the popcorn bucket squished between Alex’s side and the armrest we shared so that there would be minimal contact.
I never really touched people on purpose, at all. It wasn’t that I had anything against physical contact, I was just, as a general rule, completely uncomfortable around every human being I knew, and never found it enjoyable, but incredibly stressful. I did manage to relax enough about half way through the movie that the arm on the armrest I was sharing with the brunette next to me was not held stupidly stiff straight. It was stuffy in the theater and I’d rolled my sleeves up, our bare forearms pressing together. I wondered if I imagined the way Alex sunk a little lower into his seat and sighed quietly when I let my arm nudge against his.
Some indefinite amount of time later, the lights came up and the credits rolled, our empty drink bottles left in their cup holders as I hauled myself to my feet. Why does sitting for a multiple hours damage the usefulness of leg muscles?
Once we were back in the theater hallway with artificial lights and a hideous purple swirl carpet, Alex made a beeline for the door, fingers messing with his hair as he fixed it. I flicked my head to the side in the cliché Justin Bieber style, frowning as my bangs flopped right back over my eye a second later. Maybe it would be easier to glue my hair to my forehead the way I liked it instead of using so much hairspray.
“So, what did you think?” Alex asked, apparently satisfied with the state of his perfectly disheveled hair, strands sticking up randomly and totally hot at the same time. I wondered if Alex realized how good looking he was. Even though I spent half my mornings obsessing over my hair until it was settled as close to how I wanted as physically possible, I still thought I looked stupid. Maybe he was the same. Thinking of that possibility made me sad.
It’s ridiculous that people’s views of themselves are so distorted. And that anyone with actual confidence in their looks or self in general is looked down on as a vain, self centered snob. Impossible double standards at their douchiest.
I think mirrors are interesting. Depending on where you stand in relation to them, they reflect something different. Your physical perspective literally changes what they show. Maybe it works the same mentally.
“It was… pretty bad,” I replied, realizing that I’d kind of retreated into my thoughts again. If only I had any control over that happening.
And it was true, the zombie flick was full of overused plots and half hearted, poorly acted, undead grunts. It was like some chick flick romance mixed with enough unnecessary gun shots and gore, strictly there to attract dudes and completely separate from the lame plot, that had gone horribly wrong. Even I, who had a list of about five movies that I’d seen in my lifetime that I actually found unambiguously bad, hated it.
“Yeah. I expected more,” Alex agreed, voice cheery despite the disappointing, overpriced movie that we’d just walked out of. I was tempted to ask him how he did it, always seemed so fucking happy and bright and bouncy when I’d been told he was anything but, but decided to hold back, because, no, not the best conversation to have in crowds of random strangers that smell like musky theaters and diabetes.
I thought back to the commercials that had made it look oh so hilarious, mentally berating the false advertising. “I think it was one of those movies that had all the best parts in the ads.”
Alex nodded his agreement, pushing through the glass doors leading outside. I grimaced once I realized that it had started drizzling, yanking my hood up, zipping my sweater halfway, tugging my sleeves over my hands and stuffing them in my pockets. The boy next to me just glanced up at the sky, seemingly unaffected by the rain and weather, even in his minimal clothing. I watched the tiny droplets crown his caramel hair with a fascinated stare as Alex turned his palms to the sky, letting the water sprinkle down his arms with a grin.
My stomach chose that moment to growl about as loud as a nuclear bomb being denoted in the movie theater we had just exited, making me hunch my back and blink towards the ground as the rumble tapered off. I’d skipped breakfast, and apparently the sugary fats I’d ingested weren’t agreeing with my digestive system too well.
Alex laughed, tugging his phone out of his pocket and checking the time before turning to focus on me, asking with a dopey grin, “Hey, I don’t really have anything else to do for the rest of the day, do you wanna get lunch?”
“Isn’t it, like, four?” I responded, mentally punching myself in the face for giving a crap whether or not it was actually the appropriate time for the mid-day meal. Why would Alex want to be around me any longer than he’d already signed up for? I could barely stand myself.
“3:46,” he stated, my brain idly pondering if any amount of minutes had passed since he looked at his clock, therefore changing the time, “I don’t know, what’s in between lunch and dinner? Linner? Dunch? Jack, would you liked to have linner-dunch with me?”
And, ok, I did not physically posses the ability to say no to that. Not that I wanted to, anyways.
