I could tell he was nervous. Watching him stare almost aimlessly at his laptop, slowly typing out sentence after sentence before deleting it all. I knew that this wasn’t something he really wanted to do, and I felt bad for basically making him do it, but I knew it would just keep eating at him as long as Oli was still in our lives. I also knew that this could easily be the downfall of us as a couple, and I didn’t want that, and I hoped that Alex didn’t either.

It was hard, though. He’d been so reserved about the whole thing. I could understand why. It was such a degrading, personal thing that Oli did to him. I just hated seeing him go from being happy and carefree back to scared and tense just from another person entering the room. It wasn’t fair that it had to happen to him; that my poor love had to experience such a tragedy. I would do anything to make it all stop, even if that meant threatening a break up. Even if it was a bluff when I brought it up yesterday, it still worked.

My boyfriend groaned and collapsed backwards from his previous position sitting on my bed. “I give up; I just can’t do it!”

“Lex.” I sighed, running my hand through his hair. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I just can’t, Jack,” he whimpered. “I keep on trying to type it all out, but I can’t get it all out. And I swear it makes no sense at all!”

I moved to lay beside him, letting him rest his head on my shoulder. “It’s okay, pumpkin. Take your time; we’re in no rush. I know it’s hard for you, but I’m so proud that you’re trying.”

His body tensed up slightly. “Yeah…”

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, turning over to look at him better. He immediately moved to curl up into my chest, laptop since abandoned to the other side of the bed.

“I might not be trying as hard as I could be…” he admit, voice muffled by my t-shirt. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to write it all down. It’s like I get to the part when he sent you the video, then I just stop.”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew that I couldn’t actually force him to go through with the email, but I knew (and I think he did, as well) that it was the best thing for us to do. We couldn’t keep going on living in fear for the rest of the year. Once school started back up again, every day we were there was another day that someone could do something. I doubted that they’d try something when we were with our friends, but we couldn’t rely on them forever.

“Do you want me to finish it for you?” I asked gently. “Like, you could tell me exactly what happened and I could put it on paper?”

He sighed. “That doesn’t really change anything… I’d still be reliving it, and that’s what’s stopping me.”

“Think about it this way…” I didn’t really have any other ideas on how to encourage him, so if it didn’t work, I’d basically have to give up. “If you can get through it this once, then you’ll never have to do it again. Oli’ll be away from you for good. You won’t have to worry about running into him at school.”

“What if no one believes me?” he asked. “What if Oli doesn’t get in trouble and he comes after us even worse? I couldn’t handle him hurting either one of us again.”

“We have proof,” I argued. “I never deleted that video Kellin sent me.”

“But, angel, Oli wasn’t in it,” he said. “We turn that in, and the worst thing that could happen is Kellin would get suspended for a few days and then come back with a vengeance.”

I sighed. “If you really feel that strongly about it, then I can’t change your mind, can I?” I wasn’t exactly ready to give up completely, I just needed to buy myself some more time to think of a better argument.

While I was trying to do that, another thought came to my head. Was this is our first fight since getting back together? I mean, it wasn’t really a fight fight, but we were still arguing about it, so it technically counted as one, right? It made me mad that all of our fights had to do with Oli. When we broke up, it was because of something Oli caused, and then we were arguing about whether we should go to the principle about things Oli and his friends had done to us. That just made me think how much better off we’d be as a couple if Oli wasn’t in the picture.

Take the day before, for instance. When we were getting ready to leave school, Alex was happy and giddy and flirty. But as soon as he so much as saw Oli, everything changed. That was the main reason why I wanted Alex to step forward with what happened to him. I don’t want him to have to worry about running into Oli. I much prefer my boyfriend happy, just like at my locker yesterday.

“Hey, Alex.” I nudged him gently. “Do you remember yesterday when you said I was so cute you could eat me?” I wasn’t sure if this new idea I had would work, but it really was a last ditch effort.

“Yeah,” he answered. “What about it?”

