*Jack Pov*

The bus left the school, and the usual plethora of stories began. They ranged from previous years at band camp to what we planned to do the rest of summer. I quickly began to lose my energy, and within the first 15 minutes of the hour drive, I was out. I woke up cuddled against something insanely warm. It took me a second to realize that I had cuddled up to Alex in my sleep. He had his head tucked into the crook of my neck and part of my shirt balled up in his fist. My arm had fallen off of the back of the seat and around him. I had had my head resting on his. I tried to quickly move away without waking him up. If he found out that we were cuddling in our sleep, he'd probably freak out. I managed to break away from his grasp, but he ended up waking up a few moments after.

"J-Jack?"

"Hm?"

"How much longer?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"About 5 more minutes." He nodded. I turned around to the other guys in our cabin. "Ok, I want a bottom bunk. Rian, I presume you want top again?"

"Sure, and I expect Mike and Vic are taking the same bunk."

"Probably. Alex, you want a top or a bottom bunk?"

"I'd rather have bot-tom."

"Cool, so Matt can take the top corner bunk, you can take the bottom corner bunk, Ri, and I can take the bunk next to you guys, and Vic and Mike will probably take the bunk next to us," I listed. "Who else is in our cabin?"

"It's me, you, Rian, Alex, Vic, Mike, Jaime, Brendon, Kellin, and Justin," Matt replied. "Two beds are empty."

"Awesome. No one will be fighting over bunks this year." Last year we had a freshman that thought he had seniority over sophomores and juniors. He quickly found out that he was wrong. Needless to say, we got our usual bunks.

"Just don't start any more fights over hairspray this year," Rian joked. Alex looked at me, confused.

"Last year, Brendon took my hair spray because he ran out. You don't steal my hairspray. We ended up playing tug of war with it until we both flipped over the side of the top bunk. I ended up spraining my wrist, and he sprained his ankle. It was pretty funny." I laughed at the memory.

"Why were you f-fighting on the t-top bunk?!" Alex slapped my arm.

"He ran up there to get away from me, and I wanted my hairspray back." He shook his head.
Our conversation was interrupted by an eruption of cheers. We were here. Band camp, here we come.

After everyone filed off of the bus and had their luggage sorted out, we headed towards Dorm 3, Room 3. Thankfully we've gotten the same cabin every year, so we only have 6 beds. The less people, the better. We ran into our cabin and claimed our beds. We then began to lay out our abundance of snacks on the picnic table in the middle of the room. Most people brought the same type of things. There were 2 packs of Oreos, 5 cans of Pringles, 2 boxes of Pop Tarts, a box of fruit snacks, a box of juice boxes, a 12 pack of Pepsi, a giant box of goldfish, and some other random food items. Naturally Mike and Vic brought a bag of tortilla chips and salsa. Thankfully they brought mild salsa this time. Not everyone has the freaky high heat tolerance of Mexicans. The only other item that I didn't normally see was a small jar of peanut butter sitting on the edge of our table. I've seen people bring Nutella to camp but never peanut butter.

"Hurry up and get situated. Gerard wants you out on the field in 10 minutes," our chaperone informed us.

"Ok. Thanks!" We all replied.

"Ok. Does anyone have a specific food item that they don't want anyone touching?" I asked.

"I d-don't care as long as y-you ask first," Alex stuttered quietly.

"Cool, then I'm going to be stealing some Pop Tarts of yours, so I don't have to eat camp breakfast." He laughed.

"We should p-probably head out t-to the field."

We all grabbed our coordinate sheets and personal markers (small stuffed animals or items that mark your spot) and headed out. After we had all found our way to the field, Gerard called all of us to our section yard lines to stretch. I called dibs on being in charge of the part of the section closest to the home sideline. I took my spot facing the sideline and waited for the drum majors to decide what stretch we would do first. Alex slowly crept into the empty spot on the line in front of me and looked down as if he was going to get in trouble for standing there. I was about to ask him what was wrong, but I was interrupted by Cassadee's voice.