“You’re an idiot,” I grinned, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t stated an actual place, asking, “where to?”
___
Fast forward half an hour and we were sat at a table in Five Guys, surrounded by peanut shells and napkins, my cup full of watery lemonade slipping through my slick fingers. Alex was laughing at himself across from me, uselessly squeezing the end of a peanut in a futile attempt to crack it open.
“How are you so bad at this?” I questioned, easily pinching one of the nuts between my fingers so that the shell split open with a satisfying crunch. I popped the peanuts into my mouth, watching Alex as he simply grunted in reply, foreheadcreasing with concentration as he pressed the nut between his palm and table top.
I was somewhat surprised when it didn’t just fly straight across the crowded burger joint and into some poor person’s eye, instead successfully opening as Alex ‘Aha!’d in triumph. I rolled my eyes, taking a sip of my drink and wiping my greasy hands on a napkin, fingers falling to toy with the hole in the knee of my jeans after I decided that eating anymore peanuts would lead to a lack of appetite when our food was actually ready.
“This really isn’t something you should be so proud of,” I said as the boy shot me a smug look, seeming to relay that the teasing I’d been throwing at him for his pathetic peanut eating skills was unfounded. I shook my head at him, glancing idly at the mess of shells, crumpled napkins, and stray nuts that we’d managed to make before our order was even ready.
Alex chewed through the peanuts he’d managed to break free, sucking the taste off his fingers as I watched - only for lack of anything better to do, really - silently thinking that it would be really great if he could just, you know, not do that in public. Or anywhere around me, because it was hot, and I did not need to be getting a boner that would stop our forming friendship in its track and leave me totally, miserably alone again.
“I’m trying to be happy about the little things,” Alex stated, already going to town on another peanut as he continued, “stop killing my fun.”
He hadn’t even looked up at me through all this, completely unaware that I was still staring at him as he paused, lips turning down in a subtle frown as they mumbled something. It was too quiet for me to hear, and with people buzzing around us on all sides, he was sure to know that the words wouldn’t reach my ears.
I raised an eyebrow, leaning back and crossing my arms, asking, “What’d you say?”
“Don’t be such a buzz kill?” Alex said, voice lacking conviction. He was smart enough to know that wasn’t what I meant.
“No, after that,” I prompted anyways, the brunette unwilling to continue on his own.
Alex sighed, dropping the still closed nut onto the table in favor of picking up his straw wrapper, twisting it through his fingers as he muttered, “I, said that I don’t, uh, have much else to be happy about.”
“Why?” I pressed, having never really gotten to the bottom of what had made Alex the way he was. He’d said something about his family way back when this all started, but didn’t go into detail. And I was, of course, achingly curious. I realized that I was the world’s biggest hypocrite, about ready to slap anyone who tried to prod into what was actually going on in my life, but, then again, deep down, all I really wanted was someone to call my bullshit and force the truth out of me. It wasn’t that I liked keeping all the shit going on with me to myself, I was just too much of a weak coward to tell anyone.
Little flecks of paper mixed in with the peanut shell shreds as Alex continued tearing up the white straw wrapper, voice monotone as he said, “It’s a stupid story. Something from one of those shitty books or cliché movies. Seriously, I have the most unoriginal sob story ever.”
I didn’t say anything, focusing on his downcast honey eyes as the flitted up to meet mine. I felt like I should give him an encouraging smile or some shrink-like shit like that, but I hadn’t gone to any psychological college and had no idea how to deal with getting people to confess things to me in a somewhat comfortable way, so I just tilted my head to the side and watched him squirm. Maybe that’s what the real Alex was like. Maybe his confidence and self assurance was all a show.
“Ok, well, I don’t know, my parents just kind of suck. Like, they don’t really care about the fact that I exist. I’m more of a responsibility than their son, and they don’t really pay attention to me, and, uh, it’s always been like that, and, you know, that fucks people up. You know what shrinks say, lack of parental love screws with kid’s development or whatever.”
Alex paused, tucking his hands under his arms and folding in on himself, biting his lip. I frowned, tempted to hug him or something. Once again, I was clueless about this whole ‘comforting others’ thing. That, and two teenage boys having an emotional sob fest in the middle of Five Guys might be frowned upon. So I stayed put and hoped.
