Jack

I found myself bent over, clutching my stomach and wiping tears from my eyes for laughing hysterically for nearly 3 minutes straight. My sides hurt and my chest heaved as I took deep breaths to calm myself down, but I couldn’t stop another bout of laughter exploding out of my lips.

“Okay Tay, really funny.” I chuckled, drying my eyes with my sleeves, unable to wipe the amused smile off my face.

Tay. In love with me. That’s actually the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Stop laughing, Jack.” I heard Tay say seriously, which only caused me to crack up even more.

“I’m serious! It’s not funny!” she exclaimed, I looked up seeing tears in her eyes, but they weren’t tears of laughter like mine were.

That’s when it started to sink in. She wasn’t messing with me. She was actually serious.

She was in love with me?!?
That’s what she’s been trying to tell me for months?

Why would she tell me this?

I’m dealing with enough right now, I can’t deal with this too!

That's a little douchey of me to think, but I can’t help it!

She’s one of my best friends! She can’t be in love with me!
I’m in love with Alex, and Alex is in love with me!
My love life couldn’t get any fucking better right now!

Does sleeping with me make her fall in love with me? Okay look, I know I’m fantastic in bed, I’m the best and most experienced person with sex person that I know.
But falling in love with me just for sex is a little over board!

In love? With me? What the actual fuck?

“You’re confused.” I told her, she pinched her eyebrows together in annoyance, and crossed her arms.

“Would you just listen to me, for once in your life?” she asked angrily.

I nodded, waiting for her to say what I wanted to hear.

She won’t say that she’s in love with me, she’s going to say she’s in love with the way I do my hair. She’s in love with my leather jacket. She’s in love with the way I can cook.

Anything other than her ACTUALLY being in love with me.

“W-Well, for a little over 3 years now-”

“That’s bullshit. You haven’t loved me for 3 years.” I interrupted, shocked by her words.

“You wouldn’t know Jack, because I’m just fucking telling you right now!! Jack, I wanted to tell you at the beginning of senior year! I couldn’t go another day watching you move on from person to person, giving yourself to everyone when I was the one who wanted you most. I promise you, I was going to tell you, but then you met Alex…” she trailed off, I frowned as I watched the tears that were pooling in her eyes fall down her cheeks.

“Tay…”

“I fucking watched you fall in love with someone else! I tried to convince you that Alex wasn’t good enough for you, but you ignored me, so I gave up, thinking that eventually the two of you would break up. Of course, you didn’t, because you love him… He’s perfect-”

“Stop talking like this Tay, I can’t.... You can’t be in love with me.” I ran my hands nervously through my hair, I was completely in denial.

“3 years too late.” she mumbled, sniffling.

I wanted to comfort her crying, but I didn’t even know how to deal with my own emotions right now.
I don’t want her to be in love with me!!! This is so fucked up, jesus fucking christ.

What have I gotten myself into?

“Okay, maybe you have a little crush on me because we had sex-”

“No Jack, I’ve felt this way for so long. I literally just told you, 3 years, stop denying that part. I’ve wanted to tell you before we had sex, but I just couldn't hold it in for any longer, I’ve tried to tell you countless times, but this is the first chance I’ve actually had.” she told me honestly, I groaned and turned around, pressing my forehead into the concrete wall trying to think.

What does she expect me to do? Leave Alex? I scoffed at the thought of it.

I can’t just drop my entire life because she wants to be with me, I love Alex.
He’s my once in a lifetime shot at love, he’s the one.

Tay isn’t the one, she’s one of my best friends for fuck’s sake.
We have a friendship chemistry, that’s it. Me and Alex have real, romantic chemistry.

We had sex once, it doesn’t mean she loves me. Wait, she’s loved me for years.
God dammit, how did I never notice before?

“I’m so pathetic” she mumbled, I turned back around and sighed as she was wiping her tears away.

“No you’re not-”

“All I want to do is beg you to just give us a chance. I promise you, I’ll be the best girlfriend. I’ll be even better than Alex. But I know, nobody’s better than Alex. He's the only thing you talk about, he’s the love of your life, so you don’t even fucking notice that you have a girl that’s in love with you right in front of you!” she cried, and more tears poured out of her eyes, her voice cracking as she choked out the words I could tell they were painful for her to admit to me.

I’m such a fucking asshole. Making this sweet girl cry.

“What about Zack?” I asked her hopefully.

“I never liked Zack, I dated him to try to get over you but it made everything worse. That’s why we broke up, he found out I loved you. Then we slept together…” she trailed off, staring at the ground.

“No wonder he punched me in the stomach.” I muttered to myself.

I can’t believe this is actually happening.
The truth is, if she had told me the day before I met Alex, I may have taken up on the opportunity to date her.
I’m not completely sure, knowing my old favorite pastime of hooking up with as many hot people as I could, now my favorite pastime is having Alex over and making out till the clothes come off.

But this isn’t about Alex… It’s about Tay.

“You haven’t said a word, all this time.” I muttered.

“I was terrified Jack,” she defended herself.

“What about before? Like in junior year or something, I had no idea Alex even existed!”