"Okay, first we're going to start with touching our toes for ten seconds," she instructed. We all bent down and counted all of the even numbers aloud. It has always been a thing where the drum majors count the odd numbers out loud and the rest of us counted out the even numbers. By the time we got to 6, I finally realized that I had a perfect view of Alex's ass. I mean, I wasn't staring at it, but I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't glancing occassionally. After crossing our legs and touching our toes again, Cassadee instructed that we stand shoulder width apart and touch the ground. I looked up again, and I caught Alex looking at me, his face tinted pink.

"Enjoying the view?" He mouthed. We stood back up.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I whispered, smirking slightly. He shook his head.
Gerard called us back to attention and introduced us to a guest teacher that would be helping us.

"She has worked with many competitive marching bands, and she is here to help us become better marchers," he explained. I didn't catch her name, but she started talking before I could ask Alex.

"We're going to start with a different type of stretching," she instructed. Wow. I think she's the only person with a voice more annoying than Lisa. We did some weird posture stretching thing, and then she started us on some weird leg thing. "You're going to raise your left foot up to your right knee for 4 counts, extend it out for 4 counts, hold it for 8, and go back down the same way." We did that a few more times with both legs, and we were finally done with her annoying counting. I swear, listening to her say, "and you're there," is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

We did a few more stretches and then got on our lines to go over basic marching again. Most of the drills were redundant and way too easy, yet I still managed to lose track of what I was doing and accidentally did a left flank instead of a right cross. I ended up running right into Alex. We both started laughing quietly. Tay gave me a weird look, but hey, section leaders mess up sometimes, too.

The rest of the morning was relatively uneventful. Thankfully, I'm pretty close to Alex for most of the first song. Well, with a whopping grand total of 12 people in your section, you're kind of close to everyone, but he was, like, two people away from me. I was standing in my set while Gerard worked with another section, and all of a sudden I felt something wet being sprayed in my ear. I jumped.

"What the hell was that?!" I turned around, but no one was there. I dried my ear and continued to watch my section out of the corner of my eye.

"Hey, does this look right to you?" Tay asked from my other side, holding out her coordinate sheet to me. I read her coordinates set by set. Everything seemed to be in order. In the midst of my pondering, I was sprayed in the ear again.

"Ok. Who the hell keeps spraying cold water in my ear?!" The rest of the section looked confused. I wasn't a happy camper. If there's one thing I hate, it's being cold. So having cold water sprayed in my ear wasn't very pleasant. I narrowed my eyes at my section. "Who ever it is needs to stop." I felt it again in my other ear. I snapped my head around to glare at Tay. She had her hands up in the air. I was very confused. If Tay didn't do it, who did? There wasn't anyone standing next to her. In my peripheral vision I saw others in my section stifling a laugh. I was very confsed. All of a sudden the back of my neck became a victim to the icy liquid. I jumped and made a rather high pitch noise. Then I heard giggling behind me. Correction, this wasn't giggling. This was full on laughing. My favorite laugh. Alex's laugh. I turned around to see Alex doubled over, clutching a palm sized water gun to his stomach. That fucker. I'm gonna get him. I rolled up my chart folder (all section leaders get one) and swatted him; however, this only made him laugh harder. The rest of the section joined him in his laughing. Before I could do anything else, we were called to attention. That's ok. I'll just have to get him back tonight.
A few hours later and it was finally lunch. The food, as usual, was awful, but taking a break from marching is always fun. Not to mention, we get almost 15 minutes after we eat to do whatever. I spent my time pestering Alex.

"So, we should play a game," I suggested. Alex gave me a skeptical look. "Kind of like 20Q, but instead of trying to guess what the other is thinking, we can just ask random questions about each other."

"Ok...?"

"Ok, I'll go first. Um, when's your birthday?"

"D-December 14th."

"Favorite color?"

"Blue."

"Celebrity crush?"

"Definitely Keira Knightley." I shook my head. Yup, he's straight.

"We should probably get our stuff together and head back outside," I stated, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice. He nodded and started following me back outside to continue learning our charts for Magical Mystery Tour/Lady Madonna, the first song in our Beatlemania show. The rest of the afternoon rehearsal passed painfully slow. We almost finished charting all of song one before our free hour and dinner. We had three more sets left to go. Once we were dismissed for our hour break, I decided it was a perfect time to go and get a pop from the little store under the lodge where we ate.

"Hey, aren't you coming b-back to the cabin?" Alex asked from a few feet behind me.

