Long Live Us

*Jack pov*

The first few weeks back to school seemed to be more stressful than anything for everyone. Why suddenly everything seemed to be so much worse, nobody knew, but it was - and it was hard. People seemed to be much more short tempered, snapping easily and getting pissed over small, tiny issues which would previously have just been brushed off as nothing. It was adding tensions where there never used to be, nobody seemingly being truly or genuinely happy at the moment.
For Jack, this was awful. His mind was slowly slipping back into a dark place that it hadn't been for a while. Nobody realised, and he didn't admit it to anyone, but something inside of the boy was about to crash. Little things would trigger panic attacks, his arms started to itch, making him want to revert back to old habits. He'd even been skipping therapy out of pure disdain for his life, nothing seeming to go right for him as he struggled through another dark patch. He felt alone, as if that even if he did voice his worries they couldn't change anything. Jack had cried multiple times over this, his fear building up inside of him because the last time he felt like this he nearly died. And he did not want this too happen.
What probably made this worse, however, was the fact that Alex was one of the worst sufferers of this bad mood plague. The brunette hardly spoke to anyone, his replies always being short and snappy, even to Jack. This odd behaviour was confusing everyone, but obviously Jack was most affected. The dark haired boy just didn't know what to do. He felt like it was personal, that he had done something awfully wrong, but he didn't know what, and really beat himself up over trying desperately to discover why his boyfriend had this sudden dislike towards him. Yes, they still texted, not as frequently but the contact did still exists. They shared their morning and afternoon kisses, just swift and delicate, nothing more. A few times Alex had turned up at Jack's door unannounced, the majority of the times was to watch a movie together, but once or twice was nothing to do with Jack. In fact, the dark haired boy hadn't know Alex was even in the house. So, yeah, something was up. Jack just didn't know what. As a result of all this, Jack had decided to take it upon himself to sort everything out. He was desperately missing his boyfriend's smile, and was determined to have it back. He wanted everything to go back to normal, he was suffering.
So, the tall boy left his bed on this Saturday morning, slipping into a pair of skinny jeans and a long sleeved shirt - just to be on the safe side, because he never seemed to realise just how hard he was scratching. Grabbing his phone, wallet and keys and slipped out of the door and heading out to Baltimore town, in the hope of coming across something for Alex.

Jack ended up wandering around for hours. His mind wasn't really functioning, just blank as his feet moved along the pavement, nothing registering where he was going or what he was doing. So much so, he wasn't even one hundred percent sure where he was, which was quite difficult for him considering he had lived here forever and knew the place like the back of his hand. Or at least thought he did.Signing, he ran his hands through his knotted dark hair, before turning around and heading back towards the area that he definitely knew. Even the streets seemed duller, the sky a grey colour, teasing the town with the possibility of rain. It was dark for a Saturday morning, like the sun wasn't even trying to break through the clouds, and people were wandering around alone rather than being with friends. It just really seemed to be one of those days.The florist came into view, and Jack decided that it had been a while since he had brought Alex flowers, and he quite enjoyed doing it, and so pushed his way into the shop. The women behind the desk smiled at him, perhaps recognising him, and he wandered over to where the bunches of roses were sat in vases. A lilac coloured flower caught his eye, the delicate purple colour tainting the soft petals. The colour reminded the boy of one of Alex's tye die shirts, one that emphasised the chocolate colour in his eyes. So Jack picked up the bunch, careful not to touch any of the thorns, before taking them over to the lady at the desk. She smiled at him, voting against talking and exchanging pleasantries, which Jack was unsurprised about and also thankful for. He watched as the women tied the stems together with a purple ribbon, before adding tissue paper and whatever else is was to the bunch, making them look fancy and pretty, suitable to hand over to someone as a gift. Jack liked them. She had picked out an almost matching purple paper for the decoration, making sure the string wasn't pink because Jack had told her before not to do that. After even adding in a small card saying 'for Alex' on it, she handed them to Jack in trade for his money, and after thanking her with a smile and a nod he left the shop. Setting off back towards home, Jack held the roses tightly in his hands and wandered off down the road. Something about the air smelt different, almost darker. Looking up at the sky he realised that the clouds were now a much darker grey, rumbling gently to each other. Jack sighed.
'Its going to rain.'
As he brought his gaze back down, something in the small coffee shop he was now outside of caught his attention. Stopping dead, he blinked hard, once, twice, three times just to check his eyes weren't deceiving him. And apparently they were not. Just as Jack realised what he was looking at, his heart dropping and world crashing, the storm started, a fork of lightening lighting up the skies, followed by the thundering noise that always came.
There was Alex, sitting at a table, with none other than the boy Morgan, from Matt's party months ago. His smile was gracing his features, the smile Jack yearned for, was being gifted to someone else. Alex actually looked happy. After being nothing but miserable with Jack for weeks, he was sitting there, with another boy, just being happy. And it clicked.

Finally, Alex seemed to have realise Jack wasn't good enough. That was the only explanation in the dark haired boys mind, as the rain drops falling down his face now mixed in with his salty tears, as he watched his first true love go against him. Should he have been expecting this? Wasn't it blindingly obvious? Why did it hurt so much?

Suddenly, the looming darkness that was crawling in Jack's mind took over, clouding everything that he knew and felt. A sob escaped his lips as he gained enough control over his body to run home, moving faster than he ever had done before, wanting to get away. Needing to get away.

Jack got back to his house, and blundered through the door as the rain just started to ease off. With his rain and tear stained face, the dark haired boy ran blindly through the house and up too his room, where he knew what he had to do to help himself.

Wreck everything.

After dropping the flowers by the door he started with his bed, somehow managing to flip it over, successfully knocking over the drawers as well. The boy went into some sort of uncontrollable frenzy, thrashing about as he searched in all the places he used to keep razors and various other means of self harm, even though he knew they weren't there anymore. But maybe that made it all worse. Jack had been in this mind state on more than one occasion, one breaking part of his hand from punching through his wall. Today, however, he just listened as things started crashing and smashing around him, tears still blinding his eyes as he kicked his cupboard door off, throwing various items of clothing out and covering the rest of the floor. Why Jack did this, he didn't know, it always seemed to just be thoughts. They boiled up inside of him, and he needed some release. Whether he was happy, sad, angry, bored - it didn't matter. Today was a mixture of anger and despair, his mind aching with questions, having no way of retrieving an answer. That's probably want drove him over the edge, turned him in too some lunatic that needed to break stuff, that needed to get away. And that was step two; running away. Not permanently, no, but he would always leave. So he did. Grabbing everything he needed quickly, breathing heavily and red in the face, before swiftly leaving. The door slammed shut behind him as he ran out, letting his long legs take him away. Maybe this time he wouldn't come back. Alex obviously didn't want him, and that hurt more than anything ever had done. The sight left a dull ache in his chest, one that felt it would never go away. But he left anyway, running down the familiar roads, away from the house he called his own.
And just like that, Jack Barakat had gone.

Notes

this is formatted slightly differently to what I normally do
BUT WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT FOUR MORE CHAPTERS AFTER THIS ONE? OOPS?
Shout out to my beauty Jessica (@music is my life) for giving me the idea to bring Morgan back ;D love you!!

-much love to y'all xoxo