Don't Make This Easy, I Want You to Mean It

“He’s your best friend! You know him better than anyone!”
“You’re his girlfriend! He tells you more than he tells me these days!”
“Will you two quieten down and do your work?” Mrs Loita shouted from the front of the room, a stern look on her face.
“No!” I shouted back, briefly turning from Jack to respond to her. Jack and I were currently in Spanish, drawing the attention of everyone in the room while we shouted at each other about Alex. His mood had not improved as the night went on and, eventually, I left with Marissa, hardly receiving a goodbye kiss as I did so. I hadn’t heard from him since and it was infuriating. I wasn’t going to be just another girl he ticked off his list; another notch on his bedpost. I had started asking Jack questions first thing this morning, gradually increasing my intensity and the directness of my questioning until it had reached the point we were at now: Jack and I screaming at each other in the classroom. “Jack, will you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Miss Rae, language!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, he won’t fucking tell me!” Jack wasn’t glaring at me, like I was doing to him, merely looking exasperated and not looking sure what to say.
“Mr Barakat!”
“Shut the fuck up!” I screamed at her, turning my anger to her and her interruptions. I felt silence falling over the class at my words, but I didn’t care. I was too angry and I hated it.
“Get out of my classroom,” she said to me, scarily calm and pointing to the door.
“Gladly,” I spat, grabbing my bag from under my desk. “Let me know when you’re ready to be honest with me, Barakat.” I stormed out of the room, slamming the door forcefully and making those I could still see in the room jump at how loud it was. It served them right for being so involved. They’d been watching like it was the most entertaining thing they’d ever seen in their lives. Admittedly, no one had ever seen Jack and I argue like that before (or, in fact, at all), and they definitely had never seen the two of us arguing over Alex Gaskarth. I scowled, kicking the closest locker to me.
“For Christ’s sake, Jasey!” Jack’s voice sounded as I started to move down the corridor.“I don’t know what the hell is going on with him, I swear. But me and you, we need to stop arguing about him like this. You’re my best friend, you can’t expect me to watch as you grow to doubt him. I don’t want to have to pick sides if you guys break up.” I sighed, stopping my walk and leaning against the wall nearest to me. I didn’t want to ruin Jack and I’s friendship, nor did I want to break up with Alex. I was being one of those typical, over-bearing girlfriends that everyone hates.
“I don’t know what to do, Jack. I’m not good at this; I’ve never felt like this.”
“I know, Jase, I do. How do you think I feel about Marissa? But you’ve just got to trust him. He might be an asshole, and he might be worse at this than you are, but I’ve never seen the guy so crazy about a girl before in my life. Nothing is worth us arguing over, you got that?”
“I’m sorry,” I whined, flinging my arms around him. He chuckled lightly, hugging me back.
“Are you done being dramatic now?” I nodded softly, breaking away from him. “Good. Let’s get him out of class. We’ll just ask him straight. He couldn’t keep a secret from you if he tried.” I smiled weakly as he pulled up a text to Alex, starting to walk in the direction of Alex’s class as he did so and I followed in his wake.
I gnawed my lip as we walked in silence. Jack was right. I wasn’t exactly the most trusting person in the world, and if I wanted to not fuck this up, I had to be a little more reasonable about things. Alex being in a mood over, apparently, nothing wasn’t the disaster I was picturing: it was a seventeen-year-old in a mood.
“Sup?” My head shot up as Jack started talking, noting the phone glued to his ear and feeling a little hopeful that I would get some answers so I could stop being pathetic. “Well, honestly Alex, we both need to talk to you … Uh huh … Oh, come on. You’d never ditch me to sit in class, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t ditch Jasey either. Besides, you’ve got to be out of the room to be calling me … I know you’ll see her next period, but that’s not the point. I want to know what’s going on with you too and I won’t be there … No. Nuh uh. You’re not there. What the fuck?” Jack began to hiss his words and I began to grow curious and insecure once again. There was clearly something going on that I didn’t know about. “When the hell did that restart?! … I’m going to fucking kill you.” I felt sick. Jack was getting beyond angry at Alex and I was so out of the loop I couldn’t cope. “What do you mean you’re ‘doing it for her’? How is that for her? Are you fucked in the head? … No, I will not calm down! Don’t do this Alex … I don’t care … No, just get to the parking lot. Now.” Jack ended the call abruptly with a scowl on his face, letting out a frustrated groan as he did so. “Your boyfriend is an asshole.”
“Jack, what the fuck is going on?” I asked, trailing behind him as he turned around and started making his way to the parking lot to meet Alex.
“Alex will explain, it’s his mess. If he doesn’t explain it, I’m going to beat the living shit out of him.” Jack’s response didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse. Up until Alex had called him, I could convince myself I was overreacting, but now Jack was overreacting along with me and that scared me the most. Whatever Alex had to tell me, I was almost positive I wasn’t going to want to hear it. To have gotten Jack angry was nearly impossible, and he was almost foaming at the mouth right now.
I perched myself on the bonnet of my car, biting my fingernails nervously and watching the front doors of the school, waiting for Alex to appear. Jack was pacing next to me, which wasn’t helping at all. The pair of us were silent, excusing the occasional frustrated letting of air from Jack. Alex’s familiar brown hair bobbed out of the school doors, looking around briefly before making his way to us. I felt myself relaxing straight away, a smile spreading itself across my face. His presence made my worries melt away and just seeing the way he was looking at me now made me realise I wasn’t alone in the way I felt. Alex brushed past Jack, ignoring his demand for answers, throwing his arms around me and pulling me into his chest. I sighed happily, putting my arms around him too and just taking him in.
“When I tell you what’s going on, you need to try your best to not think any differently of me.” The moment the words left his mouth I felt my anxiety return. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he had to say anymore; I didn’t ever want to think differently of Alex.