"In a bit. I'm gonna go grab a pop first. Wanna come?"

"Sure." I waited for him to catch up. When he was almost behind me, I continued on my way to the canteen. However, someone left their personal marker on the ground, and I fell over it. I landed on my stomach, and not even a moment later I felt Alex fall on top of me.

"Oh m-my gosh! I'm s-so s-sorry!" He stuttered, trying to scramble to his feet.

"Dude, calm down, it's fine." I laughed brushing the grass from my jeans. He looked down again. "I have that effect on people. They can't help but literally fall for me," I joked. He blushed. I laughed again. He gets embarrassed so easily. "It's not your fault that some dipshit left their marker on the field. I didn't see it either." He smirked.

"You f-fell first. D-doesn't that mean you technically fell for me?" He cocked his eyebrow at me.

"Oh shut it," I laughed, shoving him playfully. I paused for a moment. "What's your favorite movie?"
"W-What? Oh. Peter Pan." Aw. That's adorable.

We both got a pop and then walked back to the cabin. Matt and Jaime were listening to music on Jaime's bunk, and Vic was fighting with Kellin over the bag of tortilla chips.

"Kellin! Give me the chips! I want some, too!" Vic begged.

"No, amigo, no," Kellin laughed with a cheesy Mexican accent.

"Hey, Kellin, can I have a chip?" I interrupted.

"Sure, Jack." He held the bag towards me with an evil grin on his face. I looked at Vic and ate the chip. He glared at me.

"C-can I have one?" Alex asked quietly. Kellin held the bag towards Alex, and he grabbed a couple. "Here," he quietly said handing the chips over to Vic.

"Thank you. You're officially my favorite person in this cabin." He glared at Kellin and I. We couldn't help but laugh. "Hey, we'll be the ones laughing when I give Alex the water break pin." We both stopped laughing.

"You wouldn't," Kellin and I said simultaneously.

"I don't joke about my tortilla chips."

Alex raised his hand. "Um, what's a wat-ter break pin?"

"It's a pin that you put on your shirt, and it lets you leave the field to get water whenever you need it. Well, within reason. If you're caught abusing it, you lose it. Only a drum major can give it to you," I explained.

"Cool." He responded. Kellin and I gave Vic another dirty look.

"Hey, why don't we go sit outside?" I asked Alex, grabbing my guitar case.

"Ok. Hey, I d-didn't know you b-brought your guitar!" His face lit up. We walked out of the cabin and over to the steep hill that led to the tree swing by the pavillion.

*Alex Pov*

We walked on the path toward the lodge, but then Jack took a right and went over on the grass. The area was mostly shaded by trees. Even though the hill was pretty steep, it seemed ok as long as we weren't too close to the edge of the flat grass. He sat down, pulled out his guitar and started playing. I didn't recognize the song, but it was beautiful. I couldn't get over how attractive Jack looked in this moment. The breeze was slightly blowing his skunk hair, and he had his eyes closed while he played. He just looked so peaceful. So perfect. We sat there enjoying the music for a while until it was almost time for dinner. Sadly, Jack had to put his guitar back in the case, so we wouldn't be late. We met with our friends at one of the only tables that had cell signal. After calling us all to attention, Gerard informed us that he had some announcements to get through before we could go eat.

"Ok, section leaders, don't forget about introductions. We will be starting them at lunch tomorrow," Gerard announced. Introductions? I looked at Jack for an explanation.

"Every section leader has to pick a new marcher in their section and introduce them during one of the meals. We just kind of say who they are, what instrument they play, their grade, and some random fact," he listed. "I was gonna ask if I could introduce you, but I didn't think you'd be up for that." I froze. I didn't particularly like being the center of attention, but then again, I'd have Jack with me. Plus, he would be talking. I'd just have to stand there.

"I'll think about-t it." His face lit up.

"Lex, you don't have to do it." He reassured.

"I know. I want-t to." He smiled.

