Can't Help Who I Fall For

“Yo, Dawson,” I called through the hallway on Monday morning, pulling my teammate’s attention from the girl in front of him (Cassandra? Cassidy? Krissie?). “Have you see Jack anywhere?”

I probably wouldn’t have worried too much about him being late or missing a day, but something just didn’t feel right about it. I hadn’t kept him up or anything, so I wasn’t sure as to what other reason could’ve been keeping him. If anyone would know, I’d think it’d be Dawson.

Rian looked back to the girl in front of him, saying another few words I couldn’t hear and then smiling before she made her way to her first class. When he turned back to me, I got a simple shrug.

“Haven’t seen or heard from him since, like, nine last night. I was gonna ask you when first period started. He’s not the type to skip for no reason or whatever, but I doubt anything bad happened. He’s probably just late or something. He always manages that,” Rian assured me, flashing a smile and then waving down the hall towards our own first period as the bell rang out above our heads. “Give it, like, twenty minutes and I’m sure he’ll be rushing into class with a note and spewing apologies.”

A sigh pushed from my throat. “Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty. If he’s not here by then, you can text him or whatever. If he is on his way now or something, you’ll just distract him and make him even later… or die. And neither of us wants that, right?”

“You didn’t have to go all morbid on me,” I said with a laugh and a shake of the head, walking into Burgess’s class and making my way to my seat as Rian went to sit with Ashley. It felt far too empty without Jack sitting right behind me; in just a week, I’d become a bit too accustomed to being with him whenever possible.

Five, ten, fifteen, and finally twenty minutes ticked away on the clock as I ignored our English teacher and awaited the arrival of my boyfriend. As soon as the clock hit twenty after nine, my phone was in my hand and under my desk, a new message of Angel, where are you? being typed in before I was deleting it and trying a slightly different approach: Hey, angel, hope you're okay. Missing you x.

“Alex, would you care to repeat what I just said, since you were clearly paying the most attention,” Burgess called from the front of the room, and it took everything in my being to resist a groan and roll of my eyes.

“I don’t know what you said,” was my answer, and I didn’t have to look up to know the look she’d given me—one of disgust and contempt and as close to hatred as it could get without quite being classified as such. It’s not like anyone else ever got a different look.

“You don’t know?” she questioned, but it sounded more mocking than anything. When I shook my head, she let out a faux sigh. “That’s a shame. Maybe you’ll know if I give you a detention?”

“Doubt it,” I muttered. Not even five seconds later, as though by pure magic (or she’d just been planning on giving me one anyway) a pink slip of paper was being laid on my desk and in my line of vision, letting me know that I’d have an hour of detention the very next afternoon.

Seeing as how there was really no point in arguing with her, what with the fact that it would merely get me even more detention (something I’d learned from experience… lots and lots of experience…), I closed my eyes and did my best to focus on whatever she had to say for the rest of the lesson in case she decided to drop anymore surprise questions on me.

By the end of the period, I still hadn’t gotten a reply from Jack.

Even as lunch rolled around nearly three hours after I’d initially sent the message, I’d gotten nothing in response. Nothing to let me know if everything was okay or if he needed anything. I wanted to send another message, maybe inquire about whether or not he’d actually gotten the first text, but I didn’t want to seem too clingy. That would’ve been too clingy, wouldn’t it have been? Maybe I’d been crowding him too much… was that possible with us having only been together for a week? Was that the reason he—

“Where’s lover boy?” Franceschi said as he plopped himself onto the bench next to me. His body leaned over as he did his best to catch a glimpse of my phone’s screen before I shoved it into my pocket without writing up another message, deciding to leave it for the time being.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since yesterday. I tried talking to Dawson about it before first period this morning, but he didn’t know either. I even sent him a text a few hours ago, and he hasn’t said anything back,” I explained as I chewed at my bottom lip, gaze flicking over to my best friend as he stabbed his fork all too dramatically into a piece of chicken on the plate in front of him.

“Huh,” was all he could bring himself to retort, mouth occupied with his food. “You should go see him later or something. Maybe pull out Gaskarth charm and go now.”

“I thought about that already,” I assured him as I watched the rest of our friends slowly start to fill in the other empty seats around the table, “but what if I’ve been too in his business or something? He might not be used to all the attention and shit, y’know? Should I just give him some space?”

“Do whatever the hell you think you should, man. It’s not my relationship or anything,” Franceschi responded.

“Aren’t you, by code, supposed to help me make decisions like this?” I mused thoughtfully.

