Confusing love.

It had been a weird month. None of them knew what had happened, or why; they just knew they liked it. And he won’t ever forget their first kiss.

-One month earlier-
Saturday afternoon. 4pm. He was late. Fuck. He could almost hear Zack complaining about him always being late. It was a very important rehearsal, Alex knew that, but he was not feeling okay. Nerves? Maybe. He wasn’t sure. Of course the fact that they were giving an important concert in less than 24 hours was something to be scared of, but it was something else keeping his mind busy; he just couldn’t seem to get her out of his head.
“Dude, you’re half an hour late, what the fuck?” -Jack’s refining way of speaking was something they both shared- “I missed the bus” He didn’t even know why he was lying to his best friend. He had never lied to him before, but he had already warned him that if he ever talked about her again he would rip his nuts off. Ouch.
Fortunately, Jack had this unbelievably effective way of making Alex feel better just by looking at him. He feels like the whole world stops when they are together; nothing else matters, nobody else exists to them. It’s just two guys being happy around each other.
It was a really long rehearsal. He had fucked up some lyrics and some chords and the guys had screamed at him, while laughing, of course. They were always messing around each other, but there was just no way they would fight. Ever. They were best friends, nothing could change that.
When they had finished, Alex told everyone to go his place to spend the rest of the afternoon, but he actually didn’t mean it. He just wanted Jack to come. They had been spending some time alone for the past two months and it had felt good. Really good. Too good. Alex was finally forgetting about the Lisa thing; he found in Jack the missing part he felt the urgent need to find so he would finally fill the hole she had left with it. And he certainly did.
Saturday. 9pm. They were late for dinner. Nevermind. Weren’t they always, anyway?
Whenever they hung out together, they wouldn’t do anything special. They would spend the whole afternoon lying in bed, playing guitar, or just talking nonsense. Yeah, they loved that. This time wasn’t any different. Alex was lying with his legs on top of Jack, who was sitting next to him playing guitar. Smiles. Giggles. Laughs. And suddenly Jack’s lying next to Alex, looking at him right in the eye. Those absolutely beautiful dark eyes, Jack thought. Those amazingly deep brown eyes, Alex thought.
“Dude, dude! Do you remember that time when we were at your house, alone in your room, and we heard a noise and you fucking freaked out like ‘What’s going on?’” “I’m pretty sure I didn’t freak out- It was so sweet when Jack tried to play it cool- I was just trying to scare you” “No fucking way! Are you afraid of ghosts, baby boy?” Jack giggled. Baby boy. Sounded so nice. Too bad Alex started making weird ghost noises that were making Jack really nervous. “Stop it. Damn it, Alex! Stop!” Alex was having so much fun. He got on top of him and started to tickle him, pretending to be some ‘friendly tickly’ ghost. Two can play this game. Jack, somehow, managed to push Alex off him, but he refused to have him so far away from him, so he jumped on top of him and started messing with his hair- that would totally make Alex go insane. Jack liked it when he went insane. He looked hot.
“That’s it! You’re going down, Barakat”
To this day, they still don’t know how they ended up kissing. None of them.
It was a sweet, brief, passionate kiss. It felt like their lips just couldn’t be without each other anymore, and they force them to kiss. And kiss again. And again.
Alex pulled away. What the fuck has just happened? He thought while looking at him in the eye. He was not feeling uncomfortable. He would never feel uncomfortable around Jack. But it felt weird. So weird. He had kissed his best friend. And Goddamn it he was dying to do it again.
Laughs. Kisses. Giggles. WTF looks. Kisses. Hugs. Smiles. Kisses. They could get used to it. For once in a long while they had no fucking idea what they were doing but they were sure it was the right thing to do.