We eventually got to eat our less than appetizing camp food and leave for our 15 minutes of free time before night rehearsal started. Jack and I walked back to the cabin continuing our game. We were about to walk into our cabin when one of Jack's other friends called him over to see something on his phone. I went into the cabin by myself. I decided it would be fun to play a prank on Jack. I'm probably gonna get hurt, but I don't care. It'll be funny. I went over to Jack's suitcase and started looking around for his hair stuff. Finally I found his hairspray hidden at the bottom of his bag. I pulled the can out and hid it in the drawstring bag that I carried while I marched. I placed his stuff back where it was in his suitcase and jumped into my bunk with my headphones in. A few seconds later, Jack walked in with Rian and Matt. That was close. Jack came and sat at the end of my bunk. He put his hand on my leg to get my attention.

"Hey, I don't know if you know, but Monday night is always the scavenger hunt. After our last rehearsal, we get into groups and go looking for clues. Which ever group wins is called first for breakfast. However, all of the stations are run by the section leaders and drum majors. So, will you be ok going by yourself? If not, I can just bring you to mine and Tay's station and you can help us come up with weird tasks that people have to do for clues," he suggested. I didn't even give that a thought..

"C-can we p-pick our group?"

"No. Gerard already has the lists made up." I noticed that his hand was still on my leg. I felt my cheeks heat up slightly.

"C-can I go with you?" I felt like I was being clingy and annoying, but at the same time, I didn't want to be in a big crowd of people that I don't know.

"Of course." He smiled. "It's almost time for rehearsal to start, so we should probably be getting back out there." I groaned. I was comfy. I didn't want to get back up. "I know, but you need to come outside." I pouted. Suddenly, he stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me off my bunk. Butterflies erupted in my stomach when our hands touched. I instantly felt my face heat up, and I swear I saw Jack blushing, too. Is there a possibility that he might like me, too? No. I'm imagining it. Even if he was gay, he wouldn't want a pathetic little faggot like me anyway.
The rest of the rehearsal was uneventful. We charted all of song 1 and marched the whole thing. It would suck really bad once we tried marching it and playing at the same time, but it was pretty cool for the time being. Once we were dismissed from marching, I went straight to the cabin to get my flashlight. Jack, Matt, Jaime, Rian, and Vic were already getting their stuff together for their stations.

"We have a section leader meeting before this starts to discuss what we're doing, but as soon as we're dismissed, I'll come find you and show you where our station is," Jack explained. I nodded, grabbed my flashlight, and headed back out to the field. Soon enough the section leaders were dismissed, and the game was about to begin. Jack came over with Tay and began leading the way to our station. It turns out that we were on the tennis courts behind the trees and next to the lodge. Not too bad; however, due to the amount of trees around us, the bugs were awful. I guess it's a good thing my mom packed bug spray. We covered ourselves in the malodorous fragrance and Jack began explaining his idea for a task. I didn't catch all of it, but it was something about onions and twerking. To his dismay, Tay crushed his dreams by telling him that someone else was already doing that. Who on Earth wants to twerk around someone while they eat an onion? That's just weird. We ended up settling on making them serenade us. Personally, I think it's kinda lame, but a lot of the fun things were already taken.

Out of the 9 groups, only three of them were actually entertaining. I got a lot of weird looks from people that I didn't know, probably because I'm not a section leader, but I didn't mind. I spent most of the time trying not to get caught staring at Jack. I feel like a typical teenage girl obsessing over some lame crush. Ugh. I need to get my life together. There's no point in wasting time wanting someone who will never want you. I could feel the miserable shadow creeping up on me again. It was slowly wrapping its claws around my throat and making it hard to breathe.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I felt Jack's hand on my shoulder, but I just continued to stare at nothing. I didn't even notice I was crying until I felt Jack wipe away a stray tear. "Lex?" He was now standing in front of me, his hand still on my shoulder. I tried to answer, but I just couldn't make myself. I just weakly shook my head. "Alex, I know you're not ok." I glanced up at him. He looked...hurt? I blinked and I felt the tears roll down my face. He pulled me into a tight hug and began rubbing circles on my back. I couldn't do anything but wrap my arms around him and cry into his shoulder. I wanted to get these thoughts out of my head, but I couldn't tell him. I didn't want to scare him off. I finally had a friend who has cared enough to put up with me for this long, despite my couple of outbursts. I couldn't afford to let my mind fuck it up. I wanted Jack to stick around. "You don't have to tell me, but if you want to talk, I'm here," he whispered in my ear. I smiled and hugged him tighter. I pulled away, a wiped my face, and nodded slightly.