He gave a quick shrug. “Probably, but we both know I’m shit at this kinda stuff.” Then he was off talking to Ramsay about how ‘soccer is the alpha sport; you can’t even compare it to baseball!’

The weight of my phone in my pocket became heavier with each passing second as I immersed myself in their conversations. Soon, they’d distracted me enough with their overall stupidity that my concern was only a fraction of what it had been before. What were the odds of something bad having happened to Jack?

With no more than ten minutes left of lunch, my eyes began to wander around the large room, not searching for anything in particular, but just roaming around the sea of faces. Then they landed on a pair of hazel eyes, staring back as a sneer pulled at thin lips.

I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes, and in the two seconds it took me to look over to the left, the owner was climbing to his feet and ambling across the room to stand across from me.

“Where’s Jack?” he inquired, eyes wide and head tilted, voice innocent. “Did you scare him off already? Shame, he seemed like such a nice boy. Do you think you could put in a good word for me?”

“Shut the fuck up, Sykes,” I snapped back, deciding to just get up and walk to my next class a little earlier than usual instead of sitting there and listening to whatever he had to say. The other guys would probably take care of him anyway. However, I didn’t think to factor in Oli’s own group, and soon he was stalking me down the hallway.

“What’s wrong, Gaskarth? You upset that you’re not the only one interested in the shy, quiet kid? You think your little ‘savior’ status is gonna be taken away when he decides I’m better than you?” he called after me, inevitably causing me to stop in my tracks.

“What do you mean ‘savior status’?” I challenged through grit teeth, spinning on my heel to see him simpering only a few feet away, hands stuffed in his pockets casually.

“Nothing,” he assured with a shrug, eyelids slipping closed before snapping back open to stare me down. “It’s just the fact that you and I both know you’re only going after him to get brownie points. ‘Oh, look at Alex Gaskarth, going out with a nobody! How sweet of him! He’s so thoughtful!’”

“You don’t know shit,” I muttered back, turning back to the way I’d been headed. I didn’t make it more than a few steps before a hand on my shoulder had me stopping once again. It spun me around before I was being pushed into a locker on my right.

“You think you can just fucking walk away from me when I’m talking to you?” Oli growled, pushing the fist curled into my shirt a little tighter against my chest, nearly lifting me off the ground.

My first instinct was to lash out in an attempt to free myself, and I did so without putting much thought behind my actions. That, of course, only pissed him off even more, and not two minutes had passed before we were practically rolling around on the floor, fists hitting and legs kicking.

I didn’t notice when the bell rang out to tell everyone to get to their next class, but I did pick up on the fact that someone was picking me up from off of Oli as someone else did the same to him.

Everything seemed to pass by in a blur from there on out, the only thing on my mind involving making just one more bruise—a few more weak attempts at inflicting pain on the other Briton, the cheering of students, the yelling of the dean, the knowledge of obtaining a week-long suspension.

It was only as I was inspecting the damage I’d gotten to my face in the front seat of my dad’s car that it all kind of hit me.

“Your mother and I raised you better than this,” he groaned, clearly unamused with my antics. His hands lifted to rub at his temple before he reached out to turn the keys in the ignition, the car coming to life around us yet still not moving from its parking space. “You’re nearly an adult; you can’t be starting fights with other guys whenever something happens. I can’t believe I have to do this, but give me your phone.”

“What are you doing?” I demanded, shrinking away from his outstretched hand and eyeing him suspiciously.

“You’re grounded until next week,” he said simply, curling his fingers just a bit to emphasize his previous request. “You’re not going to leave the house, you’re not going to talk to anyone, and I’m sure your mum will have quite a few chores she’ll gladly give you to do every day so that you don’t get too bored.”

“You can’t do that,” I protested immediately, crossing my arms over my chest and giving my best glare despite how painful it was, what with how my left eye had become swollen and bruised from a decent hit.

“I can and I have. Give me your phone or I’ll just have it turned off until next month,” he warned, and a groan left my throat as I shoved my hand in my pocket.

“Can I just—” I started, but he shook his head before I had the chance to finish, and another grunt filled the air as I placed it in his hands a little too forcefully.

“I talked to the principal on the phone, and she said that it was fine to leave your car in the lot until next Monday. She’ll make sure that it’s being monitored during school hours so that no one breaks into it. I can drive you in on Monday morning or you can walk. It’s up to you. You won’t get your phone back until—”

He droned on and on until we’d finally made it to my house, but I’d zoned him out in favor of pondering how I would let Jack know what had happened. I just hoped, above everything else, that I’d be able to somewhat explain myself to him before Oli could.

Notes