Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Wednesday was not particularly different from any other day. Alex attended all four of his classes, and was glad to discover that he still did not have loads of homework in math yet. English and history were both examples of the opposite, and showed what would happen sooner or later in math, too. At least Alex could deal with English and history homework, though.

These thoughts were the ones that Alex deemed unimportant enough to pass up an entire night of school work. Instead, he accompanied his new friends to the mall after school. Neither Alex or his mother had been to their local mall, so he called his mother just after the bell rang to let her know where he was going. Isobel was more than glad to hear that Alex was making friends, and she asked him to let her know how exciting the shopping centre was when he returned home.

Before he knew it, the school day was gruesomely over, and Alex found himself outside of the entrance with Marissa, Sam, and Natasha.

“How do we get there?” Alex asked, taking a second to look at each of the three girls. He was not really amused by the way they all chuckled, but Alex soon realized why his question might have sounded a bit funny. Sam took Alex by the wrist, pulling him to the sidewalk, and pointing down the street. Several blocks away, a large building could be seen, which Alex figured was the aforementioned mall.

“We walk.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Marissa and Natasha joined the pair a moment later, and they fell into step in twos as they walked down the sidewalk.

“Alex,” Marissa said from behind, i think you should tell them what you told me yesterday.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Alex waved her off, almost able to feel the glare she was sending toward the back of his head.

“You certainly made it sound like one.”

Sam and Natasha looked between their two friends with confused expressions, as Alex finally sighed, “Because it is. You’re right.” He then went on to tell what he had informed Marissa of the day before, laughing as he confirmed that he had never, in fact, eaten ice cream. Sam was pretty surprised by that.

“I have this epinephrine injection thingy, too,” Alex explained, “They’re only supposed to be used for super bad, deathly allergies, and since mine is one, I have to bring it everywhere. It’s annoying, but I’ve only had to use it once so far.”

“When? What happened?” Natasha asked. None of the girls had met anyone like Alex, so they found his unfortunate circumstance to be pretty interesting.

“I was seven, I think, and I ate some cookies that said they might contain milk. I didn’t ask my mom to check them, and I guess they did,” Alex shrugged, “It kind of sucks.”

“Seems like it would,” Sam nodded, “Well, we’ll look out for you.”

Alex thanked her with a grin, glad they were able to understand. Once they arrived at the mall, Alex was surprised to notice how big it was. There were not any shopping centres back home that were nearly as big, and he expected his mother would be delighted to hear the news. Sam mentioned that she wanted ice cream, and then immediately apologized to Alex. He let her know, if anything, her worrying bothered him more than her wanting to get ice cream. Sam was reluctant to accept the fact that Alex was fine with it, as long as she did not touch him with it. Eventually, though, the four friends were seated at a table in the food court, looking around as they usually would at their table in the cafeteria at their school.

Realizing Alex was not at all familiar with their surroundings, Natasha got up to find Alex a map with a list of stores, so he would know what there was. He lit up at the gesture, thanking Natasha for being so considerate. She was nice, Alex decided, just simply nice. She was definitely more than that, as well, but nice was also a very useful characteristic to possess. As Alex looked through the list, the girls pointed out their favourite stores, which Alex found interesting.

The sound of shuffling caught Alex’s attention, and he looked up to see a trio of boys sitting down at a table only several feet away. He had to do a double take, but Alex quickly realized who they were, and immediately drew his eyes away again. He had trouble with that, though, as he kept looking back at the table, which was conveniently situated in front of him, as his friends chatted away.

“My gosh, what are you looking at?” Sam asked, looking over her shoulder. She turned around with an eyebrow raised, asking, “Really, Alex?”

“Leave him alone,” Marissa urged from beside Alex, and he thanked her silently.

“No way,” Sam scoffed, “You guys don’t get it. Come on, Alex, please? Jack would totally be willing to get to know you. Just let me talk to him?”

“I don’t know,” Alex sighed, elbow on the table and chin in his hand, “What if it’s not worth it? What if I don’t end up even liking him?

“I’m all for you making your own decisions,” Natasha piped up, “But I think you’ll regret it more if you don’t. High school’s all about making mistakes.”

“See?” Sam sang, bouncing in her seat, “Just let me bring him over here for a second? I swear you won’t be embarrassed, I wasn’t lying when I said I was positive that he likes guys.”

Alex sat with his eyes staring straight ahead for a moment. Both Sam and Natasha had excellent points. He thought of similar situations he had before in his life, and what Natasha said applied to pretty much all of them. Sam also seemed really excited about introducing him to Jack, so Alex decided he could handle a short talk.

“Fine.”

“Perfect!” Sam cheered, smacking her hands onto the table as she stood up and turned toward the table Jack was seated at. Alex watched as she approached the three boys casually, and he felt himself to almost be jealous of the friendships she probably had with them. Maybe it was a good thing that Alex had finally agreed to do something about the boy he had taken a liking to. Alex looked down at the table every few seconds, not wanting it to seem like he was watching as Sam talked to Jack. Soon, Jack was following Sam over to their table, and everything suddenly felt all too real for Alex. He stayed silent as Jack pulled a chair up between him and Sam, greeting the other girls. Inevitably, Jack looked to Alex, too.

“Hey,” he nodded, and Alex was glad he was finally sitting so close to him, because he could see the complexity of his dark eyes, and the shape of the bump on his nose, and everything else that he had been eyeing from far away for the past few days.

“Hello,” Alex greeted in response, unable to help the corners of his mouth from turning up slightly.

“Whoa, Sam didn’t tell me you were from England. How do you like it here?”

“It’s alright, I guess. It’s not much different than back home, besides a few things.” Alex shrugged in response, wishing he was not so boring.

“Cool,” Jack replied, before saying to the group, “Zack, Rian, and I were just about to leave when you came over, and they’re waiting for me, but it was great seeing you guys.”

As Marissa, Sam, and Natasha said goodbye, Alex regretting being so dull at the first chance he had to speak to Jack. He noticed Jack looking at him, and realizing that he had not said goodbye yet, he opened his mouth a small bit to do so. Jack beat him to the punch, though, saying something that set all of Alex’s worries straight.

“I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, “See you soon”

When Jack and his friends were a fair distance away, Sam asked, “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? He totally wants to talk to you again.”

“No, it wasn’t. Thanks,” Alex said, slumping down onto the table.

“Not a problem. I’m always here,” Sam chuckled, “Waiting to set you up with someone.”

“Speaking of someone’s,” Alex asked, changing the subject from himself, “Are any of you dating anyone?”

“Natasha’s got something going on, but that’s it,” Marissa informed Alex, and he looked over to see Natasha hiding her face in her hands.

“It’s nothing,” she mumbled, “We aren’t talking about this now.”

“Whatever,” Sam looked to Alex once again, “How about you? When you left England?”

“No,” Alex shook his head, “I’ve never had a serious boyfriend.”

“Join the club,” Marissa sighed, and Alex let out a giggle in response, leaning over to pat her on the shoulder. Although he knew it defined the girl in no way, Alex did think it would be good for her to have a special someone. It was good for everyone, for learning, experiences, and just generally for fun. Plus, Marissa definitely deserved more people to appreciate her.

“Sam, help Marissa next.”

Notes

for some reason i forgot to upload this last week???? but here you go! another one is on the way shortly :^)