“We we’re best friends, and you seemed to be taking more on an interest of sleeping with each and every cheerleader on the team.” Tay glared at me, I nodded and looked down.

Yeah... Junior year was a good year.

I felt terrible knowing she felt the same way I felt for Alex, but for me.

My lungs feel like they fill up with water whenever I see him near another boy, I can’t even breathe just thinking about him with Vic and Kellin that night at Hayley’s birthday party.

Knowing that she’s felt like that constantly, for the 5 months I’ve been with Alex, and all the times she’s seen me making out with random guys, or hooking up with random girls at parties, was completely heartbreaking.
I was the one who made her feel like that.

It’s all my fault that she’s so heartbroken

“Oh fuck, oh please don’t cry.” I told her gently, walking up closer to her as I saw her covering her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking lightly as she sobbed.

How can one person, be such an asshole? I made this nice girl cry her eyes out.

I’m so sick and tired of feeling guilty, for everything.
Everything that I do seems to somehow backfire, and make people cry, or hurt people I love, make my friends hate my guts. I’m such a screw up.

I want to just stop feeling sorry for myself, for everything I do.
I want to stop being wrong all the time.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her voice tight, and she continued to bawl.

“Please, please don’t cry.” I begged, placing a hand gently on her shoulder, making her look up at me with red, watery eyes and a blotchy face.

“Kiss me.”

“Excuse me?” I exclaimed, leaning away from her.

Is she actually crazy?

“We’ve been best friends for 4 years! I’ve watched you kiss so many fucking people, can it just be me for once? The only time you kissed me you were drunk, and I’m the only one who remembers it. I fucking kissed the guy of my dreams and he doesn’t remember it!!!” she sobbed, her breath hiccuping for air.

I frowned as I just watched her cry her eyes out, didn’t really know what to do, or what to give her that would make her stop.

Dammit Jack, she’s not a baby, you can’t just give her food to make it stop.

I usually just hug people, but I don’t know if she wants a hug… she wants a kiss.

I really couldn’t bare seeing her this upset, I’ve seen her cry plenty of times over ex boyfriends and her cat dying, but nothing like this. This was total heartbreak.

She probably regrets she told me, that made me feel terrible.
I’m her friend, I’m supposed to be helping her.

I glanced at the door of the stairwell. Thank fucking god that nobody comes down here, nobody really knows what this door goes to. But, this would be a quite a sight to see…

Someone’s going to hear her loud crying and come in here, it’ll make everything worse for the both of us.

I can’t believe I made her this depressed. She’s reacting like I just told her her mother died, but she’s really just letting it sink in that I don’t feel the same way about her.
The poor girl…

I can’t imagine the way that she’s feeling right now, and it’s all because of me.
She’s crying her eyes out because of my dumb ass reaction, telling her that she isn’t in love with me, and that she’s just confused.

Who the hell do I think I am?

She’s in love with me, it’s obvious now.

I tried putting myself in her shoes, and how terrifying it must’ve been for her to tell me all of this, and just have me react like a complete jackass, and not breaking it to her easily that she has no chance.

I’m such a terrible friend, I can’t believe I was oblivious to this for all these years.

The only acceptable apology I could think of was to just give her what she wanted, she was sobbing, I’d do anything for her to stop and calm down.

“Fuck it,” I mumbled, grabbing her hands and placing them on my shoulders, before grabbing her face with two hands and connecting our lips together.

She sucked in a deep breath through her nose, surprised by my actions, but immediately reacted by kissing me back. Tay’s arms went around my neck, and I placed mine on her hips, moving my lips with hers.

I kissed her softly, feeling her wet tears against my cheek, and I moved my thumbs along her face trying to wipe them away.

I make everybody cry.

Our lips moved slowly, in sync, it wasn’t hungry, or passionate, or sexy in any way.
It almost felt like my lips were numb against hers, I felt nothing, but I could tell she was feeling better already.

Thank god.

I had to do something to stop her from sobbing, and I’ve done nothing but hurt her throughout all these years, I might as well just give her one thing that she wanted, for once

I heard the door push open, and it immediately brought me out of a trance, and I pushed Tay away, brushing my hands down my wrinkled shirt before looking at who had just walked in and caught us making out.

My heart sunk as my eyes met with a pair of broken looking, chocolate eyes that were welling up with tears.

Notes

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

AHHHH
oH GOD

PLEASE DONT HATE MEEEEEEE
OH MY GOD

JACK WHAT DID YOU JUST DOOO

HE KISSED TAY
AND ALEX CAME IN
OH GOD
MY BABY ALEXXX

i am sorry
so
so sorry
i told you how dramatic this story would be
now you understand why ive been freaking out.

I FUCKING BROKE JALEX, JESUS, WHAT HAVE I DONEEE

so yeah... that's why the last fluffy jalex chapter was so long
because im very sorryy... there's not gonna be any jalex fluff for a long time
if your like me, you could read the jalex fluffy chapter again, and cry that JALEX IS DEAD

GOD DAMMIT
plz dont hate me or kill me
im sorry

OH GOD
THIS IS THEM IN THE STORY RIGHT NOW
EXCEPT SADDER
aaaAAAAHHHHHH


Title Credit- A Love Like War