No Pads… No Helmets… Just Memories!

It had been two weeks since I had gone to me and Alex's tree house with Marc. It had been two weeks of me successfully avoiding both Riley and Alex. Two weeks of ignoring Alex’s apologetic phone calls and endless text messages. Two weeks of deny Riley of a false relationship I didn’t want. Two weeks that lead me up to spending my last period of the day being stretched over a stage box in the lecture hall with Jack beside me on the floor of the stage silently plucking the strings of an acoustic guitar he had found to the tune of your guardian angle by the red jumpsuit apparatus.


“Are you coming to our show next weekend?” Jack asked as he continued to pluck random notes at the strings.


“Jack!” I cooed in a classic whining tone in hopes to annoy him into dropping the subject. Add that to the list of thing I’d been doing for the past two weeks, avoiding the boy’s first show that they would play their own original songs. But I guess you could say that fell under the “painfully, obviously totally avoiding Alexander Gaskarth at all costs” category.


“Come on Jase it’s just one show!” he practically begged as I groaned at the boy.


“Can I ask you a question?” I asked changing the subject but it slid right through the crevices of his attention deficit brain.


“You just did?”


“Fine, can I ask you two questions?” I laughed.


“You have one left Dawson use it wisely.” he taunted.


"Jack,” I spoke swallowing the lump that had grown in my throat, “am I a bad person?" I asked causing him to remove his back from the box to turn and face me.


"What?"


"You know what I mean" I repeated fiddling the string from my hoodie. "All the crap I did, well am doing, am I a bad person?"


"Jasey..."


"Please, don't sugar coat it" I said sitting upright to look into his deep brown eyes, "tell me straight up, clear the air with me!"


"So you want me to tell you my... Thoughts on you leaving?"


"Me leaving, me coming back, ignoring Alex, denying Riley, everything in between, LAY IT ON ME!"


“Jasey.” Jack spoke dragging a hand through his mop.


“Jack.” I repeated his name with a stern tone.


“Fine!” He said throwing his hands in the air, “you wanna know what I think?” he asked slightly mad as I nodded, “you really wanna know?” I nodded again, “fine. I think leaving was the single most idiotic thing you could have ever done, I think it tore your dad and brother apart, I think it hurt Cass, I think it killed Alex. I think coming back was the greatest thing you could have done, but you did it a tad too late.


“I think everyone was finally accepting that you were gone till you showed up at that music store, I think it killed Alex when you said you couldn’t be friends, and I think he was so scarred to lose you he got drunk enough to do just that.


“And slap me if you want but I think it was selfish for you to leave, I think you dragged Rian through hell and Alex with him, I think your using Andrea and Marc to fill the void that Alex and Cass used to hold in your heart.


“But mostly, I think we were all pretty dumb to think you coming back would be easy, I think we are being dumb treating you like your two years old. I think you should call up Cass and hang out with her more, I think you should pick on Rian and I like you used to.


“But mostly I think you need to talk to Alex, if you two would just go back to normal I think everything else would fall into place. He misses you Jasey. We all do. But not this Jasey. Not the Jasey that gets drunk and sucked into boy drama, the Jasey who sits with her face in a book and a sketch pad in hand, the girl who doesn’t care what she looks like and just wants to be, Jasey. Alex needs you, he needs that Jasey. I'm probably just blabbering right now but you didn’t see what you leaving did to him.” he finished his rant panting for breath as I glanced down at him with wide silent eyes.


"I think you two need to talk shit out." he spoke.


“Maybe I should try just once to fully patch things up with Alex ya know?” I spoke scratching at the back of my neck, “Like actually talk things through instead of just agreeing to be friends.”


“Do what you think is right Jase” jack smiled, "I know whatever you chose to do, things will work themselves out.”


“Thanks Jack-o” I laughed, “You know when you aren’t making dick jokes you can actually be pretty helpful.”


“It’s what I strive for Jasey!” he laughed sarcastically before placing a light kiss on my forehead and holding a hand out to me.


Maybe I should go to their show and talk to Alex, it couldn’t hurt right? My self-esteem was fractured enough and my hopes of anything good coming out of being back in Baltimore were as low as the soles of my shoes. i had nothing to lose in trying, right?

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