“I didn’t think anything of it when I was little. Young kids never really realize anything that’s abnormal until they’re older, right? Yeah, but, I grew up, realized my family hated me some time during middle school, and it’s all been downhill from there. I mean, they don’t, like, beat me or anything, but, yeah, whatever, it’s bad. And I mostly told you about the rest, didn’t I? Couple years ago I started to get desperate, looking for something to, like, get me away from it all, take me out of myself. So I started cutting. Yeah. Fun stuff.”
I just stared, mind scrambling to take that in and come up with a response that wouldn’t make me sound like a total dick face, insensitive jerk, giant idiot. My usual response to serious situations was cracking a joke to attempt to change the mood to something lighter, but even I knew that that would be completely inappropriate.
But then Alex was giving me this look, kind of hopeful and expecting, so I said the first thing that came to mind that wouldn’t be offensive. Like most of the stuff I managed to come up with without hours of preplanning and thinking, it was hopelessly pathetic. “That’s… horrible.”
Alex’s eyes flashed up to me, mouth set in an irritated scowl as I figured that that was probably the wrong thing to say, and, fuck, I really was a terrible person.
“You think I don’t know that?” he said, somewhere between a snap and sad exclamation.
Lucky for me, our order was called then, and I practically jumped out of my chair to go retrieve our food.
I settled back down a moment later with the grease stained paper bag, pulling out the overflowing cup of fries and two foil wrapped burgers. I passed the first one I grabbed to Alex, since we both ordered the exact same thing, watching sadly as he just fiddled with the wrapping.
“What about you?” he asked, glancing up at me through his fringe, the usual silly giggle missing from his gaze, “what’s your problem?”
“My problem?” I parroted, unfolding my burger from the foil, leaving it in its spot in favor of swishing a fry through ketchup, trying to delay the response that I realized was idiotic compared to Alex’s story, “Me. I’m the problem.”
I focused on the synthetic table, munching through the fry before elaborating, “There’s nothing wrong with my life. My family’s fine, my friends are fine, my grades are fine, my health is fine, all that good stuff. I just think too much, and it never ends well.”
I looked up again, meeting Alex’s eyes as he frowned at me with this slightly irritated look, like I was so stupid that he couldn’t even contemplate how it was possible. Like he knew something that I didn’t.
I furrowed my eyebrows in return, the boy shaking his head, hands dipping to pick up his burger.
“And your arm?” he asked before taking a bite, teeth sinking through the burger as he maintained eye contact, my hands toying with the wrapper just to keep them occupied.
“What do you mean? I already told you about that.” I said, confused about the inquiry. He knew better than anyone else how those cuts had been caused.
Alex rolled his eyes, chewing through the bite and swallowing, taking his sweet time with a swig of coke before clarifying, “No, not that. A couple weeks ago, in gym, Josh asked you how your other arm got all scraped up, remember? You said you tripped, or something. That’s not true. What really happened?”
And that, that was exactly what I wanted. Somebody to look me in the eyes and tell me that there was no fucking way that all these coincidences could just be piling up. That it was a thousand times more likely that the marks patterning my body were there by my own purposeful doing than a chain of unfortunate accidents. That they knew I was full of shit and needed the truth. Someone who cared enough to push for it. Did Alex care?
“I scratched it. Like, with my nails.” I said, realizing how completely insane that made me sound when I said it out loud. In my mind, it wasn’t anything too strange or abnormal. But it was.
Alex quirked an eyebrow, silently asking why? as he took another bite.
I shrugged to myself, saying, “It felt good.”
And while anyone else would send me straight to a mental hospital for that, Alex just nodded, as if it were completely understandable. Maybe I wasn’t crazy.
But then he was putting down his sandwich, reaching for the fries and focusing on his hands moving as he said, “That’s fucked up.”
My mind was torn between replying, no shit, I know, and, the classic, story of my life. But that wasn’t true. Story of my mind, maybe.
It was quite sad, how it would take me months more to decode the reason behind Alex’s you’re a fucking dumbass looks and realize what that meant.
_____________________
A/N: So, here we have Alex. Lots of Alex. Like, almost 4k words of Alex. I hope it was ok. Uh, yeah, please comment?-Rose.
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Author's Note: At the bottom.
Masterpost.
