"What do you think you're doing?" my mum's voice said with a heavy sigh.

I'd laid myself across my bed so that my legs were dangling over one end, my head and arms from the other. My eyes had been closed when she'd walked in, and due to the sound of the blood rushing to my head, I hadn't noticed she was there until she spoke.

Peeling my eyes open slowly, I looked up at her and quirked and eyebrow in my own silent question before giving my best shrug.

"I'm just hoping that if I lay like this long enough, I'll black out from having too much blood in my head and I'll wake up to realize that this was all a dream. A sick, twisted, horrifying dream," I muttered in answer, letting my eyes slip closed.

"Maybe this'll teach you to not start fights with other boys in the hallway," she retorted before sighing again. "Do you wanna talk about it? You haven't said anything about it yet."

With a shake of the head, I was muttering back, "I just wanna talk to Jack."

"I know you miss him," my mum assured, "and I know that you're still in the honeymoon phase since you haven't been together that long, but this is just a good way to help you realize that you can live without each other if you break up or something."

My eyes blew wide as I exclaimed, "Mum, we're not gonna break up!"

"I'm not saying you are!" she rushed out, tacking on an eye roll for some dramatic effect. "All I'm saying is that, y'know, you're still young and anything could happen, so it'll be good to know now that you'll be okay on your own. Sometimes you forget that after a break up, and I don't think you've ever been as invested in the other person in just the first few months as you have in this past week."

"It's not like either of us is gonna die or something. We're gonna be fine. I'm actually gonna try with him."

"I don't doubt you, sweetie," she said quietly, stepping further into my room and reaching down to comb her fingers through my disheveled hair. "But for now, you can get downstairs and start making dinner. You're still grounded, after all."

With that, she was gone and I was left alone once more.

---

By the time Monday had finally rolled around and my suspension was officially over, I felt like I was a drug addict going through extreme withdrawals. Not just because I was missing my boyfriend, but because I was missing everything—my friends, football, the outside world in general.

The very first thing I did when I woke up was stumble from my room to find one of my parents to get my phone back. It took a few minutes for my dad to give it back to me, what with the fact that he'd made sure to add in a lecture about how next time the consequences will be even more severe, Alex. This is your senior year, and you have scholarships lined up. If you lose them, even just half of them, your mother and I won't be able to help pay for your college tuition, and then you'll—

When my phone had been plugged into its charger and turned on, I practically died from the suspension of waiting for everything to load up and for everything I'd missed to come flooding in.

Within a minute of the home screen blinking itself to life, the poor device was being bombarded with texts and phone calls galore.

Another minute later told me that I'd had thirty-two text messages from numerous people as well as a missed phone call from Jack. The voicemail connected after a moment, a sigh and then his mumbled voice filling my ear.

"Hey, Lex, it's Jack... Um, can you call me back when you get the chance? I need some help with something... Uh, if not, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye."

The message was from Monday night, last Monday night, and there was a brief internal battle over whether or not to call him back immediately.

It was probably obviously a serious situation (fuck, maybe he was dying?) but it would definitely be more caring to talk about whatever it was to his face... wouldn't it? Yeah, it would.

The messages were quickly skimmed over, giving me information about how life had been progressing for everyone in the past week as well as letting me know what work I'd missed, how pissed off coach was with me, and just one text from Jack letting me know that Josh had told him all about how I was sick, how he missed me, and how he hoped I got better soon.

My phone was tossed to the side as I looked around my room, eyes landing on the model of Animal Farm I'd been able to make in all of my spare time; it looked pretty damn perfect, in my opinion, and hopefully Jack would be a little less upset with me once he found out the truth.

He had to find that out, right?

No... he didn't... did he?

Yes.

No.

A groan tore from my throat as I climbed to my feet and headed to the bathroom, having decided to merely shower and get ready before I started to worry too much about anything else. Maybe it'd all just play out without me having to say anything about it.

