As soon as Alex stepped out of his house he had his headphones in and music loud for the walk to school. He set off at a slow pace, not wanting to be too early, though the fifteen minute walk left him with a lot of time to think. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Alex had the tendency to over-think things, analysing every last detail to an almost obsessive extent until, without him realising, it would take up every spare bit of space in his mind and all but control him until he did something about it. That's exactly what he was doing then, and he was determined not to let it take over.

So, Alex had decided to do something about it; he decided not to go to the party that Saturday. He was fully aware of how pathetic that was, missing one party wasn't going to change everyone's perception of him from
"Alex Gaskarth, party guy" to "Alex Gaskarth, nice guy" like he was hoping, but it was a start at least. He'd proven to himself he could do it, start the change and the minor victory brought a smile to his face. A very genuine one.

Jack found his brown haired friend at his locker before lessons began
"Hey Alex" he beamed
"Hey dude, Life Skills first right?" Alex replied
"Yeah, we get our letters back!" the younger boy who was usually full of energy was practically bouncing
"And why are you so excited about that?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow and letting out a small laugh as he threw, literally threw, his books into his locker.
"I sent her a pirate letter" Jack's face lit up with his toothy grin
"A pirate letter?"
"Yeah, she said her favourite film is Pirates of the Caribbean so I sent her back a letter written as if I was a pirate"
"Wow." was all Alex said. He'd been friends with Jack since he was a kid and he still managed to surprise Alex with his actions on a regular basis.
"What?" Jack questioned,
"Well, don't you think you'll be coming on a bit strong?" Alex said with a smile as Jack's suddenly dropped
"Is she gonna think I'm weird?" Alex laughed again at his intense reaction
"Probably, either she'll think you're weird or she'll think it's funny." he told his friend honestly
"Oh my God. She hates me, I bet she hates me." Jack groaned as Alex shut his locker and they made the walk to the classroom.
"Hate is a very strong word, Jack. I think the furthest it would go would be an intense dislike." He teased
"Fuck off dude, what if she doesn't want to talk to me?"
"She's not gonna stop writing the letters, she might not enjoy it but it's a school project so she has to." Alex was finding Jack's situation a lot funnier than Jack was.

Jack slumped down in his seat, mumbling things to himself about using the letter to put paper cuts on all of his fingers so he could never write anything so stupid ever again.
"Stop being such a drama queen, since when have you cared what people think about you?"
Jack just mumbled something in response
"What was that?" Alex questioned, leaning a bit closer to hear him speak again
"She's funny."
"She's funny?" Alex repeated and Jack nodded weakly "Oh my God! Jack has a crush!" he gasped and Jack just sank further into his chair, long lanky legs sticking out in front of the desk and his head hanging over the back of the chair as Alex smirked at him, pleased with his new discovery.

"Mr Barakat, sit properly" was all Mr Cleary said As he entered the room, letters in hand and straight away began handing them out. Jack simply rolled his eyes but did as he was told, slumping over the desk instead, for fear of a detention.
"I bet it's blank, just watch, Alex, I'm telling you it's going to be blank." he said as the teacher approached their group, giving Alex, Zack and Rian theirs and then moving on. Jack watched after him for a moment before hitting his head against the desk
"I've ruined it. I've ruined the project." he said to himself. Rolling his forehead over the wood of the table and letting out a long groan. Alex looked from him to Mr Cleary who'd moved to stand in front of their desk
"I'm going to go ahead and assume you're "Captain Jack" Mr Barakat." Jack looked up to the voice to see an outstretched hand holding his letter. Straightening out a bit, he took it and his grin came back when he saw that "Captain Jack" was indeed written on the front. Alex laughed as he wasted no time tearing the envelope open and reading.

With a shake of his head at his friend, Alex turned back to his own letter and smiled the whole way through before writing his response

"Ariel,
You're welcome :) I think smileys are okay, everything seems robotic and boring without them :P
That's a lot of time and effort, but I guess if you enjoy it it’s a good thing :3 I’m 18 on the 14th December, so next week :D I’m barely ever around kids but at every family gathering my little cousins bully me </3 :(
My party trick is getting really, really drunk and making a fool of myself. I’m really good at it ;) what can you do?
And haha, Santa’s getting old :P Your friends are in good hands, Jack’s too much of a child to be a jerk and Rian and Zack are good people
Alex.”

“She wrote a pirate letter back, Alex, she doesn’t think I’m weird! She thought it was cute!” Jack exploded as soon as Alex looked over
“Aww, Jack’s crush thinks he’s cute. Even though he’s never met her” he teased, pinching his cheek like a grandma would
“Shut up” Jack protested, batting his hand away
“So you do fancy her!”
“She’s really nice, okay?” he pouted
“I’m sure she is” he cooed just as the bell went and Jack left as quickly as possible to get away from the teasing.

Alex and Rian took their seats at the back of the classroom for French and when the teacher set them some questions to work through from the book, and kicked back in her chair Rian spoke
“So are you coming on Saturday?” he asked and Alex shrugged and pretended to do some work while he in fact doodled in his exercise book
“Don’t think so”
“How come? You never miss parties” I’m going on a journey of self discovery, Alex thought and not going to this party is my first step towards finding out who I really want to be. That’s what he wanted to say, or at least something like that that didn’t sound like it had been plucked from the pages of a self help book. But, instead, as the rest of the class answered questions about morals, he lied
“Saving myself for my birthday party” he smiled but was mentally kicking himself, now people are going to expect a big party, and you can’t be bothered with that. Rian laughed and shook his head
“I guess that makes sense then, anything big planned?”
“Not really, just a lot of people and a lot of drinks.”