A Daydream Away

Jack’s POV

Being somewhere without Alex was really weird. My mind was always on him, thinking of what I wanted to say to him, picturing him smiling, hearing his laugh. Every time I turned and he wasn’t there, I got a bit sad.

I know, that’s so cliché, but whatever.

I was standing alone in my house, which was something I did pretty often now. My parents were fighting way more, so my dad had been leaving the house and getting drunk a lot, usually showing up at 3 or 4 in the morning just to harass me. Sometimes he didn’t come home at all.
While he had really never hit me, he’d tried many times before. He liked to spew hatred at me, and threaten to kill me sometimes. I was a disappointment to him, apparently. He didn’t even know I was gay.
I didn’t tell Alex about it though. He was the type of person to act on abuse. Knowing him, he’d show up at my house and try to fight my dad or report it to the police. I didn’t need that right now, I was just getting everything figured out.
My mom, on the other hand, was picking up extra shifts at work, since my dad usually didn’t show up to his job. It was a matter of time before he was laid off, and she was going to have to pick up extra money somehow. And my little brother was staying at my mom’s friend’s house so he didn’t have to be wrapped up in all this.
I, on the other hand, was old enough to handle this… or at least, that what my mom had said in a frazzled, half-awake haze at three in the morning when she finally got home from work.
So, this was basically my house. Perfect for having a boyfriend in.
Except… not really. It wasn’t like it was some sneaky, inappropriate thing we were doing. I could tell Alex wasn’t comfortable with doing the freak with me, which was fine. I had socks and a lot of alone time.
I checked my phone. No texts from Alex, which was odd. It was 3, which usually meant he wasn’t doing anything.
I shrugged it off, figuring he was probably with Vic or something. I danced around my kitchen, Fall Out Boy blaring through my phone speakers.
“Someday I'll appreciate in value, get off my ass and call you. But in the meantime I'll sport my brand new fashion of waking up with pants off at 4:00 in the afternoon.” I sang into a spoon, my voice completely off key.
It was almost a half an hour until my phone buzzed, a text from Alex flashing on the screen.
‘Hey babe, meet me at the old car garage near the bad McDonalds. The front is locked, but the back door has a key hidden on the top of the door frame. I have a surprise for you.’
I smiled, but was also slightly confused. Alex didn’t seem to be the type of person to do big surprises.
I knew what car garage he was talking about, obviously. We had 2 McDonalds close to us, and the ‘bad’ one was where everyone went to smoke weed, and the employees where usually ex-cons.
‘On my way, see you soon.’ I responded.
I shrugged on a coat, grabbed my keys, and ruffled my hair. The car ride was full of Green Day songs and smiling because, damn, I was the luckiest guy in the universe.
I pulled up to the car garage, noting that there was only Alex’s car in the parking lot. Stepping out of the car, I realized just how cold it was, and that it was night time. I peered up at the stars twinkling down over Baltimore, and took a moment to stand alone and just breathe.
The world really was beautiful, if you thought about it. But no one could possibly see all of it, which was scary. But the stars got to see all of it every single night. So technically, if we came from stardust, wouldn’t we have all the sights of the world somewhere in us? Maybe that’s what love was. The stardust coming out. Maybe that’s why you suddenly felt like the whole world wasn’t so big after all, because someone was there with you. It was like you felt weightless.
Wow, I was becoming really gay. Sweet.
I shifted my eyes away from the sky and searched for the back door. After a few minutes of walking, I finally found the door, and the key Alex had referred to.
Using the flashlight on my phone, I located the lock and managed to open the door.
Everything was really dark and very cold, even colder than outside.
“Alex?” I yelled into the room, grabbing onto the wall for a light switch.
“Jack? Jack! Leave, you need to leave!”
I heard a thumping noise and a sound like someone got the wind knocked out of them. My heart beat sped up, and I frantically searched for the switch, yelling Alex’s name as I did so.
Suddenly, a light clicked on, even though I hadn’t touched a switch or a button.
“Glad you made it, Jack.”
I spun around, taking my face away from the wall I was just groping.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snarled.
“Just keeping my promise.” His words slid off of his tongue like venom out of a snakes fangs.
I narrowed my eyes, studying his face. No matter how hard I tried, I could never ever get rid of this guy.
“Max.” I spat, seething. My words were acid, and I wanted him to burn in them.
Instead, he smiled his same old Max smile, like he wasn’t totally ruining people’s lives.
“Better help your boyfriend up, I might have kicked him.”
My eyes bounced off of Max and onto Alex, who was curled up on the floor a few feet in front of me.
“Alex!” I was suddenly on my hands and knees, crawling over to him.
“He made me text you…” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. By the way he was positioned, I could tell it was a blow to the stomach. “I don’t know what he wants, but you need to go. I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“Shh” I ran my fingers through his hair “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh, how touching.” Max muttered, sarcasm dripping in his voice.
“What the hell do you want?”
“I told you, I’m keeping my promise. I said if you stayed with Alex, I’d tell the school you were gay… you did that for me, obviously… but I also said I’d tell Alex all the things you did before you came to Baltimore.”
My heart nearly stopped. He was going to tell Alex everything. Every fucking thing.
“No.” I whispered.
“Yes.” He bit back.
“What? What is he talking about?” Alex questioned, the pain in his eyes fading.
I didn’t respond to Alex, instead I addressed Max.
“Tell him… tell him if you must. But let me leave.”
There was a silence.
“But you said you weren’t going to go.”
I stared down at Alex, and for the first time since I met him, I wished him away.
“You love me, right?” I asked, a small smile on my face.
“Of course.”
“Well, when he tell you this, you won’t love me after he’s finished.” I swallowed “and I don’t think I can live to see that.”

Notes

fuuuuuuck man. something is about to go down. yikes.

it kind of seems like i skipped what happened to alex, like how he got there, but you'll hear about that later.

sorry it took be forever to update... sorry this chapter is sad.

bye