Can't Help Who I Fall For

It was a lot later than I had expected when Alex finally showed up at my house. I was starting to get worried by the time he had knocked on my front door.

“There you are, pumpkin,” I exclaimed after opening the door. “I was starting to get worried.”

He pulled me into a tight hug before saying anything. “I’m sorry, angel. I was one of the last ones to leave the locker-room, and then I had to run home.”

I was a little caught off-guard by his sudden affection, considering we had just seen each other a little less than an hour ago. I decided to write it off as nothing, though; he was probably just excited about winning the game.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I just wasn’t expecting to go out so late, is all.”

“Oh,” he sighed, biting his lip. “D-do you just want to do something tomorrow instead?”

I was again caught off-guard by the sudden shift of his emotions. At first he’d seemed overly excited, and then suddenly his entire demeanor had changed. It definitely wasn’t something I was expecting from him; he was normally so emotionally stable, I couldn’t help but wonder what had him acting so strange.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You seem kind of out of it…”

“What? Oh, I’m great!” He laughed, although it seemed kind of forced. “No need to worry about me!”

“Are you sure?” I pressed. It really seemed like something was wrong.

He took a deep breath and stayed quiet for a second before saying, “Yeah, angel, I’m sure. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day, you know?”

I didn’t quite believe him, but I nodded anyway. “Do you just want to stay in tonight then?” I figured if something really was wrong, he’d be more likely to say something if we were alone than in public. “We can just watch a couple of movies in my room or something…”

His face lit up. “Is that okay with you? I said I’d take you out… had you shower and get all dressed up...”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’re always trying to take me out. I would love to just spend a night in with you.”

He smiled. “I guess that’s what we’re doing then.”

“Hey, dad!” I yelled, moving over to let Alex in. “We’re just going to watch a couple of movies upstairs, okay?”

It was a little bit awkward because my mom was out with her sisters, so I was forced to talk with my dad. I realized that Alex had never met my dad before, so that might be happening right now. Not awkward or anything.

“Okay,” he yelled back. “Who’s over, exactly? Zack and Rian?”

Oh, great.

“Er... No,” I replied, dragging Alex to the living room where my dad would most likely be. “Alex is…”

“I didn’t know you were friends with an Alex,” he yelled as we walked into the room. “Oh, I thought you were upstairs.”

“Not yet.” I sighed. “Um, Alex this is my dad. Dad, this is Alex, he’s uh—he’s my boyfriend.”

Alex instantly moved from my side to take a few steps forward to shake my dad’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” my boyfriend said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Sir, huh?” my dad raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t been called that by someone my son’s brought home in a while. Most of his friends aren’t that polite. You treat him good, ya here?”

Alex smiled politely. “Nothing but the best for the best.”

I tried not to blush as the two of them talked. I could tell my dad wanted to interrogate him a bit more, but for some reason, he was holding out.

“You guys want pizza or something?” he asked. “Or did you eat at the game?”

“Are you hungry?” I asked Alex, knowing that he must be. Football looks like a tiring sport.

“Yeah, pizza sounds great,” he responded. “I don’t like eating before games, so I’m pretty hungry.”

“You on the team, Alex?” my dad asked.

Alex nodded. “Yessir. Starting quarterback.”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty impressive. You have any colleges after you?”

I kind of zoned out while the two talked about football. Most of what they were saying were things Alex had already told me, so it’s not like it was a big deal. A part of me was glad that they were getting along, but another part of me—namely the part that was still mad at my dad—was angry that he was fooling my boyfriend so easily. I had to remind myself that Alex did know what kind of person he was.

“Okay, I’ll let you kids go now,” I heard my dad say, pulling back into real life. “I’ll bring the pizza up when it comes, okay?”

“Thanks,” I muttered, grabbing Alex by the hand and pulling him towards the stairs, barely giving him time to utter out a ‘nice meeting you’ to my dad.

“I still don’t understand how you do that,” I said once we were upstairs. “Lately he’s been really protective of me, I don’t know if he’s trying to overcompensate or what, but...”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jay. It’s just a gift.”

I playfully rolled my eyes. “Whatever, go get comfortable.” I signaled towards the bed. “I’m going to get a movie and find the power cord for my laptop.”

I leaned in to kiss him, but was met with an unexpected resistance. When I got close he jumped back, like he was trying to get away from. To say I was confused would be an understatement. Earlier he had been borderline clingy, and now he was avoiding my kisses? What was going on with him?

“Sorry, I—uh, just got a shiver…” he gave as a weak excuse.

I sighed. “Alex, if there’s something wrong I really hope you’re planning on telling me…”

“No-Nothing’s wrong, angel,” he tried to assure me. “I’m okay.”

