Alex

‘If you don’t come in today I will find you and drag your ass in here myself!’ I read the message on my phone. It wasn’t even seven in the morning and, I get it, coffee shop opened at eight, but really? Even Brendon was still asleep and didn’t need to get up for another hour or so.

“Who’s that?” he mumbled from behind me, his arm tightening its hold on me.

“Zack,” I grumble out a reply, “wants me to go to the coffee shop today.”

“You haven’t been there since Friday, right? He does have a point,” he said, a yawn following that, coming out in a hot exhale on my neck.

“Shut up,” I kicked his leg under the blankets, throwing my phone on the bed and pulling the covers up and around my shoulders. I closed my eyes with a plan to fall back asleep but Brendon seemed to be in a mood for chat.

“You’re not gonna go?” I felt his nose press behind my ear, “Or at least answer that?”

“Maybe I did answer,” I gripped the side of the blanket, “shut up and let me sleep.”

“You didn’t,” he simply said and I felt his body relax behind me. At least he dropped the subject and I just hoped he wouldn’t start speaking again or I would push him out of the bed, for sure.

I let myself relax, letting my eyes fall shut and I was about to drift off again, when my phone rung, “Dammit!” I cursed, reaching out for it to see Zack’s name flash across the screen, “What?” I asked, answering it.

“I don’t care who you’re sleeping with, but if you’re not here…” he started.

“Yeah, I read your message! You’re gonna drag my ass there yourself! I got it!” I nearly yelled at him.

“So you better be here at eight or I swear to god…” he paused, “I will release Jack and you won’t get any money,” he said quietly, his voice dripping venom.

“You need that just as much as I do,” I hissed at him, my knuckles turning white from how hard I was gripping my phone, trying to lean my body away from Brendon so he wouldn’t hear what Zack was saying.

“I can think of other ways to survive,” he said, “be here at eight,” he said and hung up before I could replay.

“Fucker,” I muttered, sighing and making Brendon open his eyes to look at me, questioning look in his eyes. He leaned over me a bit and I could feel that he was trying to turn me around so I would be facing him, “No,” I whined, struggling and trying to turn back, but he didn’t stop till I was lying on my back and most of his weight was on my chest and holding me down. “What?”

“Nothing,” he answered innocently, “just want to see your pretty eyes,” he smiled and leaned down to press a kiss to my collarbone.

His brown eyes staring into mine, but I refused to look directly at him, instead staring past him at the ceiling, “I can drive you,” he started, getting my attention, my eyes focusing on his, “I need to get a morning coffee anyways and I know you can make a decent one with all the right ingredients.”

“I can make more than a decent one, you idiot!” I laughed, shoving him on his back and leaning over him to give him a little peck.

---
The first thing I heard from Zack was, “you’re late,” but I tried to ignore it only shooting him a glare and going to make a coffee for Brendon. He knew nothing so it was better to keep it that way, just bite my tongue and keep my mouth shut in front of Brendon. I’d have enough time and opportunities to say whatever I want to when he wasn’t here.

“Here,” I gave him the cup, smiling at him and about to lean in for a kiss when there was a cough from behind me.

I let out a long sigh in an attempt to calm down and not punch Zack in the face, “you have to work, I’ll see you later?” Brendon smiled at me, oblivious to my inner battle. I could just feel Zack throwing daggers in my back. I just need to get through half of the day with him before I can go to the drug store and hopefully finally get the damn pills.

“Yeah,” I nodded, eyeing the room behind him, people starting to take over the small coffee shop, “some time.”

I watched him leave, keeping my eyes on his behind, my mind registering a customer only when there was a jab in my ribs from Zack.I pulled my best smile on my face and asked, “What can I get you?” Little voice at the back of my head nagging me that I would have to do that for the next three to four hours, faking smiles at people and making countless cups of coffee.

“What is your problem?” I finally asked Zack, after about an hour of silent treatment from him, which wouldn’t bother me if there hadn’t been any other…incidents between us.

“What?” he asked, tone surprised and looked up from the cup he was currently filling with some sort of latte. I didn’t replay, just raised my eyebrows at him. I knew he heard me. It was his way of giving me an opportunity to change my mind, to change what I said or had wanted to say. He had a tendency to do that and it just drove me crazy.

“You haven’t done anything here for almost a week, you keep throwing your hissy fits and then just disappear for…like three days?” he added syrup to the latte, “And you ask what my problem is? You are my problem,” he turned away to smile politely at the customer and give them their latte.

“You know I have…issues so don’t act like I’m fine and there’s no reason as to why I am acting the way I am,” I hissed in his ear.