"Th-thanks," I stammered. We began walking back toward our cabin in the dark. Considering neither of us were smart enough to get our flashlights back out, I didn't see the small hole in the gravel path from where someone kicked a rock out of place, and I tripped in it. God, I was such a klutz. Jack giggled and grabbed my arm to steady me. I felt my face heat up a little in embarrassment. Jack rolled his eyes, put his arm around my waist, and began gently pulling me toward the cabin. If my face wasn't already red, it surely was now.

Somehow we managed to make it back to the cabin before anyone else.
"The others must be horsing around on the field still. So, I guess that means we get first dibs on the showers," Jack stated with a grin on his face. We grabbed our shower stuff and headed into the bathroom. The two showers were on the left side. "I'll let you have the shower next to the wall. I don't particularly care if the guys catch me naked," he laughed. My eyes widened. "It wouldn't be the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last time." I slowly walked towards the shower, my eyebrow still raised at Jack. He just laughed again. "Just get in the shower. I'll tell you later."

Not even two minutes into taking my shower, Jack decided it was later. "Ok, so last summer there was this huge party at my friend Kyle's house. His parents were out of town for the weekend, so he got away with having a shit ton of alcohol there. I had only ever drank like twice before that, but I was getting over a rough break up at the time, and I decided I was going to get hammered. Drunk Kyle decided that playing "I Never" was a good idea, and yeah..."

"I Never?"

"You don't get out much, do you? It's a game where everyone gets in a giant circle and takes turns saying things they've never done. Anyone who has done it has to remove an article of clothing and put it in the center."

"Um. How is that-t fun?"

"It's entertaining. Not to mention, we were all drunk so... Anyway most of the people playing were a bunch of pansy ass goodie two-shoes, and I was down to my boxers in like 7 questions. After that, someone said the loser should have to jump in the pool naked. Kyle thought that that was the best idea in the world. Unfortunately for me, I was the first one out. It was kinda cool for summer, kinda like it has been so far, so I didn't want to do it. I said no, but they weren't having it. Kyle grabbed me and dragged me outside, and he's a hell of a lot bigger than me, so I was completely screwed. Him and a couple of people off the football team finished stripping me and threw me in. Considering I was drunk, the whole swimming thing wasn't going so well. I couldn't really tell which direction was which. After that I heard Rian and Matt yelling at them, and Zack was pulling me out."

"That f-fucker! You could've d-died!"

"Yeah. Needless to say, were not friends with them anymore. But that's the story of how my friends already saw me naked. So I don't really care anymore," he laughed. I just shook my head and turned the shower off. A few seconds later Jack turned his off, too. After getting dressed, I went through my bag and pulled out my hair dryer. I heard Jack chuckling behind me.

"What? I d-don't like going to bed with my hair wet," I snapped rather defensively.

"No, I'm not laughing at you! My mom said I was the only guy on the planet that brought a hair dryer to band camp," he continued laughing.

"Oh. Sorry."

We dried our hair, grabbed the box of goldfish and sat on my bunk. We were only in the shower for a few minutes, so we weren't surprised to find that the others still weren't back yet.
"Anyway. Did you enjoy your first day of band camp with us?"

"Aside f-from the marching part, it was f-fun. I'm really glad I have you guys. I c-can't imagine how bad this would h-have been if I hadn't m-made any friends," I stammered.

"Yeah. You always have us," he smiled and threw his arm around me. "Like seriously. We're like herpes. Even if you want to get rid of us, were still just gonna be there." I laughed.

"W-What'd you do at band c-camp?" I mocked my mothers voice. "Oh you kn-know, played music, c-caught an STD, ate crappy food, and marched t-till I wanted to die," I finished, answering myself. Jack laughed.

"Sounds about right." He got up and started pulling his guitar back out. He started playing it, and I just kinda stared, mesmerized by how easily his fingers grazed the strings. He stopped.

"You wanna play?" I swallowed hard. I did, but, I didn't. You know what, why not.