I was tapping through a digital deck of cards a couple days later, leaning on the stone façade of the local theater, frowning in the cold air as my thumb flicked across the screen. A message popped up at the top, notifying me of another text from Alex as I rubbed my hands against my thighs, getting the fabrics of my jeans and hoodie to catch on each other so my sleeves shifted to rest over my knuckles. Patrick Stump was singing Thriller in my ears, and despite the fact that I fucking loved that song and I was actually out of the house, spending my time on something not completely dissatisfying and useless, I was in a pretty pissy mood.
Kellin had begged out of the trip in order to go to church - or something - on that Sunday afternoon, I’d been alerted through Alex half an hour ago that Josh had been taken off to his grandparents house instead of showing up for Warm Bodies, and Alex himself, the A plus guy he was, was late. So late that the movie was supposed to start in five minutes and I was still alone outside the theater, not even in the heated interior of it because I felt like too much of a pathetic loner standing in the corner of the lobby, next to the fucking ridiculously huge cartoon character cardboard cut outs, by myself.
All I wanted was to be sipping a coke and wiping buttery popcorn grease on my skinny jeans while watching that stupid First Look thing they do before the film starts with teenage brunettes who I knew from gym surrounding me. But, apparently, that was too much to fucking ask for, because, no, I was huddling in on myself against the Baltimore wind, legs crossed in a way that probably made me look like I needed to piss because my jeans had torn straight across the left knee when I was bending over to tie my shoes that morning and my leg was cold, tapping my foot impatiently to the beat of my music.
I scowled upon reading Alex’s latest text, promising that he was almost there and it was just a minor bit of traffic holding him back, and going back to my game of solitaire. I really, totally, passionately hated solitaire, but I also could not stop playing it.
Just as my song switched over to (Coffee’s For Closers) I realized that I had completely screwed myself over and had no possible way to win my game. The ace of hearts that I needed to unravel the rest of the solitaire game was stuck somewhere in the only remaining uncovered stack of cards, and even my phone admitted that I was fucked after displaying the dreaded ‘No useful moves detected’ message when I resorted to clicking the hint button.
So it was with a somewhat annoyed, surprised yelp that I turned around when a poke landed on my shoulder, coming face to face with a grinning Alex who said something that I could not hear.
I pulled out my ear buds, uttering a ‘huh?’ and looking Alex up and down as I coiled up my wires and phone, tucking it into my pocket and wrapping my arms around my waist to press the material of my t-shirt closer to my cold skin.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Alex assumedly repeated, giving me a sheepish grin. And even though I was still chilled and slightly ticked off, I really couldn’t do anything but smile back and reply that it was fine as we headed towards the entrance together, because Alex’s hair was a little bit ruffled from the wind, and he was wearing these tight black jeans and thin white v-neck and blue button down rolled up to the elbows, which actually made no sense because the weather was just tipping over towards winter and the sky was overcast, and that boy must have grown up in fucking Antarctica or some shit because how was he not freezing to death, exactly?
But he had his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans and his sneakers kind of shuffling along the pavement and those annoyingly cute dimples were on show, so screw if he should rationally be wearing a jacket. He looked good either way, even though I was slightly baffled by the clothing he’d chosen, especially when I felt his goose bump wrist brush against my fingers as we made our way inside.
A couple minutes later, I was trying to decide between M&Ms and Junior Mints by the cash register, ticket tucked safely into my pocket and astonishingly large bucket of popcorn and water bottle already on the counter before me. Alex had scurried away to get something to drink, taking the Sour Strips he’d picked out with him as I did my best to not fixate on the fact that there was almost a one hundred percent chance that Warm Bodies had started. Maybe the ads were still playing.
Alex and I paid together and split the cost, since it was not a date, even though I kind of/sort of/definitely had a crush on him and all his fucked up strangeness. God, I did not understand anything about myself and what I wanted anymore.
By the time we actually got settled in out fifth row seats, an unknown amount of the movie had already been shown. I just sighed upon realizing that, quickly sinking into the monotony of the zombie groans happening on screen and tearing open the chocolate candies I had decided on as quietly as possible, wincing at the loud crack of my water twisting open. Fucking unnecessarily noisy packaging.