“Don’t blame it all on that,” he whispered back, curious pair of eyes watching us from behind the counter, “and take the order, would you?” he kindly smiled at me and I wanted nothing more than to punch him right in the face. Instead I sneered at him, turned around and left him there, slamming the doors of the bathroom louder than I had intended to do.

My hands were shaking and my breath was equally as shaky. ‘Get yourself together, you don’t need it now, you fool,’ I told myself, my hands gripping the edges of the sink like it was a lifesaver and my life depended on it. ‘You’re gonna go back out there, ignore Zack, smile, make the coffee and then get out of there,’ I whispered to myself. As weird as it sounded it helped, my breath evened out and my hands stopped shaking. I pulled my phone out of the pocket to check the time. Just two more hours and I would be free to go.

I was so close to breaking something, smashing a mirror or shattering something else. The problem was that there really wasn’t anything much to break or throw unless I wanted to break the toilet and have water flowing everywhere. We would have to close the café then and that wouldn’t do us any good. No incomes for the day plus the payments to fix it. That didn’t stop me from doing that back in high school. Plus no one found out it was me and after it was fixed everyone just forgot about that. No problems for me back then.

I took a deep breath and exited the bathroom, clearing my mind and ignoring Zack. That was my plan. Ignore everyone and everything as much as possible. That would get me through the day. Through the rest of the two hours I was supposed to be here. And it did work. For most of the day.

As the day went on the people started to clear out. The coffee shop was still full but most of the customers were sitting at their tables and not queueing so I was left with nothing to do. And that led me to drawing on the cups and writing stupid inspirational texts on them. Thankfully Zack left me alone and went to wash the cups. He had muttered something about not trusting me with them but I just ignored him, taking a few deep breaths and returning to drawing. That was until there was a cough from the other side of the counter.

“What can I get for you?” I asked, focusing my attention on the voice. Waiting for the guy to order his drink, I put the cup I was drawing on, down, my head snapping up when he asked, “Uh, um, actually I was wondering if you could put some of those flyers up?”

His face seemed familiar. I quickly scanned my brain, recognizing him as the guy from news. Jack’s friend. Rian or Ryan or something. I looked away from his face, focusing my eyes on the flyers the guy was holding in his hands, Jack’s face on them. He looked so different in the picture. It wasn’t just because of the bruises and healing cuts that were covering his face now. He actually looked happy in the picture, a little bit surprised but still happy. Not that he should be blamed for not looking particularly happy now.

“No,” my answer was short. I leaned down to write down something in the open notebook on the counter, hoping that the guy would get the hint and just leave.

“Excuse me?” he asked, shock evident in his voice, his wide eyes matching the tone.

“We’re a coffee shop, not a police station. Are you ordering anything because if not then please step aside,” I said, wanting nothing more than to push him out the doors.

“Yes, can I get a large cappuccino to go, and a ‘why are you such a jerk’ would be nice, too,” a girl I hadn’t noticed before said, sickeningly sweet smile on her lips. I opened my mouth to replay but felt a hand on my shoulder, lightly pushing me away, “Alex, make that cappuccino. Can I help you?”

I turned around to quickly make that cappuccino, still being able to hear their conversation, the guy asking the same question – if it was possible to put the flyers up. I couldn’t help but huff and roll my eyes when Zack said, “Sure,” and took all the flyers from the guy. I finished making the cappuccino and was putting the lid on the cup when Zack assured them that he’d put one of the flyers up by the door and hand the rest out to people. As well as not missing the opportunity to say, “Hope you find your friend.” Which made me scoff.

“That’s what the police is for,” I muttered, putting the cup down on the counter, the only one paying any attention to me was the girl and only because her eyes were on the cup.

“So do I. At least I know he’s alive, I just have to find him now,” the guy said, forcing a smile on his face. That got my attention and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to not ask what he meant by that. They paid for the cappuccino and turned to leave, my eyes still on the guy, wondering what that was about and I almost missed the girls hiss, “be thankful we even paid for this, you ass,” before she also turned around to follow the guy out of the coffee shop.

“Be thankful I didn’t spit in it,” I muttered, aware that she couldn’t hear me.

I looked to my right to see Zack holding the flyers and looking down at the picture of Jack, “What did he mean by that?” I asked him, not looking at the picture, instead looking Zack dead in the eyes.

“He just wants us to give them to people. Is it really that hard for you to understand?” he asked, about to walk past me but I stopped him, wrapping my fingers around his wrist.

“What did he mean by – at least I know he’s alive?” I nearly growled, the hold on his wrist tightening.

