The Greatest Force Ch. 05

"We come from broken homes."

Parker froze in place, foreign to my undiscovered, brighter tone of voice. Jenna adjusted the leg she was leaning on and stared at me. Cara dropped her hands.

I pointed at Parker. "You come from a broken home."

I pointed at Jenna. "Your home is hella broken."

I pointed at Cara. "And you just like fucking shit out of proportion."

"Your life is shit, Parker. Your mom acts like she's still 18 and your dad is a cheating, shameless bastard. I get it. It's shit. Your life sucks ass at home so you make up for it out here."

"Your parents don't know how to raise a fucking child," I turned to Jenna. "They only had one kid, one fucking job, one fucking job and they fucked it up."

"Parker." Jenna crossed her arms and frowned, expecting her boyfriend to stick up for her.

I was working up a momentum and I felt hot blood surging in my veins. "And you're the worst kind," I faced a casually leaning Cara. "Because you don't even come from an unloving family, you've got the world in your hands, don't you, sugar? Rich daddy, rich mommy, mansion home, bad ass Range Rover years before you got your license, a guy who would do anything for you the instant you asked for it, who you deliberately led on for ages without," I bounced in place and tightly pinched my thumb and index finger together, "an ounce of remorse while you could physically see him deteriorating before your eyes, you heartless bitch, you sick fuck," my voice rose and shook at my last words in overwhelming emotion.

They all stood the same as they were, except now all of their jaws were gaping open. Alec was crying silently, but now more than before, never looking away from me.

"How am I even saying this when I've done the same?" I thought to myself in panic. "Who the fuck am I? What the fuck am I doing? What the hell have I done?" My head started to spin and I felt maniacal. I was overcome with the urgency to fix what I had ruined.

"Jett," he choked through Parker's still-iron grasp. I disregarded Alec and his expression that begged for me to not do what I was about to do.

"And I," I pointed to myself and paused, feeling the heat in my blood film over my face. "I come from a broken home. My family is fucked up. My parents are fucked in the head. I'm fucked in the head, just like them. I'm a fuck up. And I fucked up extremely bad in these past months, more than any of you." I desperately batted away the promising, dewy tears in my eyes. "I made a mistake." I looked at Alec, whose lip was shaking under shuddering breath. "I made a mistake. I was selfish. God, I'm barbaric. I'm an animal."

For a second, I lost my words in the reflection of Alec's tears, in the gentility in Parker's stare, in the dumbfounded expression across Cara's smooth face, in the, for once, straight face on Jenna's mask. I felt hopeless, homeless, stranded in the fog over me.

I helplessly laughed. "But I like being that way, or I don't care, at least. I don't know why...it's just who I am...it doesn't feel wrong in the moment...it's so natural...and because of it I took advantage of the one of us with the most broken home, and the most broken heart. At first I thought I became one of you, but I've always been one of you." I stood awkwardly and sighed and fiddled with my hands and looked around in attempt to avert my own attention from crying. I rubbed my forehead. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know why I lied." My eyes steadily rose to meet Alec's still gaze, still and strong. "I do care about Alec, and I think it's shit that none of you do. What reasons do you have? You don't have any, really, do you?"

One by one, their stances and their faces slumped and hunched over more and more, growing with shame and regret and confusion. Alec jumped up suddenly, startling Parker and dying to wriggle or writhe or claw or kick his way out of his enemy's arms.

I saw Alec dig his palm into his chest, and watched his face crumble into a sob.

"JETT!" Alec managed to shout. I took a step forward out of instinct and held out an understanding hand, making sure to not ruffle Parker's feathers.

"Parker, let go, come on," I pleaded calmly. "It's important, you can't do this."

"I can do whatever I want." Parker said nastily.

He yanked Alec's head up by his hair, revealing the stinging, blush red hue that had formed in the hollows of his eyes. His sunken features seemed to be growing more and more weary. He looked up at Parker and whispered "please please please," then his knees gave in and as Parker released his grip, Alec fell to the floor.