The film itself was pretty shitty. Me and my lack of ability to focus on things that weren’t incredibly interesting and engaging spent most of it biting M&Ms in half and then grinding the shells between my teeth, wondering what Travis Barkers was doing at that very moment before contemplating how Travis Barker would feel if he knew that I, a sixteen year old boy who affected his existence in absolutely no way whatsoever spent more time thinking about his band than my schoolwork, and, of course, trying to time my grabs in the popcorn bucket squished between Alex’s side and the armrest we shared so that there would be minimal contact.
I never really touched people on purpose, at all. It wasn’t that I had anything against physical contact, I was just, as a general rule, completely uncomfortable around every human being I knew, and never found it enjoyable, but incredibly stressful. I did manage to relax enough about half way through the movie that the arm on the armrest I was sharing with the brunette next to me was not held stupidly stiff straight. It was stuffy in the theater and I’d rolled my sleeves up, our bare forearms pressing together. I wondered if I imagined the way Alex sunk a little lower into his seat and sighed quietly when I let my arm nudge against his.
Some indefinite amount of time later, the lights came up and the credits rolled, our empty drink bottles left in their cup holders as I hauled myself to my feet. Why does sitting for a multiple hours damage the usefulness of leg muscles?
Once we were back in the theater hallway with artificial lights and a hideous purple swirl carpet, Alex made a beeline for the door, fingers messing with his hair as he fixed it. I flicked my head to the side in the cliché Justin Bieber style, frowning as my bangs flopped right back over my eye a second later. Maybe it would be easier to glue my hair to my forehead the way I liked it instead of using so much hairspray.
“So, what did you think?” Alex asked, apparently satisfied with the state of his perfectly disheveled hair, strands sticking up randomly and totally hot at the same time. I wondered if Alex realized how good looking he was. Even though I spent half my mornings obsessing over my hair until it was settled as close to how I wanted as physically possible, I still thought I looked stupid. Maybe he was the same. Thinking of that possibility made me sad.
It’s ridiculous that people’s views of themselves are so distorted. And that anyone with actual confidence in their looks or self in general is looked down on as a vain, self centered snob. Impossible double standards at their douchiest.
I think mirrors are interesting. Depending on where you stand in relation to them, they reflect something different. Your physical perspective literally changes what they show. Maybe it works the same mentally.
“It was… pretty bad,” I replied, realizing that I’d kind of retreated into my thoughts again. If only I had any control over that happening.
And it was true, the zombie flick was full of overused plots and half hearted, poorly acted, undead grunts. It was like some chick flick romance mixed with enough unnecessary gun shots and gore, strictly there to attract dudes and completely separate from the lame plot, that had gone horribly wrong. Even I, who had a list of about five movies that I’d seen in my lifetime that I actually found unambiguously bad, hated it.
“Yeah. I expected more,” Alex agreed, voice cheery despite the disappointing, overpriced movie that we’d just walked out of. I was tempted to ask him how he did it, always seemed so fucking happy and bright and bouncy when I’d been told he was anything but, but decided to hold back, because, no, not the best conversation to have in crowds of random strangers that smell like musky theaters and diabetes.
I thought back to the commercials that had made it look oh so hilarious, mentally berating the false advertising. “I think it was one of those movies that had all the best parts in the ads.”
Alex nodded his agreement, pushing through the glass doors leading outside. I grimaced once I realized that it had started drizzling, yanking my hood up, zipping my sweater halfway, tugging my sleeves over my hands and stuffing them in my pockets. The boy next to me just glanced up at the sky, seemingly unaffected by the rain and weather, even in his minimal clothing. I watched the tiny droplets crown his caramel hair with a fascinated stare as Alex turned his palms to the sky, letting the water sprinkle down his arms with a grin.
My stomach chose that moment to growl about as loud as a nuclear bomb being denoted in the movie theater we had just exited, making me hunch my back and blink towards the ground as the rumble tapered off. I’d skipped breakfast, and apparently the sugary fats I’d ingested weren’t agreeing with my digestive system too well.
Alex laughed, tugging his phone out of his pocket and checking the time before turning to focus on me, asking with a dopey grin, “Hey, I don’t really have anything else to do for the rest of the day, do you wanna get lunch?”
“Isn’t it, like, four?” I responded, mentally punching myself in the face for giving a crap whether or not it was actually the appropriate time for the mid-day meal. Why would Alex want to be around me any longer than he’d already signed up for? I could barely stand myself.