I sighed again. “You promised you’d never lie to me again,” I mumbled. “I can tell something’s wrong… If you don’t want to talk about it, fine, but just tell me that. This isn’t going to work out if you can’t be honest, and you already know it.”

“You’re right,” he admit. “It’s not that I wasn’t going to tell you. I know that keeping things from you just blows up in my face. I just wanted to have one nice night with you before everything goes crazy again, you know?”

I instantly felt bad. This was obviously something big, and I was just making it worse by being so insistent on him telling me right away. I was kind of worried, though. I don’t want things to go crazy again. I just want to be in a relationship, like that’s not hard enough by itself.

“What’s going on Alex?” I bit my lip. “You’re starting to worry me…”

He sighed and looked away from me. “When I said I was the last one to shower, I wasn’t exactly being honest… I mean, I thought I was the last one, but it turned out I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling him to sit on the bed.

“I was alone showering for a little bit,” he explained, “but then, I wasn’t alone.”

“Pumpkin,” I started, not liking where this was going. I was interrupted when he started talking again.

“Oli was suddenly there,” he said, voice void of any emotion, “And he um—he attacked me.”

“He what?” I gasped. “Baby, are you hurt? Did he hit you? I don’t see any bruises yet!”

I was borderline frantic checking him for bruises or other forms of physical mark left by the boy that was quickly becoming my least favorite person. I was so angry that he had the nerve to touch my boyfriend again. Hadn’t he done enough to hurt us?

“Jack, stop,” he demanded. “He didn’t hurt me; it wasn’t that kind of attack… He, um—he tried to tell me that he was in love with me and that I should be with him instead of you… and then he um…” He trailed off, ducking his head down.

I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder, but stopped when I noticed how bad my hand was trembling. I was just so angry. I was so angry that he’d try to pull something like that. How can he do all of the things that he did and then expect Alex to want to be with him? That’s completely insane of him.

I was also concerned about my boyfriend. He seemed so upset about what had apparently happened. To the point of me thinking that maybe this wasn’t everything. I’d hate to even imagine him doing anything else to this poor boy, but it seemed like he did.

“He touched me, Jack!” Alex exclaimed, finally showing some sort of emotion. “He touched me, and I was so scared!”

Alex then collapsed into my chest and started breathing heavier. My reaction was to instantly wrap my arms around him, which I did. I was so angry and upset that something like this had to happen to Alex. Kind, perfect Alex. I wanted to hunt down Oli myself and tear him limb from limb, but at that point in time I was more concerned about how obviously shaken up Alex was than I was with killing Oli. That would have to wait.

“I thought he was going to fucking rape me!” he continued, his voice strained and hard to understand. “If you wouldn’t have called when you did he probably would have!”

I tried my best to be calming, but really I could barely keep my own emotions under control. I knew I had to be strong; that Alex needed me. “Sh, it’s okay Lex,” I whispered, trying to calm him down at least a little bit. “You’re okay; you’re safe. I’m not going to let him near you.”

We sat together in silence like that for a while, him occasionally muttering something else about the incident and me trying to be of some comfort. I never really knew what to do in a situation like that. I always felt awkward, like I wasn’t saying the right thing, but I kept trying nonetheless. Alex was too important for me not to.

“Hey, Lex?” I said quietly after about fifteen minutes of almost silence had passed. “I think you need to tell someone about this, like the coach or something. He can’t get away with that.”

He sighed and pushed away a little bit to look at me. “I don’t want anyone finding out and thinking less of me.”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that after going through something like that, Alex would let Oli get away with it because he didn’t want other people to know. Oli deserved to be punished for what he did to my Alex. He deserved so much worse than anything that I, or any one of our friends, could and would do to him. He deserved to have his future ruined, he deserved to be called a rapist for the rest of his life.

I bit my cheek at all of the things I wanted to say and only said, “I don’t want Oli thinking this is okay.”

He hummed. “I told him if he ever came near me again that I’d call the police. That should be enough.”

“I don’t like this.” I sighed.

“I know, baby.” He bit his lip. “But I don’t want the rest of the team to find out. Hell, I probably won’t even tell Josh. I just want it to go away, you know?”

I nodded reluctantly. As much as I wanted to see Oli be punished to the farthest extent of the law, I wasn’t going to make Alex talk about it if he didn’t want to. Even though I hated Oli with all of my being, Alex’s happiness would always come before his misery.

“Do you think we can just watch a movie now, angel?” Alex asked sheepishly. “I really just want to relax and be close with you right now.”

I smiled fondly at him. “Of course, pumpkin, anything you want.”

I stood up and went to the other side of the room to grab my laptop so we could watch something, but first, I picked my phone up off the desk and sent a text to Franchesci:

Don’t ask why, but if you ever see Oli so much as look at Alex, punch him. Very hard. Please and thank you.

Notes

tried to upload this earlier on mobile but yee that didn't work out so here it is finally