I Am Barely Breathing

Jack.

It’s been a month since Alex joined the band. We haven’t gotten together yet. I don’t want to rush it because I’m still scared of people’s reactions. I’ve managed to be clean for a few weeks thanks to Alex and our band is coming along great! We’re planning to play a few gigs the next two weeks for spring break. We’re also planning on recording an EP over the summer which is in a month or so, so I also have that to look forward to. On our little road trip for the two weeks we have off for spring break, Zack’s dad rented a 15 passenger van for us, the band, and then he was going to follow behind us in his van with my mom and Rian’s mom and Dad. Alex’s mom couldn’t take off of work for two weeks and my dad and Zack’s mom couldn’t either.
We leave on Saturday so on Friday, we’re all having a band get together dinner. It’ll be me, Alex, Rian, Zack and all our parents just sitting down for dinner at a fun restaurant with a bowling alley and getting to know each other, having fun, and talking about plans for the two weeks. They’ve arranged hotel stops and all the dates have been booked. We’re touring with Cassadee’s band Hey Monday.
We’ve written a few songs and rehearsed them to perfection. I’d say Alex is a great song writer. He wrote some really good songs. We’ve decided those will be the songs we’ll record over the summer. This tour is going to mostly be cover songs for people to enjoy and sing along to along with some of our original songs. Cover songs are fun to perform.
So come Friday, we all walk to Rian’s house after school. I still haven’t told them I’m gay and neither has Alex. We haven’t confirmed our relationship, but we have made out quite a few times. He hasn’t seen all my cuts yet, but I know he knows they’re there.
“Who’s excited for tonight?” Rian asks.
“More importantly who’s ready to beat the parents in bowling?” Zack asks. I roll my eyes and glance at Alex, who’s smiling.
I won’t bore you with all the details of tonight, we’ll just fast forward to the end of the night. I’m at Alex’s, sleeping over because with all my nerves, I wouldn’t be able to sleep without Alex near me.
The band, of course, won every round we bowled, we decided that the kids will share a hotel room and the parents will stay out of the way.
Now we’re in Alex’s room, Netflix pulled up on his TV looking for a scary movie to watch. We made a little bed on the floor and I have my hands rested on his chest and my head on his shoulder.
“Jacky, will we ever be official?” He asks. I just look straight ahead. The thought scares me. People will see me differently.
“I… don't know.” I say quietly. He doesn’t say anything and I sigh. “It scares me.”
“What does?” He asks, putting the remote down and looking at me.
“Telling people.” I say quietly. “I’m bullied so much already… if anyone knew anything else they could use against me, they’d destroy me.”
“Jack… soon we’ll be able to say we’re better than them. Hell, we’re better than them now.” Alex says. “You’ll be successful and they’ll be working part-time jobs for the rest of their lives. This little thing that you’re hiding shouldn’t tear you down if you’re proud of it.”
“It just scares me.” I say quietly, burying my face in his shoulder.
“Hey, Alex.” A voice calls from the other side of the door followed by a knock. I go to move, but Alex wraps his arm around me, telling me it’s just his brother.
“Come in.” He says. The door opens and his brother comes in, shutting it. “Before you say anything, this is Jack, Jack this is my brother Tom.”
“Hey, Jack.” Tom greets. I smile at him. “Guess who’s coming on tour with you?”
“You are?” Alex asks, smiling.
“Yeah, the adults put me in the band van, so look forward to that.” Tom says. “Just thought I’d tell you. I got off work for two weeks for this. My boss is pretty chill when it comes to family.”
“Awesome, better get packing.” Alex says. Tom rolls his eyes and messes up his brother’s hair and saying goodbye to me, leaving the room.
“You guys are cute.” I ask. Alex rolls his eyes.
“He’s been watching out for me since my dad came at me the other day.” He tells me. I nod and smile. “So, movies.”
We spend the night watching movies and talking and then we fall asleep. We get jolted awake by his brother screaming in Alex’s room for us to get our asses up. Eventually Alex throws a pillow at him and tells him to leave, so he does. I grab my change of clothes to change in the bathroom, but Alex stops me.
“Why do you always change in the bathroom?” He asks.
“I think you should know the answer to that.” I tell him quietly, looking down. He cocks his head and I just stare at him, knowing he can figure it out on his own. He then sighs. “Figure it out?” I ask him. He nods and I go to turn which only makes him grab my arm.
“I won’t judge you Jack.” He says. I sigh. “Have you done it recently?”
“Surprisingly no, I’ve been clean for a few weeks now.” I say quietly. He smiles at me.
“I’m proud of you.” He says, kissing me. “Now, change in here. You don’t have a reason to go in there anymore.” I groan.
I grab the fabric of my shirt looking in his mirror, feeling self-conscious. I look at Alex who already has his shirt off and he looks at me.
“I’m not going to judge you, love.” He tells me. I bite my lip, looking down at my hand which is holding the bottom of my shirt. He walks over to me and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Let me help you.” He says. He puts a hand over my hand that’s gripping the shirt. He uses his other hand to help pull it over my head. When the shirt is completely over my head, he throws it onto his bed. “That wasn’t so hard was it?” He asks, keeping eye contact with me.
“You’re not looking?” I ask him.
“I’m not planning on making you uncomfortable.” He says. “Unless you want me to the look.” He says, slowly moving his head down.
“No!” I shriek, placing my hand under his chin and lifting his head up. He smiles, wrapping his arms around me. I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my forehead against his. “You’re mean.” I giggle.
“I’m mean?” He asks, kissing me. I could’ve gotten really dark and said yes because you ruined my suicide attempt, but that would be uncalled for because standing here in his arms is the happiest I’ve been in a while. If I said that I’d have no reason to complain about not being dead right now. I smile at him and utter three words I never thought I’d get to say to anyone.
“I love you.” I say. He doesn’t look caught off guard, he just smiles and kisses me.
“I love you too.” He says. I smile. “Now get dressed and let’s get going.” I grab my black V-neck and my blue denim jacket and throw them on along with my skinny jeans and we head downstairs.
“The final two.” Rian says as we come downstairs. We roll our eyes and head outside where everyone’s families are standing. We say goodbye to the ones who can’t come along and get into our vans. The first show we’re playing is in downtown Baltimore. We have to go down early to get all our stuff inside and we’re going to practice a bit.
We mess around a lot, our parents just telling us we’re idiots and leaving the room. They left us in the green room by ourselves while they went out together, so we ended up just screaming and jumping around like the idiot seventeen year olds we are.
Soon it’s time for us to play. We cover a lot of Blink and Green Day, our family in the back looking proud as hell to be our parents. Alex and I talk every few songs like Blink does to entertain the audience. If we’re not funny, how are we going to get people to listen to us? If we’re boring, no one will listen to us. Of course we make fun of Rian a lot since he doesn’t have a microphone and every so often we talk to Zack.
I’m going to do a major time lapse because the whole two week tour was just us messing around and breaking things and then having our parents yell at us. People enjoyed our sets and we made money with the tickets even though they were only five dollars. If you have like twenty to thirty people show up every night, you make a lot of money. So we probably have enough to pay for our new album we’ll be recording this summer. To have a full length album though, we need one more song and Alex is stumped on song ideas as of right now. Luckily we have another month to write a song before we head to the studio in June.
I’m so excited for this band. I can tell we’re going to get pretty far.

Notes

Comment below and tell me what you think, please:D
title credit: So Long Soldier by All Time Low
-Jenna