"S-sure." He stood up, removed the strap from his small frame, and held it out for me. I walked out in front of my bunk and put it on. I preferred to stand when playing. I instinctively started strumming the chords to "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus. Jack smiled. I started singing, and disappeared to my happy place. I naturally started to loosen up. I got about halfway through and Jack started cracking up.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" I stopped, confusion coating my face.

"W-what?"

"Th- The thing you just- the thing you just did with your legs," he spit out between fits of laughter. I was so confused. "I would show you, but if I tried to do that, I'd probably like break my ankle or something!" His laughter was starting to die down a bit. "Anyway, sorry, continue," he commanded, wiping a stray tear from his face. I picked back up from the second chorus.

"'Cause I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby,
Yeah I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby,
Listen to Iron Maiden maybe with me
Ooh-"

Jack started cracking up again. "What!"

"Sorry! You did the thing again!"

"What thing!?"

"The- The leg thing!"

Eventually I figured out what he was talking about. I don't know why I do that, but I always have. It was kinda funny though. Jack decided that he was going to refer to it as the leg thing. Every time it would fall quiet between conversations, he'd lean over to me and whisper, "the leg thing" in my ear. Then we'd start laughing. The guys had come back to the cabin, taken their showers, and were getting ready for bed. Rian walked over by my bunk with a garbage bag, and I gave him a weird look. He began pulling some weird cushion thing and another sleeping bag. He put the cushion on the floor in between mine and Jack's bunk, and then placed the sleeping bag on top. Rian must have noticed my confusion.

"My mom is the nurse here. Every year Jack manages to roll out of his bunk and hurt himself. So she decided she didn't want to deal with him complaining how sore he was in the nurses cabin all day, so she brought a chair cushion and a sleeping bag to put here in case he rolls off again. Then he can't complain that he's sore," Rian explained. Everyone laughed. Well, except for Jack. He just shook his head and moved over to his bunk.

"Wh-what If he f-falls on the other s-side?"

"He always falls on that side," Rian continued. The rest of the guys continued to smirk. Jack just rolled his eyes.

"If it makes you f-feel better, I do that sometimes, t-too," I whispered across the gap. Jack smiled.

"After freshman year, his mom threatened to bring one of those nets you put on the side of little kids beds. I fell off and hit my head on the table thing," he stated, pointing to the cubby style table between our beds. I shook my head.

"D-don't do that," I remarked sarcastically. He leaned over the gap and grabbed my arms. I squealed and tried to escape, but it was no use. He pulled me all the way off of my bunk and onto the mat on the floor. "JACK," I squeaked. I heard the others start to laugh. The next thing I knew Jack was straddling me and messing up my hair. I couldn't help but laugh, too. This probably looked ridiculous. Apparently, it must not have looked ridiculous enough; Matt and Rian started beating us, well Jack, with pillows. What kind of guys have pillow fights at band camp? Or anywhere for that matter? We probably look like a bunch of 10 year old girls.

"You guys are the gayest straight guys I have ever met," a voice yelled.

"Patrick!" Rian exclaimed, running over and hugging the male. "What are you doing here? It's Monday; family day isn't until Thursday."

"Gerard asked me to come back and work with you losers on drumline," Patrick laughed.

"You were one of us losers."

I was still confused. I hadn't seen him around camp. Jack glanced down at me.
"That's Patrick. He was the head of drumline last year, but he graduated," he explained. I nodded.

"Hey, and who said we were all straight," Kellin questioned from the top bunk. I froze, my eyes wide in terror.

"Yeah. Kellin's looking pretty sexy in those pajamas," Vic added. "I'd do him." Everyone started laughing.

"Anyway, Gerard said there were two empty beds in your cabin, so I decided to claim one," Patrick stated with a smirk. He left the cabin, I presume to get his stuff, and the others started taking their extra stuff off of the extra top bunk. I looked away from the scene and looked back at Jack. I felt my face turn red.

"Jack." He looked down at me. "You're still s-sitting on me." Now it was his turn to blush.
"Right. Sorry, haha. I guess it's a good thing Patrick is used to our weirdness," he giggled while climbing off of me and helping me up. Right on cue he came in and started setting up his bed.

It was late, so I decided to go to bed. I was just praying I wouldn't have another nightmare. Scaring the shit out of everyone in my cabin wouldn't exactly be the best way to start camp.

