Alex’s POV
I opened the bag of popcorn and poured it’s contents into a plastic bowl. After throwing the paper bag away, I rubbed my eyes. I had been staring at paper for way too long. It wasn’t like I was going to remember all the writing in those textbooks anyway. Chemistry just didn’t make any sense to me. I got the basics, but everybody knows those. As soon as a small thing was changed it just didn’t work anymore for me. But I had to pass this exam. Throughout the year I had been failing Chemistry like it was my mission. Seriously, I probably would have gotten a better grade if I hadn’t answered any of the questions. On one test I had even managed to spell my surname wrong. I had a hangover that day, though, so you can’t really blame me. You could technically say I was still kind of drunk. It wasn’t my fault that the party only ended at four in the morning! Of course Ash had managed to get 100% on that test.

She insisted on helping Jack and I study. Well, ‘insist’ might be a bit farfetched. I basically was the reason why she was doing it. After whining and whining about how I just couldn’t do it, and Jack constantly bitching about everything, Ash just decided to take control and help us. I knew she had better things to do. Although she was way ahead, she continued to freak herself out and forced herself to do some more last minute studying. Rather than focusing on herself, she was now paying all her attention to my hopeless self and impossible Jack.

I took a handful of the popcorn and stuffed it in my mouth, reaching in the fridge to get a bottle of Coke. We already had glasses upstairs, so the bottle would be finished in no time. My parents usually didn’t allow us to eat up in our rooms, but apparently exam period was an exception. Apparently they wanted us to be as focused as possible, and if that meant not coming downstairs for a simple drink and watching TV for two hours, then it was going to have to happen this way. That didn’t mean I was anymore concentrated on my school work than on what was happening on the internet. Really, anything was more interesting than the way atoms bond!

I trudged back upstairs, my footsteps loud and obnoxious. If I could make sure that no teenager would ever have to take finals, I would. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that power. So, while everybody in the country had to suffer, so did I. There was no way out of it. Well, I could just not show up, but then I wouldn’t be able to graduate, meaning I wouldn’t be allowed to go on tour and be in a band anymore, which is basically just saying goodbye to my life.

Once I entered my room, I saw Jack and Ash both lying on my bed at weird angles on their stomachs, trying to read their textbooks. Actually, let’s phrase that differently, Ash was reading through her textbook and making notes, while Jack was flipping through his biology book, looking at all the pictures he couldn’t stop grinning and laughing about. At least he might be able to pass the reproductive system part of the test.

I put the popcorn bowl down in the middle, Jack immediately reaching out for it while grunting at another picture. Rolling my eyes, I decided to lie down right on top of Ash, so that all my weight was on her. My legs stuck out a bit, but I still managed to cross my arms over her shoulder blades so that I could rest my head.

“You’re heavy,” she groaned, trying to push me off my turning over, but she wasn’t strong enough to even get close to moving enough.

“You think I’m fat!” I gasped with a fake cry, trying to seem as dramatic as possible.

“Yep.” My weight prevented her from turning a page normally. She reached out awkwardly, nearly ripping the page off.

Jack sighed, staring at an anatomical drawing of a naked girl. “I think Alex wants us to take a long deserved break.”

“Yeah, I really do,” I agreed even though we had only been ‘studying’ for an hour, “my brain doesn’t have the capacity to think anymore. Like, the only thing I can still do right now is play videogames for six hours straight.”

“Oh, no, I mean a long deserved break,” Jack emphasized, opening his book to a large annotated diagram of a man and a woman having sex. He added a small sound, something like when you pull a straw up and down through the hole of the lid at McDonalds. I didn’t even know why they put that in there. Probably to serve as a way to get off for teenage guys like Jack, because we seriously didn’t need a two paged sized diagram.

“Gross, Jack!” Ash slammed the text shut and managed to lightly hit his head with it. Ok, it wasn’t exactly lightly, because there was a hollow noise and Jack did rub the spot afterwards. She then tried to wriggle out underneath me again. “Alex, get off, I need to pee, please!”

“No,” I whined back and snuggled into her more, “you’re a very comfortable pillow.”

She tried shoving one last time. “Well, would you still like it if this pillow peed on your bed?”

“Kinky!” Jack smirked smugly, making Ash hit him with the book once again.

I rolled off her with a sigh, letting her go. While I did like to occasionally tease her, I didn’t want her to actually be hurt by things that were supposed to be innocent. I’d never intentionally hurt her like that. However, I still couldn’t help myself from looking at her ass as she got off the bed and walked out of my room with a slight sway in her hips.

“Dude,” Jack smacked me, immediately getting my attention and pulling me out of my daze, “you were in asstown for a while there.”

I pulled a disgusted face, questioning my best friend’s sanity. “Please don’t ever use that word again.”

“You should stare at these amazing pictures with me while you still can and your girlfriend isn’t around to see and judge you,” he urged, turning the book so I could also see all the ‘amazing’ details.

I frowned, and pushed it back towards him. “But I don’t want to. You can have it all for yourself.”

