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

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Marissa started, sighing at me as I stared at her hopefully. “You want me to go to Rian’s party this weekend, watch you get absolutely wasted, flirt shamelessly with Alex and then pull you away before you do anything stupid?” I hummed a little, pretending to think about what she’d said. The boys were tucked safely away in the other room while I had dragged Marissa into my bedroom to discuss Saturday’s plans. I was, of course, keeping my plan to set her up with Jack to myself, knowing she would refuse if she caught of a whiff of a set up.
“That’s the gist of it, but really what I’m begging you to do is to come to a Halloween party with me, have a couple to drink, enjoy yourself and drag me outta there before I inevitably end up hooking up with Alex again.” I heard Jack and Alex shouting at each other through the door, knowing they’d progressed through their game a little bit more. Honestly, considering I could hear Jack more clearly than Alex, I was assuming Alex was beating him. “Did I mention I already bought you a costume? You owe me.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that,” she grumbled. “Okay, fine, but you have to promise you’ll keep an eye on me too. I don’t want to get, like, Jasey drunk and sleep with anyone or anything.” I laughed at her wording, knowing she’d never been ‘Jasey drunk’ in her life.
“And here I thought we were friends. I didn’t know you were an anti-Jasey protestor.”
“Don’t be a drama queen,” Marissa snorted, finally standing up from my bed. “And promise you’ll look after me too.”
“Okay, fine. I promise I won’t let you get too drunk or sleep with anyone. Except Jack, you and Jack would be so cute together.”
“No, you and Alex would be so cute together, but apparently, I have to stop you hooking up with him.” I scowled at her playfully, knowing that she would help me out regardless.
“Me and Alex aren’t you and Jack. You and Jack would have a cute relationship, Alex and I would have a messy one-night-stand. Again.”
“Clearly, you don’t see what Jack and I see,” Marissa stated, standing in the doorway with her hand gripping the door handle. “Alex has never been so affectionate to anyone. He’s all but obsessed with you. I mean, he used to have girlfriends, but even then he wouldn’t cling to them like a love sick puppy. He used to basically ignore them in the hallways if something prettier came walking by, or even if Jack wanted to go hang out doing nothing.”
“Yes, I know,” I sighed. I wasn’t overly keen on rumours, but I’d been going to the same school as Alex for long enough. Everyone knew that Alex wasn’t the relationship type, and that he was bad at it when he tried. This wasn’t news to me. I stood up, moving my way over to the door as Marissa began to open it.
“So, Saturday, you-“ I shushed her quickly, hearing Jack and Alex talking to each other and my name coming from one of them. Marissa looked at me, confused, as I pushed the door almost closed, listening through the crack.
“I don’t know what to do about her. This is insane,” I heard Alex say, sounding quite frustrated. “This entire week has been insane. First I get left on Sunday morning without a word, then you introduce me to Jasey. It’s like my head is going back and forth between the two girls and I don’t know who to choose already. This girl leaves me all alone on Sunday morning, and then refuses to acknowledge that anything happened between us and I don’t know what to do. Nobody’s ever done that to me before; am I losing my touch? Did I do something to piss her off? What?”
“Honestly, judging by the way the girl the week before went on, you’ve still got it,” Jack chuckled, attempting to lighten Alex’s mood.
“Well, what did I do wrong then?! This girl is driving me crazy,” Alex groaned, now openly frustrated. At least I understood his obsession with me now; he was clearly hung up on himself when he thought about Sunday. It wasn’t a case of remembering anything about me, it was literally just that he didn’t understand what he had done to make me leave. Honestly, that made me feel much better. “But, then, oh, my God, there’s Jasey. How am I supposed to describe how she makes me feel? Everything she does makes me turn into a sweet talking mess. But it’s not like when I’m with other girls; I’m saying all this shit to her and I believe everything I’m saying. The thought of using her, of taking advantage of her, makes me feel sick. And I know you don’t want to hear this about your best friend, but I genuinely tried to convince myself that I would pull my usual stunt on her and just hook up and leave her, but I can’t, Jack. I’ve known her, what? Three days? And I’m already wrapped right around her little finger. I’d do anything she asked of me without hesitating. I didn’t know just how dangerous this girl was; I didn’t believe what everyone said about her, and now I’ve been sucked in.” My heart fluttered at his words, thankful I wasn’t the only one having difficulty with the thought of Alex and I. I’d never thought of my reputation as being dangerous in any way like Alex was supposed to be, but clearly Alex had heard something I hadn’t and he seemed to be struggling with the same things as I. I caught Marissa looking at me, smugly, having seemingly been proved right about Alex and I but I waved her off as Jack began to speak again.
“So, what are you going to do? Who are you going to choose?” I could hear Jack begging for Alex to choose Jasey Rae over the girl Alex had met on Sunday, so he didn’t have to continue the charade, but I knew it would go over Alex’s head. As a selfish, seventeen-year-old boy, he was always going to choose himself over the pretty girl he had a mild crush on.