-Present time-
“It ended as inexplicably as it begun. I’m okay, though. We both are. I guess it had to happen. We were both going through a really tough time. I mean, seeing Lisa dating that son of a bitch really hit me hard, but Jack knows what to do in these situations. He is always there for me. I loved him. I love him. He’s my best friend; he has always been and he will always be. We needed each other. We had a great experience; I’m not sure I’d go through something like this again, but they fact that it was with Jack… I don’t know, it was weird. So weird. We thought it was weird when he first kissed and just couldn’t stop, and we still think so now. I have learnt a lot. I really needed him, and he was there for me. And he really needed me and I was there for him. It was weird because we would still talk about girls and everything. But whenever we’d say something like ‘wow she’s hot’, we’d look at each other and kiss. I guess I was never really over her. I was so into Jack, but she never really left my mind…or my heart. We haven’t even talked about it as ‘breaking up’, I just told him I was still in love with her, and he understood it. He’s the best. I don’t what I’d do without him.” It was really hard for Alex to pronounce those lines. He couldn’t find the words to explain what had happened between Jack and him. Was he into guys now? He still liked Lisa, so what was going on? “I am so confused, mom. I mean, not about Jack- nobody could see that coming but at the same time nobody could stop it- but about my life in general. How could I fall in love with my best friend and suddenly realize she is who I am actually in love with, and everything’s back to normal between Jack and me? This is unreal.” Isobel didn’t know what to say. She was just looking at his son, trying to help him, and she couldn’t. It was so frustrating. She loved him so much. “What are you going to do about Lisa?” She knew he didn’t want to be asked that, but he needed to get his shit together. He didn’t say anything. They were just sitting in his bed, hugging- he loved his mom so fucking much- when the bell rung. Alex knew who he wanted that to be. To his surprise, opening the door to Lisa was a relief. “What are you doing here?” “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
As he was leading her upstairs to his room, he couldn’t help but remember the past six months; when he got to school and couldn’t see her and he would ask everyone she knew what had happened to her, he was so worried. Finally, her brother told him she was felling sick, so he bought Chinese food and went to her house to take care of her. They ended up kissing; the day it snowed, so he showed up at her house by surprise and took her sledding; taking her home late after a date, and having to sneak into her room the day after because her parents had punished her so he could play to her the new song he had written; just lying on the grass for hours, looking at the sky trying to figure out where to go. They were so comfortable with each other that they didn’t need to do anything special; “Are you coming to our concert tomorrow?” “Sorry, I can’t” “Nevermind, I was planning on kidnapping you anyway”. He was smiling all the way up, until that one thought he had been avoiding for two months popped into his head: “I feel like this is going too fast, Alex.”
“I know what you’re thinking- no, she definitely had no idea- But, please let me explain.”
She loved him. God, she was so in love with him. But how do you let yourself fall in love with someone who doesn’t open up to anybody? It was so difficult for her to be around him, because whenever he felt like he was really falling for her, he would change- such a radical change- and wouldn’t call her in a week. It was hard for him, she knew. He was too afraid to be hurt, but ‘why won’t you see I’m not going to hurt you, Alex? I love you.’ She would do anything to show him how much he meant to her. Why did she leave him, then?
“I talked to Jack.” “Of course you did…” *mental note: kill Jack Barakat* “He begged me not to give up on you. He knows I had my doubts, but he said it is really difficult for you to open up to people. I realized that I wanted to give it a try, because I… I love you- Alex’s heart was beating so fast he thought he was going to die. Could he love this girl any more? - I love you, Alex. I really do. And I know you’re going through a tough time, and I will be there for you, baby.” He had been willing to listen to her saying this for what felt like ages. If only it were enough to make him forget… “Why did you date him?” It was almost impossible to keep his voice from breaking while pronouncing those words. She was so confused- she would always lean her head to the right and frown when she was confused. Most beautiful thing in the world- what was he talking about? She had spent the last three months trying to find the courage to walk up to him and tell him she loved him and now… “Date who?” You’ve got to be kidding me, Alex thought. Three God fucking damn it months looking at pictures of her and that motherfucker and she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Patrick.” PATRICK! This can’t be happening to me. Calm down, Lisa. “What did he tell you?” It was not a secret that this Patrick guy enjoyed messing around pretending to be dating every single girl in high school. And Alex believed him. Douche! “Nothing happened between Patrick and me, I swear!” Great. So she’s telling me I’ve been receiving texts and pictures of them for three months that turned out to be fake- Alex couldn’t believe it. He was so going to kill that son of a bitch.


September 12th 2004. 11pm.
Dear diary,
The best of things happened today.
Things have been going absolutely perfect between Alex and me. He was obviously afraid to trust me again after that jerk of Patrick made him think we were dating. The poor thing was so depressed. According to Jack, I am both the reason they started dating and why they broke up… I don’t really know how to feel about that. But, anyway. I fucking made him apologize and tell Alex himself he had lied. Why? We’ll never know. Alex thinks he was jealous; he heard him talking about how ‘hot’ I am at the gym once. Ugh. Idiot.
We became friends again. I wanted to give Alex space, make him be sure about us. It was the best summer ever. He would call me everyday, take me out for dinner, invite me to their concerts, bring me Starbucks and force me to stop studying (which was actually really helpful because I freak out a lot. Btw, I passed the exam YAY!)… He has been such a sweetheart to me.
When I woke up this morning, I received a text message from him saying “guess where I am” and a picture of the swing that’s hanging from a tree in my backyard, so I ran as fast as I could, hoping he’d be waiting for me there. But he wasn’t; there was a big balloon and a card lying on the swing instead. “Check the time” I had no idea what was going on but I was certainly enjoying it. And just then, I spotted a little box next to the tree. I open it and it’s a pick, someone had written down the date on it. Sept 12th 2004. I didn’t even have time to freak out because Alex suddenly appeared behind me playing my favorite song. “I will love you forever.” That’s all he said.
Damn it I love my boyfriend so much!!

Xoxo,
Lisa.

Notes

It is a one-shot- Hope you like it :)