Can't Help Who I Fall For

I turned around when I heard my name being called. I saw Josh Franceschi walking quickly towards me, his gym bag in hand.

"What's up, dude?" I asked, slightly confused because we weren't exactly friends.

"I need to talk to you about Barakat," he said, quieter than his original exclamation.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "If you're talking to me because Gaskarth put you up to it, save your breath. I've helped him enough, and I'm now done."

He shook his head and sighed. "This has nothing to do with him. I overheard some of Sykes' friends, and it wasn't pretty."

That had me slightly concerned. I took Josh by the arm and led him to a secluded away from the locker room where no one was bound to walk by and catch onto what was going on. "What did you hear?"

"Basically that Oli made some sort of move on Jack, but he rejected him," he started off. "And they were taking bets on how long it'll take Oli to get bored and move on."

That didn't seem too terrible. They were all idiots being idiots. "You're probably over thinking it, Franceschi," I informed him. "They're just dumbasses."

Josh shook his head feverishly. “That’s not the worst part. They were talking about Oli letting them, quote, 'go wild on him,' end quote. I don’t know what that means, but it can’t be good for Jack.”

I cringed. Josh was right—that didn’t sound good. “Thanks for the warning, bro. Zee and I’ll watch out for them. Do you think Oli has something to do with it?”

I really hoped it was just his asshole friends, but I had a sneaking suspicion I was wrong. I was worried, though. How’s Jack going to react when he finds out about all of this? If Oli really is playing him, which I don’t doubt he is, he’ll be devastated. First Alex, now this…

“I’m almost certain,” Josh confirmed my worries. “You know what happened between Sykes and Gaskarth a few years ago, right?”

I nodded. “You think it has to do with that?”

“Think about it,” Josh prompted. “Every person Gaskarth’s dated since, Oli’s gotten a hold of. And did Jack ever talk about being friends with him until he and Gaskarth dated?”

I sighed; he was right. “I didn’t know they even knew each other until after he and Alex broke up. Oh god, Josh! What should we do?”

He shrugged. “If we told him, do you think he’d believe us?”

“Probably not.” I didn’t know what to do. “He snapped at me the other day just for telling him to be careful. Oli’s, like, brainwashed him or something.”

“Do you think if we told him the whole story, if he knew that Oli’s done this before, he’ll believe us?”

“Maybe…” I responded, “Would Alex be pissed, though?”

“Why would he be?” Josh countered. “If anything it would make him look better because, even though what he did was kind of crappy, what Oli’s doing is worse.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “We need to do this soon. I know it’s going to hurt Jack, but I want to minimize the damage as much as possible.”

Josh nodded in agreement, “Maybe we can tell him tomorrow at lunch. If you get Merrick on board, you two can bring him to the courtyard and we can all do it.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

I was really concerned about how Jack would react, but it was better for him to find out this way than for Oli to leave him for dead. I knew the likelihood of him actually listening was little to none, but maybe it’d at least plant the seed in his head deep enough for him to figure it out on his own… I could only hope…

Notes