“3:46,” he stated, my brain idly pondering if any amount of minutes had passed since he looked at his clock, therefore changing the time, “I don’t know, what’s in between lunch and dinner? Linner? Dunch? Jack, would you liked to have linner-dunch with me?”
And, ok, I did not physically posses the ability to say no to that. Not that I wanted to, anyways.
“You’re an idiot,” I grinned, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t stated an actual place, asking, “where to?”
___
Fast forward half an hour and we were sat at a table in Five Guys, surrounded by peanut shells and napkins, my cup full of watery lemonade slipping through my slick fingers. Alex was laughing at himself across from me, uselessly squeezing the end of a peanut in a futile attempt to crack it open.
“How are you so bad at this?” I questioned, easily pinching one of the nuts between my fingers so that the shell split open with a satisfying crunch. I popped the peanuts into my mouth, watching Alex as he simply grunted in reply, foreheadcreasing with concentration as he pressed the nut between his palm and table top.
I was somewhat surprised when it didn’t just fly straight across the crowded burger joint and into some poor person’s eye, instead successfully opening as Alex ‘Aha!’d in triumph. I rolled my eyes, taking a sip of my drink and wiping my greasy hands on a napkin, fingers falling to toy with the hole in the knee of my jeans after I decided that eating anymore peanuts would lead to a lack of appetite when our food was actually ready.
“This really isn’t something you should be so proud of,” I said as the boy shot me a smug look, seeming to relay that the teasing I’d been throwing at him for his pathetic peanut eating skills was unfounded. I shook my head at him, glancing idly at the mess of shells, crumpled napkins, and stray nuts that we’d managed to make before our order was even ready.
Alex chewed through the peanuts he’d managed to break free, sucking the taste off his fingers as I watched - only for lack of anything better to do, really - silently thinking that it would be really great if he could just, you know, not do that in public. Or anywhere around me, because it was hot, and I did not need to be getting a boner that would stop our forming friendship in its track and leave me totally, miserably alone again.
“I’m trying to be happy about the little things,” Alex stated, already going to town on another peanut as he continued, “stop killing my fun.”
He hadn’t even looked up at me through all this, completely unaware that I was still staring at him as he paused, lips turning down in a subtle frown as they mumbled something. It was too quiet for me to hear, and with people buzzing around us on all sides, he was sure to know that the words wouldn’t reach my ears.
I raised an eyebrow, leaning back and crossing my arms, asking, “What’d you say?”
“Don’t be such a buzz kill?” Alex said, voice lacking conviction. He was smart enough to know that wasn’t what I meant.
“No, after that,” I prompted anyways, the brunette unwilling to continue on his own.
Alex sighed, dropping the still closed nut onto the table in favor of picking up his straw wrapper, twisting it through his fingers as he muttered, “I, said that I don’t, uh, have much else to be happy about.”
“Why?” I pressed, having never really gotten to the bottom of what had made Alex the way he was. He’d said something about his family way back when this all started, but didn’t go into detail. And I was, of course, achingly curious. I realized that I was the world’s biggest hypocrite, about ready to slap anyone who tried to prod into what was actually going on in my life, but, then again, deep down, all I really wanted was someone to call my bullshit and force the truth out of me. It wasn’t that I liked keeping all the shit going on with me to myself, I was just too much of a weak coward to tell anyone.
Little flecks of paper mixed in with the peanut shell shreds as Alex continued tearing up the white straw wrapper, voice monotone as he said, “It’s a stupid story. Something from one of those shitty books or cliché movies. Seriously, I have the most unoriginal sob story ever.”
I didn’t say anything, focusing on his downcast honey eyes as the flitted up to meet mine. I felt like I should give him an encouraging smile or some shrink-like shit like that, but I hadn’t gone to any psychological college and had no idea how to deal with getting people to confess things to me in a somewhat comfortable way, so I just tilted my head to the side and watched him squirm. Maybe that’s what the real Alex was like. Maybe his confidence and self assurance was all a show.
“Ok, well, I don’t know, my parents just kind of suck. Like, they don’t really care about the fact that I exist. I’m more of a responsibility than their son, and they don’t really pay attention to me, and, uh, it’s always been like that, and, you know, that fucks people up. You know what shrinks say, lack of parental love screws with kid’s development or whatever.”
Alex paused, tucking his hands under his arms and folding in on himself, biting his lip. I frowned, tempted to hug him or something. Once again, I was clueless about this whole ‘comforting others’ thing. That, and two teenage boys having an emotional sob fest in the middle of Five Guys might be frowned upon. So I stayed put and hoped.
