A Little Therapy

The first thing Jack was greeted to when he walked through the door at 6PM that evening, was a harsh punch straight across the plane of his left side jaw. It stung, but he didn't flinch, he wanted to cry, but he didn't. It didn't hurt enough for it to seriously injure him and at some point between being 10 and 16 he had become used to the lashes across his skin, however the stinging sensation in his chest made him want to scream violently. He didn't, he accepted the screaming match from his father, met the eyes of his terrified mother, and walked straight upstairs to the solitude of his bedroom, those four walls that held his soul. The dusty haired boy lay back on his crisp sheets and closed his eyes to the tune of Alex's voice, playing in his head in a melodious beat. His first kiss, yet he was sure it meant nothing; his best friend was in love with another, for starters. Not him, someone else, anyone else. Well that anyone else was tall and elegant and pale, with curling hair of coal, and a soul to match the darkness. Not that Kellin was a bad person at all, it just didn't take a lot to realise who he was really in love with, and love was an understatement, yet Kellin Quinn could not allow himself to love in fear of the consequences to himself.

So for the first time in a day, Jack closed his eyes and let tears trail down his cheeks for he could never be loved no matter how much he loved someone else, the polar opposite to that person that he wished he was. The thought of Alex's calloused fingertips grazing the skin of his stomach, and the gentle touch of his lips against his own was enough for him to muffle a sob, because no matter whom he kissed now he would never get that feeling in his stomach or that racing of his heart. Jack was doomed to love a boy who would never love him, as if some cruel fate hate decided that a shitty family wasn't enough.

Alex, on the other side of town, was having a train of thought a little too similar for anyone between them not to want to push them into the same room together and express their thoughts aloud. His thoughts of Kellin still floated near the front of his head, but Kellin had never kissed like that and yet even in the blissful physical side of their relationship, Alex had never felt like that before either, so at rest, so...excited and enticed by another person. It was hard to believe that shy and sweet Jack Barakat elicited those emotions from him, a boy who he had least expected such passion from. There was something unique about him, something beautiful that his elder best friend had never had, an innocence that he (most sadistically) wanted to destroy, to build. Kellin had corrupted him to defend himself against his anxiety, and he wanted to do that to the younger boy for no other reason than to know what Jack could do once brought out of his shell.

There was no doubt that the Essex born boy had some feelings for him, what they were he could not decipher because "love" was too soon and apparently unpredictable because he no longer knew what "Love," really was. He assumed that he loved Kellin, but love was not that easily pushed aside for another person, perhaps it had been transference as far as the cerulean eyed boy was concerned. Perhaps it was transference now, because it wasn't lust he was feeling for the boy, he didn't just want to fuck him which was what he usually experienced although he most definitely would not be opposed Instead he found himself replaying the morning as they woke up all tangled up in each other, with his head nuzzling Jack's neck like he was asking him to be in charge. His heart hammering in his chest and his need for the other stretching beyond sex, he wanted to just stay relaxed in the other all day. That, that was scary, that was a really fucking terrifying train of thought because if love wasn't what he'd had for Kellin; pining after him for years, then what damage would be done with these new feelings for Jack?

Swallowing hard, he cracked open a beer and grabbed a cigarette, remembering Jack's lips as they blew out the smoke to watch it dance with the air waves. He remembered those dark eyes and his pupils dilated as he watched him, entranced by the smoke flowing, trained in on Alex's own lips. He remember how when they kissed, he had tasted of this strange mix of cigarette smoke and gummy bears, like a child learning to grow. He was never going to get that again, but he couldn't allow himself to love the other, he couldn't allow himself to fall in too deep again.

Notes