'I felt someone grab my arm, and I was faced with the one and only Jeremy.
"Where are you going, faggot? Did you forget we had a date? Or am I not good enough for you to fuck?" He balled the collar of my shirt in his hand. "Or was my girlfriend enough for ya," he spit. How many times did I have to explain that I didn't sleep with his girlfriend. I didn't even have enough time to respond, because I felt his fist collide with my jaw. "Cat got your tongue?" He threw me to the ground.
"I told you I didn't." He picked me up and slammed me against the brick wall. Ouch. That one hurt.
"You're so worthless."
"You're just still mad that I wouldn't sleep with you. I don't get how dumping me and beating me almost every day is going to make you feel any better."
"I didn't dump you 'cause you didn't sleep with me. I left you because you're a piece of shit. All those years of being friends with you, and you repay me by trying to turn me into a faggot like you. You're pathetic. You should just follow your brother. Go kill yourself. Do us all a favor and spare us from having to see you anymore." He still had his hand holding me against the wall. That was it. He knew my brother didn't kill himself. He's the one that started that rumor. I swung at him, but he easily stopped me. "Oh really. You're going to try to fight me? Looks like you forgot who was in charge." He slammed the left side of my face into the wall. "Pathetic. Worthless. Piece. Of. Shit." Every word was another hit against the wall. I was starting to get dizzy; I could feel blood dripping down the side of my face. Finally he dropped me to the ground, and I thought I was free. I was very wrong. He began kicking me in the side. I could feel my bones threatening to break. I tried to run, but i couldn't even get up.
"P-please," I begged.
He shoved me over on my back and straddled me. No. God no. He rubbed his hands down my chest to the top of my jeans. I started screaming, but there wasn't anyone around to hear me.'
Then it stopped. He was gone. I was cuddled up somewhere warm. I couldn't tell where I was, but I felt a wave of security wash over me.

*Rian POV*

I woke up sometime around 3 to use the bathroom. On my way back to my bed, I noticed Jack wasn't in his bunk. It didn't really surprise me though; I heard him fall on the sleeping bag a bit earlier. What I didn't expect to see was Alex on the floor with him. The second noise I heard must not have been Jack rolling over. It must've been Alex falling out of bed. They were cuddled together, Jack with his arms wrapped protectively around Alex. I swear, those two are so obvious it's pathetic. I climbed over Jack's bed and grabbed my phone. If I didn't take a picture, Cass would kill me. She wants them together so bad. The light from the bathroom, along with the night setting on my phone camera, made it so you could actually see them in the dark. I clicked on my photos to make sure it took, and I noticed that the picture of them on the bus was still in my gallery. I chuckled to myself. It's funny how they practically gravitate towards each other in their sleep. I texted Cass the picture and went back to bed.

*Alex POV*
I woke up to a really bad charley horse in the inside of my elbow. I tried to straighten it, but there was something blocking it. I opened my eyes to see Jack. I was pressed up against his chest, and he had his arms around me. We must've fallen on the floor and accidentally cuddled together in our sleep. As much as I loved this I had to figure out how to get out of his grasp without waking him up. If he saw this, he'd probably flip. I tried to wiggle my way out, but it was no use. I gently pushed against his chest, but he just wasn't moving. I managed to get one of my arms out, so I lightly brushed my finger across his cheek. Thankfully he moved his arm to brush away whatever was touching him, which gave me enough time to sit up on my knees. I was going to get back in bed, but I couldn't just leave him there.

"Jack," I whispered, gently shaking him. Nothing. "Jack," I whispered a little louder, shaking him harder. Still nothing. Ugh. "Jacky," I whined, pushing him over on his back. He jumped.

"What happened?! Are you ok?!"

I giggled. "Yeah. You fell out of bed." He looked around him.

"Dammit. This happens every year the first night I'm here." We both laughed quietly. "Good thinking, Momma Dawson."

Finally, we both got up into our own beds. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't stop thinking. I wonder if Jeremy disappeared because of Jack. Maybe that's why I felt so safe. I looked over at the sleeping boy. He was so cute. I fell asleep counting his breaths. I got to about 47, and then I was out.

Notes

These next few chapters are gonna be pretty long :) Enjoy!

-Em