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

For the first time in my life, I felt fear bubbling in my stomach as I entered the girl’s locker room. The news had spread around the school like wildfire during the course of the day, and I’d received more than my fair share of glares during lunch. I knew that the vast majority of girls in this room had had some intention of ‘making an honest man’ out of Alex, of making him commit the way he’d never done before, and here I was flouncing into his life and making the two of us ‘official’ in less than a week.
They hated me.
In the few instances I’d been away from Alex and Jack during the day, I’d been cornered by one angry girl or another, either telling me I didn’t deserve him or making me aware that they were waiting for me to fuck up. These girls were obsessed with him. That had just been in the space of a minute or two, and now I was being trapped in with them for at least ten minutes, with only Marissa to back me up. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Making my way over to the corner Marissa and I normally changed in, I received more than a reasonable amount of glares from far too many different girls, and every step I took came with another person whispering behind their hands to a friend. It was crazy; this was all over one guy.
“Every girl in this room hates me except you,” I muttered to Marissa when I finally found her.
“Well, it’s a good job you got with Alex when you did. Nobody has uttered a word to me about Jack. I’m so happy you two overshadow us,” she laughed. I snapped my head around to look at her, my jaw dropping slightly at the news.
“Wait, when did you two make it official? This is huge! Why didn’t you tell me?” I was both excited and confused, not sure why she felt the need to keep this from me, while still genuinely happy for the two of them. Marissa’s crush on Jack had been ongoing for years, and he seemed happy when he was around her, so I was definitely going to be their biggest fan.
“I don’t know. He called me last night and then it just never came up in conversation.” She shrugged, a small smile on her face.
“See, this is why you’re not getting threatened. Nobody knows! Can I tell everyone? I need the entire locker room to know so they get distracted.” Jack was nowhere near as heavily fawned over as Alex, but the girls in school still held a soft spot for him. The fact that he was Alex Gaskarth’s best friend boosted his popularity, as did his position in All Time Low. That, of course, made girls speak to him, then they realised he was the funniest person they’d ever met and most of them proceeded to harbour a small crush on him thereafter.
“Don’t you dare!” I sucked in my breath, as if to start shouting, when she launched herself at me, only half dressed. I snorted as I hit the floor.
“As if that would have stopped me,” I told her, laughing. “Get off me, loser.” I shoved her off me, pushing myself off the floor and beginning to get changed myself. I noted the glares the pair of us had received when we’d fallen. “Jesus Christ, get a grip. He’s not Brad-fucking-Pitt, he’s a fucking high schooler.” The girls turned away from me, still looking angry and I rolled my eyes. How pathetic did you have to be to be upset that a guy you went to school with had a girlfriend? It’s not like they stood a chance at snagging him for more than a one night stand without me around anyway.
“So, how long will it be until you hurt poor Alex?” I heard Jodie say from behind me. I shot Marissa my ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ look, sighing before I moved to put my shoes on. She didn’t even deserve to be looked at.
“I don’t know what you mean, Jodie.”
“You know exactly what I mean!” Her tone was sharper than before, but it made me want to laugh, rather than the intended effect of intimidating me. “You’re going to use him, lie to him, drag him down like you do to everybody else. You’re just going to end up hurting him.” I snorted loudly, genuinely amused by the fact she seemed to think I would be the one hurting Alex. I always said mine and Alex’s reputations were identical, but I wasn’t ever pegged as the ‘pick ‘em up and crush ‘em’ kind, like Alex was constantly pegged as. I was definitely just the ‘pick ‘em up and drop ‘em’ kind: no feelings necessary.
“Sweetie, I get that you’re pissed off, I really do, but I wasn’t the one who tried to lie my way into bed with him. He told me you tried to say you were his one-night-stand girl.” I turned to look at her, seeing her pause for a few seconds, looking utterly stumped. Clearly, she hadn’t bargained on Alex actually being honest with me. She (probably like everyone else we knew) had expected him to lie, keep secrets and just generally be a shit person.
“Well,” she said finally, pursing her lips in annoyance, “I heard you did try and tell him that.”
“Is that the best you can come up with? Jodie, I am his one-night-stand girl. The one girl in this entire school who would have the balls to get up and leave Alex Gaskarth, who exactly do you think that would be but me?” I laughed as Marissa finished up getting changed, looking over at her while Jodie tried to work out her next witty comeback. “You ready?” Marissa nodded and I looped my arm through hers. “Not that I’m not having fun, Jodie, but I can’t wait around for ten minutes while you try and think of something to say. Lemme know when you’re up for a real conversation. I’ll be with Alex while I wait.” I winked at her, noting how her face started to turn red with anger as I walked away with Marissa.
“I thought you were worried people would be all over you? That looked a lot like egging them on.”
“Come on, it’s Jodie, the president of the I Heart Alex fan club. She’s the one person in school I’m not scared of. She deserves being knocked down a peg or two occasionally.”
Alex and Jack were already in the gym, awaiting us by the badminton net with a racquet for each of us. We’d agreed to play doubles since Alex had transferred over with Jack last week, Alex and I on one team and Jack and Marissa on the other. We’d already been joking about how much we were like those middle aged married couples who played tennis on a weekend. Marissa and I took a racquet each from our boyfriends, taking our places on opposite sides of the court to each other. Our lessons always started out like this, though devolved into anarchy and boredom within ten minutes, abandoning the activity and sitting around on the sidelines for the rest of the period. It had been like this for a grand total of two lessons so far. What a tradition.