“You’re scaring me,” I told him.
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry, I really am.” Alex sighed, letting go of me and turning to face Jack. “It’s not what you think, honestly. She called me, I told her no. She wouldn’t take it.” Jack didn’t respond and Alex ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Alex looked at me briefly, seeing the confusion on my face before continuing. “It’s Mrs Mars. She wanted me to come over last night, her husband’s away on business again. She gets crazy with rejection and threw a fit when I told her no. I didn’t go to her office today by myself, she had me pulled out of class to go see her.” I felt sick. Of course he’s gotten himself involved with someone he shouldn’t have, of course it was biting him in the ass, and me too. “I tried to explain that I had a girlfriend and she just kept reminding me that she had a husband. She doesn’t care about him, but you mean fucking everything to me. I don’t care that I’ve known you a week, I’ve never felt like this, Holly.” I returned to biting my fingernails, mulling over his words so far, but not responding to him.
“So, what did she do?” Jack asked, sitting next to me on the hood of my car.
“She tried to move Holly back to Warren’s class,” he snorted. “I was in the middle of threatening her when you text me. I told her I’d tell everyone what we’d been up to if she moved her anywhere.” Jack nodded, but I remained still. He seemed a lot calmer, and I knew he’d known about the two of them for a long time, so he didn’t have the same moral dilemma as I did. Alex had just admitted to sleeping with a married woman and I didn’t know what to say to him. Sure, he and I had a reputation for fucking around with anyone, but we’d never intentionally gone after someone in a relationship. And, even if we had, this was on an entirely different level. This was marriage, this was forever and he’d helped a woman lie her way around that. “Say something.” I looked up to see his eyes trained on me, Jack now forgotten about in the back of his mind.
“What do you expect me to say?” I whispered. “Do you want me to tell you it’s all okay? Because it’s not, Alex. You helped a woman cheat on her husband, for God’s sake! And this doesn’t seem like a one-time thing either.”
“Six months,” he told me, shaking his head.
“Six months? Are you serious?” He hung his head and my insides twisted. He knew this was wrong, he’d obviously known all along, and I knew what it was to get caught up in something you shouldn’t be doing. I hadn’t meant to upset him, but I’d needed some time to process what he’d told me. It was over now; he hadn’t done this to me. I reached out, grabbing his hand. He looked up at me, surprised. “I’m sorry I pitched a fit, but you can’t expect me to be completely okay with what you’ve just told me.”
“I know, and I’m not expecting you to ever be completely okay with it, because I’m not sure I ever will be. But it’s over now, and that’s all because of you.” I smiled softly, pulling him toward me and kissing him quickly.
“You two are fucking sickening,” Jack told us. I looked over at him briefly, laughing lightly.
“Sorry, Jacks, I just can’t stay mad at him.”
“You can’t stay mad at anyone Jase.”
“That’s hardly the point.” The bell rang out inside the building and I groaned, knowing I had to go back to class now. Not only did I have to face, you know, actual learning, but I’d also have to face the gossip about me, Alex and Jack, instead of just enjoying my time with the two of them.
“Hey, don’t do that! You’re with me now.” Alex grinned brightly, reminding me that I had English next and I felt my smile widening. Well, at least I had someone to face it with. “Come on.” Alex used the grip he had on my hand to pull me toward the building. We made it halfway to class before the whispers and staring started. I had already had this a little earlier in the day, but it was way worse now I was being dragged through the corridor by Alex himself.
“Hey, Jasey!” A girl half whispered from the seat beside my own. I’d been in class about 20 minutes and was in the middle of doing my actual assigned work when she’d decided to speak up. I sighed, putting down my pen and turning to her.
“Yes?” I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was I’d taken her seat next to Alex when I’d transferred over and she hated me for it, or so I’d guessed from the glares she’d been shooting me over the last week.
“So, is it true?” I raised an eyebrow at her, not knowing quite what she was going on about. There were so many stories turning around the rumour mill today, I’d honestly lost track. Most of them were wildly inaccurate and had me pegged down as some sort of maniac who’d trapped Alex over the weekend, or vice versa, but some of them were actually true. “You, are you really dating him?” I sighed again, feeling Alex’s hand taking my own from my other side. I glanced at him, smiling a little, before turning back to her.
“There are a lot of guys in this school, sweetheart, but I assume you mean Alex?” She looked at me with the most annoying, stereotypical ‘duh’ expression that it was difficult not to laugh. “Yes, I’m dating Alex. What’s it to you?” She was beginning to annoy me. Had we been friends or, hell, even acquaintances before now, I might not have been so short with her, but, like I said, I didn’t even know her name. She had no right to my personal life. Well, okay, it was probably Alex’s personal life she was interested in, but mine linked with it. That annoyed me even more.
“Curious, that’s all.” She shrugged and turned back to face the board as I started to glare at her. I wasn’t concerned about her seeing me or not, I was content enough just to glare.
“Relax. You’re going to get more like that before the end of the day. We haven’t even had gym yet,” Alex whispered to me.
Over the course of the last week, we’d discovered we had gym together, but had actually taken different activities, which meant he and I had never even realised. Alex, being the charmer he is, managed to flirt his way to what he wanted with one of our female gym teachers, and what he’d wanted was for he and Jack to switch groups to ours. It was actually weird how grateful I was about him flirting with another woman.
“Urgh, thanks for the reminder, Alex,” I groaned.
“Hey! Remember: I’m getting beaten the crap out of for you in the locker room.”
“I’ve told you, they don’t care, they’ll find someone else for their quick lay.”
“I’m with, easily, the prettiest girl in school: boys are going to get jealous.”
“Bull,” I stated, rolling my eyes and dropping his hand, returning to my work.

Notes