No Pads… No Helmets… Just Memories!

My eyes pinched shut at the seeping sunlight. My head was killing me, but I knew it was probably a fraction of the pain majority of the party goers were feeling just then. I rolled over to bury my nose in the familiar warm scent of sugary vanilla, only to find its absences.

Instead my senses were filled with the musky scent of sandalwood and vanilla mixed with a tinge of mint and a distinct linger of Aussie's hairspray formula. My eyes snapping open only to fall on a large horizontal poster of blink-182. A large piece of silver duck tape was stretched over its length which read 'WHAT ABOUT STAYING TOGETHER FOR THE KIDS?'

Alex.

The band had just recently announced the split before the turn of 2005 and no one was as distraught as Jack and Alex, the fact the bed I laid in had a scent other than filth ruled out the hyperactive guitarist. A sigh passed as I sunk deeper into the warm foam mattress.

"You’re up?" A voice groaned as I rolled back over to view as assumed, Alex stretched in a plaid chair that appeared to be Peter's 'dad chair' before being replaced by a new La-Z-Boy, the boy's head lifting as a weak smile appeared on his face.

"Why are you in that chair?" I yawned stretching my frail arms over my head causing something in my back to pop thanks to how I slept.

"Well I slept on the couch but I wanted to be up here when you got up..." He scratched his head as his eyes shut, "so I just sat here!"

"So you were watching me sleep?" I smirked as Alex opened one eye to smile at me.

"I wouldn’t say that..." He chuckled leaned forward so his elbows dug into the tops of his thighs. "I was half asleep myself."

"Then why didn't you come in bed?" I asked. "After all it is your bed"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "I didn't want to wake you."

"I'd be okay with you waking me up" I laughed before wincing and taking hold on my head.

"Hangover?" He chuckled getting to his feet.

"A bitch one..." I sighed sitting up as Alex took a seat at the edge of his bed, "I didn't even have that much to drink though."

Alex let out a deep chuckle causing my features to scrunch as I looked over at him. His laughter instantly halting as he coughed and fought a thick smile.

"Alex..." I tested with unease, "what did I do last night?"

"Well..." Alex dragged with a smile before it dropped and his face grew serious. "Nothing horrible!"

"Alex..."

For a moment Alex just stared at me, his light smile slowly faded till he let out a sigh, "Do you really not remember?" He questioned.

"No" I shook my head, "the last thing I remember was dancing with you until you left then I remember seeing Marc... After that it’s all just bits and pieces!"

"You remember dancing with me?" A light smile played on Alex's words, a light blush blossomed on both our faces as I ducked my head. I did remember. Almost as well as he did. What I couldn't remember was why exactly I did it, or why I enjoyed it, but I did. And that was that.

"Maybe!" I held a hand up to him, "I don't know, I was drunk!"

"That you were..." Alex chuckled gaining a glare from me.

"God I hope this is cleared by tomorrow, I can't even face the thought of school!" I groaned sitting back in his bed.

"Yeah... Monday..." Alex muttered under his breath as I looked up at him. It was then I noticed his eyes had taken on an unusual dull appearance; his normally tanned skin had looked almost sickly pale.

"You alright?" I questioned with slight concern.

"Yeah... Just the thought of Monday." He told me.

That was the Sunday after new year’s, and whatever had made him look so drained, it had apparently sucked him dry seeing as he never showed up to school that Monday, and by the looks of how Tuesday was going, he wasn't going to show his face for a second day.

"Well look who it is!" Marc laughed as I followed in Jack and Vinny's steps to the lunch table. I forced a smile up at him and grumbled in a response before dropping the peach lunch tray to the table with a clang and pooled into my chair.

"Still feeling like shit?" Cass laughed as I nodded my head. It had already been three days since the party and though I had spent majority of Sunday unconscious, that didn't stop my parents from smelling the obscene amount of alcohol that drenched my body leaving me grounded for god only knew how long.

"Just can't shake that hangover champ?" Jack chuckled giving me a pat on the back as I glared at the lanky boy.

"Must have been some of that same tequila that got Alex so sick!" Rian pointed as a few members nodded. I looked around trying to scrape as much from their few scattered glances as I could. On Monday when Alex hadn't shown up to school, everyone around me simply rolled it off saying he wasn't looking to good at the party and just assumed whatever hit him, hit him good and hard. What we all failed to know was that it wasn't something that he ingested that made him so sick, but something within himself.

"I wasn't packing tequila Ri?" Jack spoke up questionably, "unless someone brought their own, I'd didn't have nearly enough money to buy anything like that off Dewey."

"Maybe it was someone else’s then!" Rian shrugged.

"Or maybe Alex isn’t sick at all..." A voice mused that almost made my stomach churn at the pure sound. I turned around in my stiff plastic chair to look up at the bottle tan, bottle blonde, neon dripped Tammy. My eyes hardly narrowed to a glare before they rolled and I turned back to my lunch I no longer could stomach eating. Not wanting to give her bull shit the time of day, that was until a comment cut my ears, "you know after what you pulled over on him at Jack's I wouldn't be surprised to see that he's avoiding you!"