“I don’t know, Alex,” he looked me in the eyes, “we did send that letter, didn’t we? Maybe that’s what he was referring to,” he pulled his hand out of my grasp, put the flyers down on the counter, “at least you could’ve acted like less of an asshole and like you actually have some empathy,” he walked towards the doors to put the flyer up.

---
I eyed the doors in front of me, not really wanting to go in there, but knowing that I had to. If not for the sake of everyone around me then for the sake of myself. I was really getting sick of feeling like a crazy hormonal teenager. I liked to be in control and control the situation. Feeling the way I had been for the last week did not go well with me nor with everything else going around.

The pills I had to take were rather rare and you couldn’t find them in every other drug store, they had to be ordered and only the ordered amount will be found in the drug store so when the woman behind the counter said that there had been some problems with the orders and that something had been mixed up my feet went cold. Literally cold. I didn’t know what to do.
Scream, yell, cry or just nod and leave? I did the latter. She was still trying to say something. Something about the next delivery but I couldn’t be bothered.

I don’t really remember getting back in my car nor do I remember getting back to apartment. I didn’t notice my shaking hands or my twisting insides. I didn’t notice Zack waving to me when I walked past the window of coffee shop or Jaime’s eyes on me.

It all hit me when I closed the doors of our apartment, silence creeping up on me and flaring up my panic. I hadn’t been left without pills for this long since I was nineteen. I didn’t know how to handle myself anymore. Back then I was used to it cause it had never been any different but now it was different.

I made my way to my room, hands sliding along the walls as if it would help me find my way. I was stumbling and tripping over my own legs, my vision blurry because of the unnoticed tears, my hands shaking so much that it took me three tries to get the doors of my room open. I couldn’t breathe, there was not enough air in the room, it felt suffocating, walls too close and only one window with closed curtains, darkening the room and making it feel even more claustrophobic. My head spinning and ears ringing.

I tried to make it to my bed but my legs felt too heavy and uncoordinated. And then my whole body felt too heavy and I couldn’t keep it up, I fell down on the floor, my fingers desperately trying to grasp onto something, to feel something, to make sure that I was still alive and able to see, hear or feel, but there was nothing, just cold hardwood floor, my nails scraping against the wooden surface.

Finally my hand came into a contact with something warmer, something soft and calming, my fingers immediately clutching on it and trying to pull it closer, trying to pull myself closer with the little strength left in my body. Through my blurry consciousness I could feel soft, warm calmness. Maybe I was about to pass out. That would make it all easier.

That was until my breathing started to even out and I realized that my fingers were tightly wrapped around a thin wrist, a hand nervously rubbing my back and unsteady voice quietly saying, “It’s okay, it’s going to be alright.” It was a moment later that my fuzzy brain registered who that voice belonged to. Jack.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, my tongue feeling stiff in my mouth, “off.”

He seemed to not hear me or was just blatantly ignoring me, his touch sending shivers down my nape and back. “It’s okay,” his quiet voice repeated.

I took a deep breath, letting it out a bit shakily and repeated myself, this time louder, “Fuck off,” I shook his hand off my back, releasing my hold of his wrist, “Don’t touch me,” my voice louder than I had anticipated it to be, my brain registering that his hands wasn’t tied and he probably wasn’t wearing the blindfold. I pushed him away with all the strength I could muster, rage building up inside me when I noticed the blindfold loosely hanging around his neck.

I pushed him backwards, my elbow connecting to his ribs and knocking air out of his lungs. He lost his balance and fell backwards, his arms flailing around and trying to catch himself before he hit the ground. His head hit the corner of my bedframe with a crack. I managed to punch him in the stomach a good few times before strong arms were pulling me up and away from Jack’s, what looked to be, unconscious body.

“Let go of me!” I huffed, kicking my legs and trying to get out of the strong hold, “Let go!”

“You’re crazy!” Zack huffed, his hold becoming tighter, his fingers gripping hard enough to leave bruises.

“Ohh!” I whined when my back hit the wall as Zack pushed me against it.

“Stay here and don’t you dare to move,” he said, his face red with anger.

I slid down the wall as Zack left me in the kitchen. I could hear voices behind the doors but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Yeah, I’ll stay here,” the doors opened and Vic came in.

Before the doors could close completely I heard Jaime say, “He’s out cold.”

Notes

it's late again and i don't really see a point in apalogizing anymore but really it's not all my fault this time....
....
kinda....
not gonna point fingers at anyone here but someone threw me into Muse slash river and apparently it is my fault i crawled out and got stabbed by Muse on the coast....

but...enjoy crazy Alex!!!

-ilovetea