“Ugh, what has she done to you?” He groaned, but it quickly turned into a smile. “You changed.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, ‘cause now I get all the girls for myself,” he chuckled and stuffed some more popcorn in his mouth, turning around onto his back. “But, yeah, I guess it’s a good thing, because you were even worse than I was. Surprisingly enough, I haven’t seen as many girls crying in the halls anymore. So, that must be a sign. My boy’s all grown up!”

“I’m older than you, Jack,” I snorted, laughing at him.

“No, but seriously, dude. Kudos to you; who knows when the last time you had sex was!”

I shrugged, not even thinking about what came out of my mouth. “Like, two days ago?”

“WHAT?!” Jack sat upright as quickly as he could, flipping around so he could intensely stare at me.

It was only then when I realised what I had told him. It had been a couple of months since the first time Ash and I did it, and we had done it multiple times since then, but I wasn’t exactly planning on telling anybody. This was the first time that I wasn’t jumping around, boasting all about it to Jack, I actually didn’t feel like everybody knowing. It was something between me and my girlfriend, she wasn’t some tool I was going to talk about in that way.

“You have to tell me everything now!” Jack continued, his mouth still agape. I guess he thought it was our first time or something.

“No.” I shook my head, refusing to give him any details. Not only did I want to spare Ash’s dignity, but I didn’t exactly want him fantasizing about my girl either.

“Oh, come on!” He exclaimed, ready to start pressuring me into at least telling him one thing, which would then turn into me giving a detailed account.

“What’s going on?” An oblivious Ash came back into the room, stretching her arms behind her head. Her shirt raised up a little, showing a short glimpse of a fading hickey just above her hip. I hoped Jack hadn’t seen it, but the eyebrow wiggle he gave said otherwise.

“Jack’s being an asshole by trying to shove his biology in my face,” I covered up with a small white lie. She didn’t have to know the entire truth.

“Yeah, why do you actually have your biology book?” Ash asked Jack, “We were going to study chemistry, remember?”

“These are the only boobs I get to see, ok? Don’t attack me!” He grumbled, and hugged the paper close to his chest, not showing any signs of wanting to let go soon.

“Ok, well, then I’ll focus on Alex,” she plopped down beside me, our shoulders touching, and brought her notes closer towards us again.

“But I don’t care about iconic bonds!” I complained, resting my head on her.

“Ionic, Alex, it’s ionic,” she corrected me, giving me a small fed up glare.

“Look, I don’t get any of this shit, if you want me to understand it, you’re going to have to tell me at least 20 times in one minute!”

“Ok, fine. How about I try to explain it in a way you will understand?” She grabbed four pieces of popcorn, giving me one and holding one in one hand and two in the other, “I have three pieces of popcorn, and you only have one. However, we both want to have two. So, I give you one,” she opened up my other hand and put one of the pieces in my hand, “Now you have plus one popcorn, and I have minus one popcorn. Because we are opposite charges, we are attracted to each other, so we hang out all the time.”

“So, you giving me a piece of popcorn immediately makes me get a crush on you and want to hang out with you all the time?” I tried to clarify, to which she nodded. “Would that be enough for a kiss?”

“Hmm,” she thought for a while before shaking her head, “no. An ionic bond is very strong, so we would basically fuze together. However, a covalent bond might be.”

“Covalent? What?”

She let out another deep breath, closing her eyes for a second. Once again, the popcorn made an appearance. “This time we both want to have four pieces of popcorn, however we only have two each. So, we come together and have four all together, making us both happy!”

“What? How does that even work? How can we be happy if we both want four but technically only have two each?” I started thinking of it way too realistically.

“Fair enough. Think about it this way. There are two hydrogen atoms, they both have one electron, but want to have two in total, so they share their electrons.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“How about when I say--”

Jack interrupted very loudly, staring at an image with wide eyes, “DAAAAAAMMNN!”

“What’s wrong?” Ash stupidly asked. She was probably going to get an answer she never wanted to hear.

“This dude’s got a huge frickin’ dick!” He turned around the book for us to see. “Are they trying to give girls unrealistic expectations?”

“Are you trying to tell me yours is smaller?” She retorted with a knowing smirk.

“I--” Jack looked taken aback, not expecting something like that from her innocent mouth. He rolled off the bed and onto the floor. “Moooom! She’s bullying me!”

“So, that covalent bond?” I raised an eyebrow, ignoring Jack’s dramatic antics.

“Yeah… I can’t believe I’m going to explain it this way,” she rubbed her temple and moved away from me slightly, “this wouldn’t make any sense to me, but it might to you. So, we are both hydrogen atoms. And… oh god, I really can’t believe this. You have an electron I want, which is, umm, your dick. I have an electron you want, my vagina. So then, boom, sex happens.”

Jack slowly sat up, turning his head to stare at Ash. “That actually makes so much sense.”

“Can you stop being such a creep?” She snarled. If there was one thing that really got on her nerves and embarrassed her, it was talking about things like this. She was just unfortunate enough to be around me and Jack, who were the complete opposite.

“But I get it now,” I tried to get her to calm down, “it makes both people happy. ‘Cause, damn it, I will not be sharing my popcorn!”

She giggled, managing to capture my lips when I looked at her for a second. While I kissed her back, I could hear Jack groaning as he slowly laid back down on the floor.

Notes

I literally have one more chapter left to write. Oh my god.