I groan as the ear piercing sound of my alarm clock rings through my room. I roll over and look at the clock, 6 am, and wonder why bad things happen to good people. My legs are tangled around my blanket and my pillow is some how on the other side of the room, but I am so comfortable. I pull my self out of bed, feeling like I'm tethered to it by a ball and chain, and make my way to the bathroom. I turn on the shower and stand under the warm water.

Practically falling out of the shower I stumble back to my room, still half asleep. I'm not very good at this whole 'mornings' thing. I towel dry my caramel hair and turn on my iPod, my eyes still desperately trying to close themselves again. The first song to play is Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner by Fall Out Boy. I deem it an acceptable way to start the school year and move on with my morning, dressing in black skinny jeans and grey v neck t-shirt with a red and black flannel on top. After about 30 minutes dancing around my room singing along to Blink 182 and Green Day in a pathetic attempt to wake myself up, I have my hair styled to my perfect 'I-didn't-even-try-just-rolled-out-of-bed-sex-hair' look that I try so hard for. I trot down the stairs head to the kitchen and make myself coffee and an incredibly unremarkable breakfast of peanut butter toast. Hmm, the words incredibly unremarkable seem to sum up my life pretty well. I, Alex Gaskarth, will forever be doomed to be nothing. Just a regular guy with a regular life. Unremarkable.

I shake my head as if it will physically fling the thoughts from my mind and head down the hall to the front door. I grab my backpack and look at the clock, 7:08. I have approximately 32 minutes to be in class. I really need to stop doing this, over thinking, its always been my biggest and really only pressing problem. Sure I had an okay family and a few friends, but everything was just okay. Nothing is great and it's that damn over thinking that usually ends up with that cool blade pressed on my hip, and to be honest I really like the pain. I slide my Enema Of The State disk into its slot and blast “Aliens Exist” before I let my thoughts get to me.
Music has always calmed me to. Just listening to it, I mean really listening like paying attention, isolating the instruments, listening for the breath intakes, trying to pick out guitar chords, it takes my mind off everything if just for a minute. But like I said I like the pain, and music doesn't hurt. (At least physically *cough* My Chemical Romance *cough*)

I pull up to the school in my piece of shit car and sit in the drivers seat thinking for a little, seeing as I still have 20 minutes until the bell and I don't want to just walk aimlessly around the school. After about 10 minutes of driving myself crazy with my always self depreciating thoughts, my phone buzzes in my back pocket.

From Rian: Hey, u here yet?
To Rian: Yeah, where are u?
From Rian: Outside our first hour, Mrs. Gillian

I shove my phone back in my pocket and slam my car door behind me, quickly locking it behind me and sending a silent thanks to Rian for giving me something to do.
“RiRi!!!” I call as I approach door A156 and smile in success as I see Rian's face become a deep shade of red. Its crazy that he can still be embarrassed by me, how long have we been friends, 3 years? You think he'd be used to it by now.

*3 class hours later*

I slouch down in an empty seat in the back of the class. This is the one of the 4 classes neither Rian, my other best friend, Zack, or some random acquaintance like Matt or Vic, are in with me, and its pre-calculus, even better. I let out a groan as the bell rings, dreading the next 55 minutes of my life. With a quick glance around the room I realize I am in a class with mostly preps that think they're better than everyone else, which they are, but still. They're the ones who have perfect grades, play 3 sports, have their life all planned out (including 6 years at Harvard of course) and go to church 3 times a week. Honestly, I envy them and their ignorance.

“Ahh yes, you must be Mr. Barakat, correct?” I hear the teacher, Mrs. Snyder I think, say as a boy walks in the room.

I immediately sit up in my chair, jaw going a little slack as I see the boy standing awkwardly at the front of the class room. He is absolutely beautiful. His hair is half blonde and half dark brown, almost black, and sticking up at random angles. He has a huge, round brown eyes and a nose a little too big for his face, but some how it's still perfect. He's wearing black skinny jeans that hug his ass perfectly, (not that I'm checking him out or anything like that...) and a blink 182 shirt.. and oh my god he likes blink.. peeked out from under his dark purple zip up hoodie. I find the hoodie a little suspicious considering it's still mid august and hotter than Satan out side, I hope he doesn't partake in the same 'activities' as me.

“Why don't you introduce yourself then?” Mrs. Snyder says after he nods shyly. The boy's eyes widened a little bit and I notice him begin to chew on the inside of his lip, as I often do when I get nervous. That's another one of my problems, lip chewing, I have already worked the edge of my bottom lip raw already today.

“H-hey,” he waves with one shaky hand, while the other stays tucked in the pocket of his hoodie. “I'm Jack, um, well I'm from Missouri, we moved here because my dad, um, got a job, and uh I play guitar and yeah.. I'm really not too interesting,” he mumbled, looking down and suddenly becoming transfixed with the laces on his red converse. God dammit he's perfect.
“Okay then,” Mrs. Snyder sounds a little uncomfortable, “ Why don't you go take that empty seat by Alex?” She points towards me and I get a little excited (okay maybe a little more than a little) that he's going to be sitting next to me.

“Hey, I'm Alex,” I smile at him as sweetly as I can.

He looks at me through his fringe and smiles a little bit, looking down as we make eye contact, “Hey Alex,” he blushes a little bit and I silently hope he's gay.

“So you like blink?” I ask gesturing to his shirt.

That ends up leading in to a full conversation, that soon turned to note-passing when Mrs. Snyder told us to pay attention. Turns out we both have a lot in common. We like the same bands, both play guitar, both have the same immature taste in dick jokes, and really that's all I could want from a friend. While I think that Jack may be straight, even just being friends with him would be amazing.

The bell rings and we stand up, I ask for his schedule. He hands it to me and see that we have lunch and 7th hour together.

---

At lunch I find Jack in the back corner looking like a lost puppy, clutching his backpack close to his chest. I giggle a little bit at how cute he looks and then walk over to him.

“Yo! Jack,” I yell over the crowd waving him to me with my hand that isn't holding my lunch bag and doesn't have misshapen scars hidden under bracelets that would surely fall down if i lifted my hand, “Come eat with us.”

His eyes light up and he smiles a little bit, no doubt happy that he isn't going to have to eat alone. We walk to the table in a comfortable silence, neither feeling the need to scream over the unnecessarily loud voices taking up the over-filled room. I slide into a the seat across from Rian and Jack sits next to me, across from Zack.

“Hey guys, This is Jack, Jack this is Rian and Zack,” I practically have to yell to be heard, which really annoyes me, but I guess i have to get used to it now that schools started.
Jack gives a shy smile and wave, but I know it wouldn't be to long before he starts to warm up to them.

---

I walk out of 7th hour with Jack and begin to walk towards my car. Once out side Jack stops walking. I look up at him through my eyelashes, seeing as he's a couple inches taller than me.
“Well, I walk so I guess I'll see you tomorrow?” he looks down at me hopefully. I notice him pull the sleeves of his jacket over his hands a little more, something I do a lot when I'm not wearing my stack of bracelets in order to hide the cuts and scars. God I really hope he doesn't cut, maybe this is all my mind making it up to make myself feel less alone.

“I can drive you if you want, or we could hang at my place,” I say maybe a little to quickly. I'm not ready to end my time with Jack yet. Through the 2 class hours and lunch we had together I got to know him, and I think I like him... a lot.

Notes

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Okay, so this is kinda bad, but its my first fan-fic so go easy. Please comment and subscribe so i know you guys are there! I will probably update in the next couple of days if im not to busy with school.
Thank you so so much for taking the time to read this it means a lot to me <3