“I didn’t think anything of it when I was little. Young kids never really realize anything that’s abnormal until they’re older, right? Yeah, but, I grew up, realized my family hated me some time during middle school, and it’s all been downhill from there. I mean, they don’t, like, beat me or anything, but, yeah, whatever, it’s bad. And I mostly told you about the rest, didn’t I? Couple years ago I started to get desperate, looking for something to, like, get me away from it all, take me out of myself. So I started cutting. Yeah. Fun stuff.”
I just stared, mind scrambling to take that in and come up with a response that wouldn’t make me sound like a total dick face, insensitive jerk, giant idiot. My usual response to serious situations was cracking a joke to attempt to change the mood to something lighter, but even I knew that that would be completely inappropriate.
But then Alex was giving me this look, kind of hopeful and expecting, so I said the first thing that came to mind that wouldn’t be offensive. Like most of the stuff I managed to come up with without hours of preplanning and thinking, it was hopelessly pathetic. “That’s… horrible.”
Alex’s eyes flashed up to me, mouth set in an irritated scowl as I figured that that was probably the wrong thing to say, and, fuck, I really was a terrible person.
“You think I don’t know that?” he said, somewhere between a snap and sad exclamation.
Lucky for me, our order was called then, and I practically jumped out of my chair to go retrieve our food.
I settled back down a moment later with the grease stained paper bag, pulling out the overflowing cup of fries and two foil wrapped burgers. I passed the first one I grabbed to Alex, since we both ordered the exact same thing, watching sadly as he just fiddled with the wrapping.
“What about you?” he asked, glancing up at me through his fringe, the usual silly giggle missing from his gaze, “what’s your problem?”
“My problem?” I parroted, unfolding my burger from the foil, leaving it in its spot in favor of swishing a fry through ketchup, trying to delay the response that I realized was idiotic compared to Alex’s story, “Me. I’m the problem.”
I focused on the synthetic table, munching through the fry before elaborating, “There’s nothing wrong with my life. My family’s fine, my friends are fine, my grades are fine, my health is fine, all that good stuff. I just think too much, and it never ends well.”
I looked up again, meeting Alex’s eyes as he frowned at me with this slightly irritated look, like I was so stupid that he couldn’t even contemplate how it was possible. Like he knew something that I didn’t.
I furrowed my eyebrows in return, the boy shaking his head, hands dipping to pick up his burger.
“And your arm?” he asked before taking a bite, teeth sinking through the burger as he maintained eye contact, my hands toying with the wrapper just to keep them occupied.
“What do you mean? I already told you about that.” I said, confused about the inquiry. He knew better than anyone else how those cuts had been caused.
Alex rolled his eyes, chewing through the bite and swallowing, taking his sweet time with a swig of coke before clarifying, “No, not that. A couple weeks ago, in gym, Josh asked you how your other arm got all scraped up, remember? You said you tripped, or something. That’s not true. What really happened?”
And that, that was exactly what I wanted. Somebody to look me in the eyes and tell me that there was no fucking way that all these coincidences could just be piling up. That it was a thousand times more likely that the marks patterning my body were there by my own purposeful doing than a chain of unfortunate accidents. That they knew I was full of shit and needed the truth. Someone who cared enough to push for it. Did Alex care?
“I scratched it. Like, with my nails.” I said, realizing how completely insane that made me sound when I said it out loud. In my mind, it wasn’t anything too strange or abnormal. But it was.
Alex quirked an eyebrow, silently asking why? as he took another bite.
I shrugged to myself, saying, “It felt good.”
And while anyone else would send me straight to a mental hospital for that, Alex just nodded, as if it were completely understandable. Maybe I wasn’t crazy.
But then he was putting down his sandwich, reaching for the fries and focusing on his hands moving as he said, “That’s fucked up.”
My mind was torn between replying, no shit, I know, and, the classic, story of my life. But that wasn’t true. Story of my mind, maybe.
It was quite sad, how it would take me months more to decode the reason behind Alex’s you’re a fucking dumbass looks and realize what that meant.
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A/N: So, here we have Alex. Lots of Alex. Like, almost 4k words of Alex. I hope it was ok. Uh, yeah, please comment?-Rose.