Figure It Out

“Dude, she doesn’t like me.” I argued back. Alex and I had spent the last fifteen minutes debating on whether or not Lauren, possibly the hottest girl in our grade, had a crush on me. With any of our other friends, the argument would’ve been 3 minutes long because one side would get bored and suggest pizza rolls. But no, Alex always had to win these arguments. He’d make a great lawyer.

“She does. If girls had dicks, she’d totally have a boner every time she saw you.” Alex responded, spinning around in his office chair. I sat hanging upside-down off of his bed so all the blood was rushing to my head. I hardly noticed.

“Are you using context clues and calling me hot?” I asked, changing my voice to mimic our English teachers. The nasally drawl was easy to do, but it always made Alex laugh.

“Oh yes” Alex started, using the same voice I’d just done “as you can see by these context clues, our author obviously has herpes.”

I burst into a fit of laughter. I had to pull myself up from my bat-like position due to how hard I was laughing. In the back of my mind I worried about falling on my head. I figured that I already got hit in the head by May enough, so using my head to soften my fall would not be the best idea.

“This context clue proves that the main character is having sex with over twenty women! I don’t care if this is a children’s story! Context clues!”

I clutched my stomach, tears pouring out of my eyes. It was this reason that Alex was my best friend. No one made me laugh like he did. I managed to open my eyes and caught him staring at me, only slightly giggling. I took in a big breath of air, calming myself down.

“Really though” I said, still laughing a little “I bet you think I’m hot.”

The next thing I knew, a notebook was heading straight for my face. I managed to dodge it just in time, so it slammed into the wall behind me.

“Boys!” a female voice shouted up at us, sounding quite annoyed.

“Sorry, mom!” I shouted back. We all knew full well that Mrs. Gaskarth was not my mother, but I lived here half the time, so she was like my honorary mom. I’d even bought her Mother’s Day cards for the past three years.

I met Alex’s eyes and smiled, causing him to roll his eyes at me. He spun around again in his chair, his eyes focused on the floor. Typical Alex, losing himself in his head. I was used to it by now, and even worked his little vacations into my favor. As he zoned, I reached over and plucked his last piece of gum out of its box and popped it into my mouth. It wasn’t until I popped a bubble with it a minute later that he finally tuned into the real world.

“What were you thinking about this time?” I asked, as all good best friends to when their friends ignored you for a few minutes.

“Lyrics. I thought of some good ones.” He said, looking desperately for a pencil so he could jot them down.

“Care to share them with me?” I asked, popping my gum.

“Not until-” his head jerked up and realization set in “-hey! That’s my last piece, asshole!” he shouted, grabbing at me.

“Language, Alexander!” his mom called up. I doubt he noticed.

I deflected his hand, laughing as I did so. He let out a playful groan and launched himself from the office chair and onto his bed. I tried scrambling back, but he grabbed my wrist before I could get very far. He tugged me forward and I pulled back. He reached out with his other arm and grabbed at my shirt, yanking hard. I cursed loudly as I was brought forward. I hated that Alex was so much stronger than me.

“Jack!” Alex’s mom yelled up, annoyed at my swearing. I ignored her.

“Lemme go!” I cried out. Alex simply laughed and tugged again.

I struggled and managed to break my wrist free from his grip. The only problem was that his grip on my arm was the thing keeping that side of my body forward. I fell back onto his bed, and he fell directly on top of me, yelling as he fell.

I let out a hard breath as he thudded on top of me, causing a sharp pain in my chest. I shut my eyes to brace the pain. My nose suddenly took in the smell of Alex’s cologne and I smiled. Every time I slept over, he let me borrow one of his blankets, and his scent was always attached to it.

He started laughing after a moment. My eyes flew open. Our eyes locked immediately, and we were so close that I could see the gold flecks in his light brown. Suddenly, it felt like a light zap of electricity was surging through my veins, I realized that we probably couldn’t get closer to each other if we tried.

I saw his eyes quickly glance downwards, but didn’t think anything of it. I laughed with him, even though his small giggles were slowing down. After a couple long seconds, it seemed as though he finally realized what was happening.

He let out a small “oh” and then rolled off of me. I’d forgotten why we were even arguing in the first place. I was suddenly aware that my heart was going a billion miles an hour and my face felt really hot.

“Um” I looked down at my hands “what were you saying about those lyrics?” I asked, trying to scoop away the tension.

He didn’t answer immediately. In fact, he didn’t make any noise at all.

I glanced back up at him. His eyes were opened slightly wider than usual, and he had a slightly open mouthed grin upon his face that I’d never seen before. It was like he’d realized something that he’d been thinking about for a while. Like he was a scientist that made a new discovery after experimenting for weeks on end.

I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head. May and I’s conversation was just getting to me. It was clouding my head.

“Alex?” I watched him as he blinked, snapping out of his trance.

“What? Oh! Lyrics, yeah. Um… I think I’m going to write a new song. You can… uh maybe read it when I’m done.” He said, leaning over and grabbing his notebook from the bedside table.

“I can maybe read it?” He bent over his bed and searched under it. After a few seconds, he reached his hand under the bed and grabbed something.

“Yeah, maybe.” He replied. I could only faintly hear him since his head was still under the bed.

The fact that he said I could only possibly read the lyrics worried me. Usually, I was the first to read anything he wrote, whether it was a chorus, verse, or just a sentence he thought up. I was worried something was wrong and he didn’t want to tell me about it. Since when did we keep secrets?

He finally sat up, pencil in hand. I shot him a confused look, but he simply shrugged and pulled his notebook up to his chest and started jotting stuff down. I rolled my eyes, slightly annoyed at his new, closed off attitude. Or maybe I was just jealous.

“Why maybe?” I didn’t want to ask, but I knew I’d be annoyed all day if I didn’t.

He glanced up at me, looking over his notebook. I watched him shrug.

“I dunno.” He mumbled, turning his attention back to his song.

“Fine.” I spat back “I have to leave anyway.” I knew I didn’t have a right to angry. He didn’t have to tell me anything. But I was angry, despite myself. I stood up, extremely frustrated at both Alex and myself, and started heading out of the room, not bothering to say goodbye.

“Jack!” he called out from behind me. I spun around, a small hope passed through my body.

He had his notebook on his lap and was playing with the bottom of his shirt. It was a Green Day shirt. I got it for him for his birthday.

He bit his lip like he wanted to say something and refused to meet my eyes. I stood there, watching him, praying that he’d say something. I hoped he’d ask me to stay.

“I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.” He mumbled, still not looking at me. I simply stared at him, confused at his sudden shyness. He didn’t seem to notice that I was still in his doorway and picked up his notebook again. He was lost in his little world again and I wouldn’t get him back if I tried.

“Yeah.” I responded “I guess you will.”

I turned back around and headed out the door, yelling a quick goodbye to his mom as I did so.

Notes