“I don’t know, Jack,” he half-whispered in response. I felt a surge of guilt at the tone of despair in his voice, knowing I was the one who’d made him feel so lost; knowing I could put a stop to this at any moment if I wanted to. “I spend most of my day thinking about Jasey and how she makes me feel, and then, out of nowhere, I think about the girl from the weekend and the way she turned me into a fuzzy mess too. I don’t even know who she is and I sometimes find myself thinking I’d do anything for her and I just get so confused. I feel like I’m going out of my mind.”
“What- what if they’re the same girl?” Jack asked softly, so softly Marissa and I almost missed it. My eyes widened at his words, nerves coursing through my body. I looked at Marissa in panic, seeing she was just as concerned as I. Of course Jack was going to break. I’d been worried about this since I had told him my secret, but I had to admit that he’d lasted much longer keeping this to himself than I had anticipated.
“I’ve already done my digging, Jack. Jasey said she wasn’t even in town last weekend. Besides, you’d know about it if she was, I know how close you guys are, and I also know you wouldn’t lie to me about it if she told you. I trust you both not to lie to me.” His words left me wanting to tell him everything, so I could only imagine just how close Jack was to breaking. Neither Jack nor I had actually lied to him about this, but the deceit seemed to be bad enough in itself. I flounced from my bedroom quickly, flinging myself between the pair and grinning brightly.
“What’s up, bitches? I didn’t interrupt any secret declaration of love, did I?” Jack still appeared a little wide-eyed at his conversation with Alex, still in turmoil over where his loyalties really lay.
“Hilarious, Jasey. You’re so full of witty remarks today,” Alex replied sarcastically.
“You make it so easy, sweetie,” I smiled at him, pecking his cheek softly. I watched his eyes brighten a little at the contact and felt a surge of guilt and nerves once again. I reminded myself that Jack was almost at breaking point and more than ready to start selling me out to his best friend, and I shouldn’t just be sat here pretending that nothing was wrong. “Barakat, I think we need to talk,” I said, suddenly, standing up and nodding toward the door to the hallway. Jack nodded, following me silently until we reached the hall outside my apartment.
“What is it?” He asked, wrapping his arms around me comfortingly. He knew something was wrong, just like he always did, but he could never usually figure out what it was. Especially when I was angry at him.
“Get off me,” I ordered, shoving him back away from me.
“What the hell? What have I done?” He spluttered, looking at me confused.
“You know what you’ve done,” I accused. “You’re breaking your promise, jackass! You were ready to tell him everything in there!”
“Jase, he deserves to know, but I promised you. I won’t tell him anything.” I scoffed at his words, knowing he’d have sold me out to Alex in a second if I hadn’t included him specifically in the promise Jack had made. “I wish you would tell him, because you shouldn’t be putting him through this, but that’s not the point right now.”
“Why would I tell him?” I asked. I knew I wanted to tell him, but I wasn’t going to let Jack in on that little secret: he’d only push and push until I gave in. “As soon as I tell him, he’s going to hate me!”
“I thought you were listening in on the conversation I was just having with him,” he spat. “If you had been listening properly, you would have realised he’s crazy about you. He couldn’t stay mad at you if he tried, Jasey. The only thing stopping him from doing anything about it is this stupid little secret you’re determined to keep from him!”
“You don’t know that, Jack! None of us know how he’s going to take it and I don’t want to risk that! I couldn’t imagine him not wanting to be near me.” It was true. In the last three days I’d found myself utterly drawn to Alex Gaskarth and his sweet words. Imagining Alex hating me already made me want to cry.
“You have to tell him soon. Jodie’s going to tell him she’s the girl who left him at the weekend. I know you give a crap about that, so don’t pretend you don’t. You know what she’s like; this was coming all week.” My stomach hit the floor at his words. How could someone be so selfish? Admittedly, I knew she would do anything to snag Alex, but surely she couldn’t think she’d get away with this? I’d be surprised if she even knew who New Found Glory were.
“He won’t believe her,” I responded, half-heartedly.
“He’s ready to believe anything right now.”
“Then don’t let her come to the party! Alex shouldn’t be fucking lied to.”
“You’re lying to him! You told him you were out of town last weekend and you’re dragging me into it too!”
“Just drop it!”
“No. You brought me out here to talk about this, so that’s what I’m doing. You need to tell him. I won’t choose between the two of you anymore. Tell him, or I’m fucking done.”
“No.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re willing to lose our friendship over this? How can you be so selfish, Jasey? Don’t you see what you’re doing to him? He’s going insane over you, over both versions of you, and you just don’t care! You’re going to destroy him and all you can think about is your petty reputation!” I glared at the man in front of me, willing him to continue down the same track he had been on. How dare he say this to me? That I don’t care?
“Fuck you, Jack,” I said, quietly.
“What?” He seemed confused, looking as if he hoped he’d misheard me.
“Fuck. You.”

Notes