A Little Therapy

He wasn’t sure why he thought that Vic wouldn’t notice, he was a silent observer by nature and his eyes missed barely anything, he would just never speak these things aloud. Like the time he caught Oli Sykes and Josh Franceschi lip-locked behind the bleachers, and scrambled so fast yet so silently before they could notice; Vic Fuentes could be an assassin by night, no-one would tell the difference, he was an innocent creature but admittedly slightly perturbing when he appeared from nowhere at the crook of your elbow.

“If you stare at Alex Gaskarth any more obviously, a mass text might accidentally send out to everyone alerting them of the fact you’re crushing harder than weights on him,” of course, he didn’t find out from the older exotic boy, instead from his bigger, younger brother who smiled knowingly with those wide eyes. “Vic told me, all you ever do is talk to…at him about Alex, and Kellin, but mostly Alex,”

“He always gets upset when I talk about Kellin,” Jack whispered softly, shyly and looking back at the other as a silence descended between them. Mike of course knew much more than the other boy, but that didn’t stop him from noticing; the distraught look on the smaller’s face whenever a certain charcoal haired other was brought up, the longing looks and lingering gaze. How Kellin would glance up but the glance would last four minutes on end because how can someone so sullen look so delicious when smiling? There was a broken love between them, a hope or lust he didn’t know, he assumed the story would be told when it’s ready. Again, it was brought to his attention that the Quinn boy had broken many, many hearts, but had his own joined the train in his desperate attempt to fix his emotions?

Questions were not his thing as asking always involved answers and answers involved opinions, in the end more speech was used and it was all useless and pointless really. Yet there was one question he needed to ask, for the sake of a boy he felt the most inside his comfort zone with. “Will he be ok?” The darker skinned boy looked up with wide, soulful eyes, the eyes of a poet or a musician; but his lips parted to speak nonetheless, dismissing his surprise.

“In the end, I hope, it’s just high school after all, he has an entire life to live and move on,” Jack swallowed slowly, running a hand through his mussed brown hair, “Be careful, with Kellin, he just…he doesn’t care, where he goes so does trouble, he’s hurt a lot of people Jack, don’t become one of them,” It was here that Jack finally realised how much trouble he was in, it was as Mike stood with a smile and a ‘Take care,’ and began to walk away. He could barely look at Kellin Quinn without his heart racing fast without his pupils dilating, how would he distance himself from a boy that toxic, that…intoxicating?

“Alex,” He whispered softly to himself, he was going to have to stop seeing Alex, stop seeing Kellin, push both of them away and live a normal life. Please his parents, please his friends, find a girl worth loving, move on from this life. He’d always like boys, but would he never like girls? Surely not everything about them was repulsive, he could find an attractive girl and love her.
Yes, but could he drag him away from the two culprits at the same time? What had Alex ever done except show him compassion and reached out to help him… it seemed cruel to push him away. Yet he couldn’t afford a broken heart over pressurising parents and an avalanche of school work. Slowly he rose his way passed an onslaught of disagreeing thoughts and began to move away from his seat; this needed to be done, in order for his and most likely, their survival. Jack Barakat was hardly bad boy material anyway.

Traipsing through to the familiar streets, he walked passed a house he would never enter again; from the front he couldn’t see the room that he had spent the last two months in. Couldn’t smell the sweet herbs or choking nicotine, but he knew nonetheless it was a smell to be missed. It was a smell he would miss. More than that he would miss flashes of slender knuckles, snow white skin painted with freckles and illustrated with art; would miss caramel eyes questioning and ice cold heart flirting. He couldn’t be friends with Kellin, knowing how he would leave him. He couldn’t be friends with Alex knowing he could never choose.

His own home seemed cold in comparison. No intoxicating smells or comforting closed spaces; no not at all, just long halls painted like waves, icy in demeanour and whispering without words stories of fear and broken souls. Endless corridors and a room big enough for five without company, simply one boy alone and scared. Already after saying his silent goodbyes, Jack missed them, missed knowing their comfort, knowing that they were oblivious to his internal plan. His avoidance of them.

But in life you had to let go in order to go forward.

Notes