Me Without You

I avoided Jack for the next week. I’d manage to find something important to do with the wedding to keep me busy all day and then I’d go straight to bed after I’d found something to eat. Today was day eight. Day eight of avoiding my fiancé to avoid fighting. I pulled up outside Alex’s and let myself in.
“Lexi?” I called and I kicked off my shoes and hung up my coat. I was greeted by Peyton dashing around my feet. Alex poked his head out of the kitchen and I smiled at how happy he seemed. “Hey, so why am I here?” I asked, answering my summons.
“Well, I thought we could do some shopping.” He was almost bouncing with excitement.
“Shopping for what?” I giggled, setting my bag down on the kitchen island. Alex grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs. “Alex!” He pushed me towards the door of his guest bedroom and flung the door open. “Oh, wow.” The room was now completely transformed. The walls were now a light green colour and extremely light pink curtains hung on either side of the large window that took up one of the walls. Next to the window was a plush armchair with a small stuffed crocodile. “Alex, is that Tic Toc?” I laughed and he nodded excitedly. I didn’t know whether he was excited that he had a baby on the way or that he had someone to push his love of Peter Pan onto. I walked into the room, taking in the pictures of Peter Pan characters that hung along the wall the black, metal-framed crib was pushed against.
“Do you like it?” He beamed, plopping down on the armchair. I nodded slowly, wondering when he’d found the time to do this.
“I love it. It’s adorable.” I giggled, picking up a book off one of the shelves on the opposite wall from the crib. I turned the book over in my hands, mesmerised by how familiar it looked. I opened the cover and gasped at the gift I had forgotten about. On the inside of the cover my name had been crossed out in ink pen and replaced with the words:

Alex,
Fucking read something you retard.
This is my favourite book. If you lose it or get so much as a scratch on it I will kill you.
Love you!
Jasey-Rae

“I’d forgotten about this.” I sighed, closing the cover of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest. “Did you ever actually read it?” I laughed ad to my surprise Alex actually nodded.
“I took it on our first tour.” I slid it back into its place between the collections of books. “I got bored about three pages in but it has some good one-liners.” I shook my head about how anyone could possibly find Oscar Wilde boring. “And that was why you got the best grades in Lit.” I flashed him a cheesy grin before reminding him that he had promised me shopping earlier. “Oh, yeah, lets go.” We headed back downstairs and pulled on our coats and shoes, and I got my handbag, before jumping into Alex’s car and taking off to god knows where.
We ended up somewhere in Hampden and Alex parked outside a café before grabbing my hand and leading me off down the street. He obviously had a store in mind.
“You ready?” He asked, flashing his bank card at me in front of Soft and Cozy. Baby shopping. Jesus.
“I suppose the earlier we’re ready the better.” I shrugged and followed Alex inside.

“But look Alex! They’re adorable!” I pouted, holding up the tiny shoes.
“Why the fuck would a new-born baby need shoes!?” He exclaimed. “They don’t fucking walk.” I stuck out my lip and he conceded, taking the shoes and throwing them into the basket he had acquired. We had already picked up a coupled of onesies, a few simple toys and the necessities like bottles, bibs and a steriliser.
“This is cute.” Alex picked up a fleece blanket with owls on it. “I don’t care what you say, I want it.” Alex payed for the things and we headed off to the next store. We picked up a few more things like t-shirts, leggings and after about ten minutes of arguing I managed to convince Alex to get the giraffe shaped baby mat. I pulled my ringing phone out of my pocket and cringed when Jack’s face appeared. Oops.
“Hey, baby.” I tried to sound cheery, but was convinced that this phone call would be the start of another argument.
“Jasey, can you come home?” Jack sounded utterly heartbroken.
“Why? I’m out with Alex.” I softened my voice so I didn’t sound harsh, but I still wasn’t very keen on the idea of having to sit down and talk with Jack.
“Yeah, I know.”
“What? How? Alex, did you text Jack?” Alex shook his head.
“It’s all over the internet. Twitter gone mad. #BabyGaskarth is trending.” I pressed the button to end the call and pulled up twitter.
“Jasey? What’s the matter?” I gaped at my mentions and pulled up a picture for Alex. Some fan had spotted us in one of the stores and had taken a photo of us laughing about one of the more idiotic items. There was another one of us holding hands when Alex was leading me towards the store and plenty others. How had we not noticed them? And this was not going to assist with the fact that Jack was already doubting my loyalty to him.
“Aw, shit.” Alex whined, pulling out his own phone. “This is going to be a nightmare to smooth over. I’m calling Matt.”

Notes

So here you go!
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