“Well, I have a proposition for you.” He nodded for me to continue. “If you actually go through with the email and send it, I—um—I’ll let you d-d-do it…”

His head recoiled back slightly, and he almost looked horrified. I felt myself instantly turn red. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say after all. It was stupid of me to think bringing that up was a good idea.

“Um… Jack?” He spoke to me as if I’d lost my mind. “T-that’s cannibalism, and it’s illegal and immoral and why the fuck would you say that? Is that some weird kink you never told me about?”

I snorted as soon as he mentioned cannibalism. Only he would take it so literal. “That’s not what I meant, you doofus!”

He still just looked so confused. And I was the innocent one in this relationship. “Just… never mind, don’t worry about it.” I could tell my face was still red, and I really didn’t want to explain to him exactly what I did mean.

“Okay?” he responded. “Are you really so desperate that you’ve started making things up to bribe me with?”

I shrugged bashfully. For some reason I was suddenly embarrassed when he brought up what I had been trying to do. I didn’t really understand why, but I decided to go with it and maybe it’d go my way.

Alex sighed. “It means a lot that you’d be willing to go so far because you’re worried about me. And I guess that if it means that much to you, I can try to get it all out again.”

I smiled at him before leaning over and kissing him quickly. “Thank you,” I mumbled against his lips. “I know you’ll feel better afterwards.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, yeah. You know you’re writing it, right?”

---

It took almost two hours for us to finish the letter. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I felt good knowing that it was done and that if anything else was going to happen, it wouldn’t be on us. I could tell it took a lot out of Alex to do it, and I was so unbelievably proud of him for it.

When we started, he pulled me onto his lap and loaded the first draft that he came up with. It wasn’t bad, but it jumped around a bit and he had put in details that weren’t necessary. If I didn’t already know, it would be obvious just how much this whole situation had affected him. When we first started dating, he was cocky and carefree. There was none of that Alex in what he had written. It was like he was a completely different person, and that made me really sad. So, with his permission, I deleted the whole thing and we started over.

We both struggled. The first part was pretty simple, but it got messy when we got to the part in the locker room. I wasn’t really used to comforting people who were upset, so when Alex started crying I really didn’t know what to do. All I could manage was some gentle words, a few forehead kisses, and an encouraging back rub. It could’ve been better, but I do think we got the point across.

“Hey, Lex,” I said, trying to catch his attention. After the email was sent we decided to lay down for a little bit. “You know I’m so proud of you, right?”

“Mmmm,” he hummed, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “I didn’t really do that much.”

“Shut up.” I scoffed. “I know that was hard for you; you don’t have to pretend it wasn’t. Not with me.”

He smiled tentatively at me. “It was hard, but I do feel better; almost like a weight was lifted. I think I can see what you were saying now.”

I couldn’t help but full-on grin. It felt good to know that I was right, but even more than that, I was happy that he felt better. Because that’s all I wanted in the first place: for Alex to be happy again.

“Yeah, don’t think I can’t see that shit-eating grin.” He scoffed. “If the words ‘I told you so’ come out of your mouth, I swear to god I will break up with you.”

“But, pumpkin!” I whined, attaching myself to him even more. I wrapped my arms and legs around his torso and attacked his face with wet kisses.

“Urgh! Jack!” he screeched, using one hand to push my head away, while the other rested on the small of my back, which served to only pull me closer. It was a little counterproductive on his part, but I wasn’t going to complain.

I turned my head into his hand and pulled back slightly to look at him. I felt three words on the tip of my tongue, but I held them in. This wasn’t the right time to say it; we’d had an emotional morning and it wouldn’t help. So instead, I kissed him again, on the mouth this time. Alex eagerly kissed me back; both hands moving to my hips.

I realized something in that moment. When I felt his tongue lick across my lip, I realized that this was how it was supposed to be. Even though everything was out of our control now, I strangely felt more at peace with the situation than I had since it started. I could only hope that Alex felt the same. Right then, we were happy and that’s what mattered. That’s always been the only thing that’s mattered. Just me and Alex. It felt so right, like finally, we could be happy.

Notes

maybe one more tonight before i get to bed mkay