“Alex, the fucking shuttlecock!” I screamed as it nearly hit him in the face. He hit it away coolly at the last second. I knew it wouldn’t remotely hurt him, but then I also knew that he would be bitching about it forever if I didn’t say something.
“Relax, Hol, I totally had it.” I rolled my eyes and reached out for the shuttlecock with my own racquet as Jack hit it back at me, missing it by mere centimetres. “Holly, the fucking shuttlecock!” He mimicked as I went to collect it from where it had landed a few feet away. I flipped him off, picking it up and turning back to where the trio were waiting.
“Jasey’s handling the cock!” Jack screamed loudly, making all of us laugh and attracting more than a few disgusted looks from the people around us. He was so immature, and I fucking loved it.
“God, those were the days. She does that well, doesn’t she Alex?” A boy called as I finally reached my spot next to Alex. Marissa looked at me quickly and I merely shrugged, annoyed by the interruption.
“And just how the fuck would you know, Mike?” Alex spat at the tall, muscular boy who had approached us. He was a typical jock: he’d been on the football team since Sophomore year and had a smile that had used to make me melt. His dark hair was floppy and fell over his eyes, perfectly in style. He had been my last boyfriend, the last person I’d been in an actual relationship with before I started partying like there was no tomorrow, the reason I was like this.
“Hasn’t she told you? Oh, god, she hasn’t!” He seemed gleeful as he realised I hadn’t disclosed our relationship to Alex. It’s not like I was hiding it, it just hadn’t seemed appropriate to blurt out that I’d dated the captain of the football team once upon a time.
“Mike, back the fuck off,” I said, grabbing Alex softly and trying to tug him away.
“Aw, but Jasey, baby, I thought your new boyfriend might wanna share pointers with your ex. I mean, I always knew just what to do to make your knees weak.” Alex’s muscles tensed under my grip and I rolled my eyes at Mike. He occasionally accosted me at parties, trying his best to convince me to sleep with him. Those were the nights I simply left early and went home with Marissa because it wasn’t worth having to hide from him all night. I should have known he’d have something to say when the news broke about Alex and I. “I mean, she was so naïve. But I was her first, she I suppose she would be. Four months I had her. Remember that when the little slut comes on to you. I got there first, I took her innocence.”
“Alex, leave it, please,” I begged as he tried to move toward Mike. I knew what he was like and what he was capable of, so there was no way I was letting Alex fall into that trap. I wasn’t going to be the reason he got hurt.
“You want me to let this go?” Alex seethed. “You want me to stand by and let him mock you like this? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not kidding you, just leave it. He’s not worth it, and I don’t want to see him beat you up. I’ve seen him beat guys twice your size and I will not be the reason this happens to you.” Mike was smirking and it was angering Alex even more.
“You can seriously expect me to stand by and let him say this!”
“I can and I am. Please just do this for me.” I was terrified for his safety. He just didn’t seem to know when to let things slide. Nothing Mike had to say was worth the damage he could do. He shot another glare at Mike before grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the gym and into the open air. The sky was clear but the wind took away any hope of warmth I could have imagined the dim sunlight would bring. Alex and I were both still in our shorts and t-shirt ensemble, so needless to say, we were both freezing within a couple of minutes.
“We just attract drama, don’t we?” Alex sighed, finally starting to calm down after what felt like an eternity of silence, leaning against the main building.
“I’d rather it was us than Marissa and Jack.”
“I suppo- wait, what?” Alex turned to look at me, thoroughly confused by my statement.
“I suppose Jack didn’t tell you either?” He shook his head. “Apparently, they got together, officially, last night. Marissa told me in the locker room.”
“Fuck. I’m gonna kill him. He’s hiding shit from me again,” Alex said jokingly.
“Get in line,” I snorted. “He used to come to me with all his girl problems. He couldn’t ask a girl out without coming to me first.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. He needs advice, he comes to me. I’m like his own personal agony aunt or something.”
Another silence settled over us as Alex’s brief laughter subsided, though this time it was much more comfortable. I watched Alex turning the racquet in his hands (which he’d initially been white knuckling in his anger). It was almost silent out here, with only the occasional blowing of a whistle in the distance and the wind brushing past us. For the first time in days, it was just Alex and I, in peace and quiet, gathering our thoughts and just enjoying each other’s company. I liked it. There was something about Alex that made happy to be absolutely anywhere, just as long as he was next to me to hold my hand; I didn’t care what was going on around us, just as long as Alex and I were okay and still together.
I’d known him a week and he already had my head spinning and my heart pounding when he was near. No guy had ever given me butterflies when we kissed and he did it just by looking at me. I felt like a 12-year-old with a crush on her brother’s best friend, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. He made me feel like nothing could go wrong. It had been a week, and I was already terrified about how fast I was falling under his spell, how fast he was becoming all I could think about, about how easily he could break me if he wanted to.
But there was nothing I could do. I could only sit back and hope to God he didn’t do what was well within his power to do. All I could do was hope he didn’t break me in two.

Notes

Should really be doing my university presentation.
Decidedly not doing it because I have no idea what I'm doing at all.
Plus, I saw Green Day for the first time ever last night, so I'm too giddy to concentrate on anything reasonable.