My eyes snapping up to look at the pale faces of my friends. At the time none of them who had seen or knew of what Alex and I had done had seen any importance in it. One drunken friend helping the other avoid the bleached bitch who then stood behind me. The news, being ruled as unimportant was never actually passed on to my sober mind leaving me completely in the dark, with only Tammy's words to paint a picture.

"You know, after you came onto him like that-"

"You’re a nut case Tammy you know that!" Andrea's voice snarled as I felt Jack place a hand on my shoulder.

"It’s the truth, why would he want to stick around after she did that-"

"Shut your trap Parkerson before you say something you'll regret!" Vinny surprisingly spoke up.

"Well it’s true, she’s nothing more than a charity case to him so why would he bother going through any trouble for her!" She sang over my shoulder as my fist clenched around the carton of milk I held in my hand. The weak cardboard collapsing in on itself as the white liquid dripped over my hand and to the table.

"Don't talk about him like you know him!" I graveled, my eyes never peaking from my tray of milk splattered food.

"Oh but dear, I do, more that you I assume, and in more ways than you ever will!" She hummed as I shot to my feet.

Tammy stumbled back slightly in her baby heels as she looked at me, a knowing smirk finding its way onto her face. She knew she had sparked the flame under my ass and she knew she was driving the perfect wedge to get me away from Alex, but all I knew or cared about was my hatred for her. And how much it had been boiling over in its final minutes.

"Why so heated Jasey?" She smiled reaching behind her, "I'd offer you some water... But I heard it only spreads the heat," She smiled falsely as she walked closer, holding something I couldn't quit see just then, "but I heard milk does the trick!" And just as her words fell into the air, the thick white liquid fell to my head.

The scattered gasps and silence fell over the cafeteria as everyone watched the two of us eye one another down. For a moment I stood there. Letting my silence sink in as she waited for me to snap, waited for me to fight back, giving her just what she wanted. But I knew her angle, I'd known it for so long, and thankful for me, old habits die hard. Her worry began to visibly set in as he hands slightly trembled when I brushed my milk drenched bangs from my eyes. "YOU KNOW WHAT THE ISSUE IS PEOPLE" I shouted shaking the milk from my hands as I spoke rather calmly, "We gave her one ounce of respect and now she thinks she can walk around treating everyone like pieces of SHIT!" I looked into her crisp blue eyes as they narrowed back at me, "and I get it, really, growing up, no one really liked you, we always laughed at you, at how you were never good at sports, or art, or anything really, but it doesn’t give you a right to treat everyone like horse shit Tammy!" I dragged pulling my hair over my shoulder to ring it out like a towel. "But I want you to know, if you weren't such a bitch... We'd feel sorry for you!" A gasp leaving the waiting crowd as her jaw popped open, "I do feel sorry for you, but see, as it stands, the way you behave." Tammy rolled her eyes as I shook out my hair, "I feel I speak for the entire school when I tell you..." I paused to let the confused and disagreeing stares of the lunch room sink in before I pulled my eyes to hers, "Go fuck yourself!"

Tammy's eyes narrowed at me as I shot her a wide toothed grin. Her heels clicking the few times as she got closer to my face. "Well- Well you know what your issue is?" She snapped as I looked back at the table of my friends. There wide eyes all glued back on me as turned to the steaming teen.

"Enlighten me!" I bowed causing a few scattered snickers through the large room.

"You only hate me because I have something you never will!" She smiled in victory as I rolled my eyes.

"What, AIDs? A STD? A baby at 17?" I rolled as the laughs rippled through the cafeteria.

"No!" She snapped as I turned my back to her, moving to pull out my chair as Jack placed a hand over mine, "a mother who actually wants me..."

My feet stopped in their tracks as my head lifted. "Jasey don't do this..." Jack whispered as he stood up.

"What was that?" I growled never turning to face her as her nails clicked together.

"Oh nothing..." She swooned as my jaw set.

"That’s fucking it!-"

"JASEY NO!" Jack's voice ripped through the air as I lunged at the girl. My hand tangled in her platinum hair as he pulled me back.

"SAY IT AGAIN I FUCKING DARE YOU!" I screeched pulling at all the hair I could, "SAY IT TO MY FACE YOU FUCKING CUNT!"

"JASEY!" Andrea and Rian's voice yelled after me as I pulled at Tammy's head causing her to fall to the ground with a shill cry.

"SAY IT TO MY FACE YOU FUCKING BITCH!" I hissed as Jack pulled me farther away from her.

"JACK GET HER THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" Vinny yelled as they all looked to see the vice principal and numerous teachers flooding through both sets of double doors.

"I'll fucking kill her!" I hissed as Jack ran towards the back entrance to the student parking.

"Jasey what were you thinking!?" He yelled shoving to heavy metal door open with his foot and running for his car.

"ILL BREAK HER FUCKING NOSE!" I yelled punching on Jack's arms to release me.

"YOU COULD BE EXPELLED FOR THAT ALONE!" He yelled back as he continued to run.

Notes