Alex’s POV:

I had my fair share of girls being mad at me. It wasn’t an unusual thing for me. Either they expected me to change for them or they hated me for leaving early in the morning. But the thing was, I was ok with them becoming all hot-headed about those things. I inflicted it upon myself, and it made me feel powerful. Never did I ever consider how these girls felt. I guess you could say I played around, and I wasn’t going to deny it. Everybody knew what I was like. I had my one night stands, I had my friends with benefits, and nothing was going to change that.

If only Mickey wouldn’t have gotten in the way.

I had never planned for a girl like her to consume my life the way she did. But then again, I never knew a girl like her existed; knowing exactly what she wanted, but strong enough to not let anybody play around with her. She was different than any girl I had ever met. She didn’t throw herself at me like some girls would do, she did it skillfully while playing tricks with my mind. I was the one to normally be the strong one, but somehow she managed to reverse the roles for once.

While I didn’t want it to be too obvious that I was so infatuated with her, everything I did seemed to show otherwise. I couldn’t help myself from trying to protect her from all the bad and from trying to be friends with her. It didn’t even have to be a sexual relationship, I just needed the girl who was different in my life. She made me realize that what I was doing wasn’t any good. Maybe she was going to be the one to change my life for the better.

But that seemed to be the problem. I wanted friendship, while she only wanted the sexual benefits. However, there was no way she wanted any of that from me.

Was I going to give up, though? Hell, no.

I continued to keep my eye on her, occasionally trying to approach her, but with no luck. She’d find a way to shut me down, but that was only if I actually managed to get close to her. She was great at avoiding me even though she was new. Somehow she knew about all the other passages she could take to get to her destination.

I already knew better than going up to her during lunch. I couldn’t afford her blowing up on me again and trying to ruin my entire reputation. She was wrong when she called me clingy. I was not clingy. Everybody here knew that. Somebody like Mickey couldn’t just change that in a heartbeat.

It didn’t stop me from looking over Jack’s shoulder as she sat all by herself at the far back table that she had claimed. Something inside me felt bad for her. Nobody deserved to sit all alone. But I knew she didn’t want it any other way. She just ate whatever food she had, listening to music through earphones, and occasionally sending guys away. They were all stupid enough to think that they could choose if they wanted to sleep with her. It was Mickey who chose who she slept with, not the other way around.

And that was what kept me going. She had chosen me before. There had to be a way to break down that wall again.

“You’ll never guess what happened yesterday!” A very disheveled Rian sat down next to Jack, making it nearly impossible for me to look at Mickey. The only thing visible was her red hair.

“I don’t want to hear about your neighbors complaining about our ‘loud noise’ again.” I rolled my eyes and tried shifting a little to find a way to see her again. However, Rian’s body kept getting in the way, so I glared at him. “Will you move over a little?”

Rian stared right back at me before realizing it wasn’t him that I was focused on. He followed my gaze and looked right at the person I had been glancing at. Instead of telling me to stop obsessing over her like most people, he turned back to me with a frightening grin. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

“Just tell us.” Jack groaned, fed up with Rian’s suspense.

“Ok, so, remember how nobody’s been living in the house across from mine? Well--”

“I said I didn’t want to hear about your neighbors,” I muttered and reached out to push Jack out of the way a little. He seemed focused enough on his food to not be bothered by my actions. To my relief, Mickey was still in the same exact position as before; she hadn’t decided to sneak out of school and off to Devon just yet.

“No, you don’t understand,” Rian continued, closing the gap once again by shuffling closer to Jack, “you do want to hear about this. My parents and I went over last night to meet the new neighbors, and guess who their daughter is: Mickey!”

“What?!” My attention fully turned to my friend. I wasn’t expecting this day to be any different to any other, but it was turning out much better.

He nodded enthusiastically to hype me up even more. “Yeah, and her parents are making me keep an eye on her, even outside of school, so I will be forced to spend a lot of time with her.”

“You need coincidentally make me come over the same days you have to hang out with her!” I begged in a manner that even I would consider overly pathetic.

“I was thinking I first try to gain her trust a little before I start doing crazy things like that. If you suddenly show up, she’s not going to want anything to do with either of us, and I’m not going to be the reason why she goes out on a dangerous escapade.” He suggested instead, no longer matching up to my intense interest.

“Ok, I can deal with that. Once you have her trust, though, you need to get me in there. For now, I’ll be fine with any information you can get.” I tried persuading, nearly borderline threatening him. “I need to figure out what makes her so different.”

“You sure you’re not in love, bro?” Jack snorted from his first class seat.

“Alex Gaskarth does not fall in love.”

Notes

I know it's short and shitty, but I quickly wrote this to get the story moving again. Rose is very busy and I will be as well the next couple of weeks/months. I'm going to try to keep this story updated more often, though, hence why I'm writing this chapter instead.

- aweirdkindofyellow