Nearly a good hour or so later and after far too many failed outfits that just didn't look good enough for seeing Jack again my dad was pulling up in front of the school. He was, once again, yapping away incessantly about how I had to act like an adult, and how my future was riding on my behavior this year, and how I really couldn't afford to get any more detentions (which I still had one of those from the week before and had totally forgotten about), and that he still expected me to be home as soon as possible after school ended, with the knowledge that coach would probably want to hold me after for some extra training seeing as how I'd missed a week's worth or practice.

It was the sound of someone tapping on the window to my right that had him stopping and me jumping, and he rolled the window down so that Franceschi could speak, shit-eating grin stretched across his lips.

"Good morning, Mr. Gaskarth," he greeted politely, lifting a hand to wave at my dad before turning to me. "It's so lovely to see you again, Alexander."

I wanted to snap about how he knew damn well not to call me by my full name, but with my dad less than five feet away and listening intently, I figured it'd be better to hold my tongue and send a warning glare.

Franceschi merely smiled before stepping back from the car and gesturing to the school's doors. Other kids were already spilling through them, laughing and talking with their friends as they waited for the bell to ring so that they could head to their first class.

"I'd love to stay and chat, Mr. Gaskarth, but Alexander and I should really be going now. Don't need him missing any more class than he already has, do we?"

My father agreed with a nod of the head, and before he could even get another word out about how I had to act, I was all but throwing myself from the car and dashing toward the entrance, Franceschi in tow.

"Slow down, ya fuckin' wanker. It's too early for your shit," he groaned, yanking his arm from my hold and rubbing at his wrist as he followed at a much slower pace just to annoy me.

"I need to go talk to Jack," I called, glancing back at him. "Look, if you're just gonna be like that then I'll talk to you later or something." With that, I was back to pushing and wiggling through the overcrowded halls to my boyfriend's locker.

Thankfully, he was there, leaning against it and facing away from me as he talked and laughed with Zack. The boy with the mop of ridiculous blonde hair noticed me, and gave a barely-there nod to me raising my pointer finger up to my puckered lips.

Jack must not have noticed it because when I threw my arms around his waist and started to push kisses to his neck, he gasped and did his best to wriggle away from me.

Zack was too busy laughing as I whispered against Jack's skin, "It's just me, angel. Missed you so much." My arms squeezed his waist tighter and I buried my face into his shoulder, closing my eyes and letting out a content sigh at having him so close to me once again.

"Alex?" he asked, though he sounded so much more relieved than anything, body visibly relaxing and his hands moving to rest over mine. I nodded against him, earning me an, "I missed you, too."

"I'm sorry that I never got back to answering your call. I was too sick to move, and then I had so much work that Franceschi brought around that I had to make up, and I didn't have the time. I'm sorry. We can talk as much as you want now, though. I'm here for you, and I want you to know that you can trust me, and I want to help in any way that I possibly can," I vowed.

Jack once again started to twist in my arms, and I loosened my hold around him so that he could turn to face me, his expression almost apologetic.

"Actually, I already talked to Franceschi about it, and he helped me a lot. I mean, of course I still want to talk to you about it, but I don't think I need as much help as I did before," he said.

I didn't know how to respond right away, and simply nodded my head, letting out an, "Oh... I mean, oh, that's fine. That's really fine. I'm glad you're starting to not see my friends as completely obnoxious and terrifying. That's really great that he was there for you." I just wish I could've been.

The bell rang before he could say anything, but as soon as it stopped, a small smile stretched across his lips and he was promising, "I'll tell you everything later, okay?" When I nodded in agreement, he leaned in and pressed a short kiss to my nose before moving to my lips. "But for now," he mumbled against my mouth, pulling away and ducking to hide his face in my shoulder, "we go to hell... I mean English."

Another quick peck of the lips and he was pulling me along behind him into our first period, my mind too occupied with wondering what he could've possibly told Josh.

Notes