He agonizingly crawled on the floor to his backpack that was thrown 10 feet away and hurriedly fetched out one of the bottles I'd seen lying on his kitchen table the first time I visited. Two pills were sent down with a trembling hand. I felt ashamed watching this happen, not being able to imagine what the pain in his chest felt like even though he'd explained it to me once before. But of course, I hadn't listened to him. Catching glimpses of words and a couple of words here and there was all – I never opened my ears to him when he was talking about serious things. My ridiculous behavior was replaying before my eyes. Alec coughed painfully and grabbed his chest, laying flat on his back on the concrete floor. We all stared at him struggle to sit up and breathe steady again.

"What the hell was that?" Parker was upset, feeling excluded from major details, as though this issue with Alec should've been something I told him about so we could poke fun at it.

"Why are you acting like this?" he finally said to me after fearfully looking at Alec. "What happened to you?"

Jenna had almost reached the wall where Cara stood against with her arms crossed and bearing a little pout, offended by what I had said earlier and Parker's inability to defend her.

During the 30 seconds it took for Alec to go from Parker's arm to the floor by his backpack made me calm down. My voice was casual again, that returning nonchalance and confidence that I bathed in every day of my life. The mask I wore for myself and everyone else. But this time, it was a different motive.

"Go big or go home." I shrugged and chuckled. "You're a cool guy for the most part, Parker, and you're the closest friend I've ever had even though we're not 'best' friends." Parker smiled glumly. I tried my best to save my friendship with Parker and not totally destroy Alec as my lover. "But your friends are shit excuses. My friends are shit excuses. The only friend I have that isn't a shit excuse is Alec, and I don't even," I uncomfortably dropped and raised my hands and quickly looked back and forth from Alec to Parker.

"I don't even know what we are anymore. I don't know what this is, I just want this day to be over, and for once, I just wanna go home, dude."

Alec got up to leave and seemed to be whisked away with the gentle curves of the wind. He was gone before I had the chance to turn around to watch him go. I felt disgusted with myself and didn't know how to feel, and there was so much fury and embarrassment pent up inside me that I just felt like crying in front of everyone and dissolving into the air that was fresh and crisp against my skin that glinted with sweat.

But I didn't.

I just left.

I didn't say anything to anyone, and no one said anything to me.

They watched me walk away.

I could hear Jenna's heels clicking around in slow circles, deciding my fate.

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Taking a different route home in hopes to avoid bumping into Alec, my mind ran over a summary of what had happened back in the parking lot. I stopped in my tracks and dropped my hands. Slow, sarcastic, forced laughs of disbelief escaped my mouth and my head looked left and right like a lunatic. Did I just do that? Was I that stupid? All I had to do was live normally through senior year and I'd be set, but I fucked it up. I fucked it all up. Now I had a major problem to deal with.

The rest of the journey home consisted of me putting my hands atop my head and pressing down as if to delete my memory of all that happened and start over.

I prayed for a time machine.

A do over.

A genie.

Anything. I wanted anything to go back and change it.

Of course, inevitably, I ran into Alec. The stunningly quiet, collected, patient, bright-eyed soul sat in wait for me on the curb between where our two houses crossed blocks. The rings around his eyes were irritated and still red, the type you get after crying a lot where your eyelids sting to touch. His elbows rested on his knees, his head rested in his hands, and we stared at each other until I passed him by and he stood up to talk.

"Jett." He called. I kept walking, not looking back. Anger and guilt tickled my chest.

The sun glowed loud and strong, pouring warm, golden sun onto the earth as though letting water out of a bucket. The sky tinted purple and orange, a typical Californian sunset. Clouds of yellow and pink smothered the sky. My back was to the sun. I focused on the strong and heavy shadow under my feet.

"Hey." Alec's voice cracked, hesitated. I didn't stop.

"HEY! YOU NEED ME!"

I stopped cold in my step. In a couple of seconds, I let out an angry chuckle. I turned around.

Tilting my head and squinting at Alec for clarification, "What did you say?"

He was not comfortable with being loud and outspoken, anyone could tell by his shaking hands and constantly readjusting facial features. He wasn't confident at all, and he was afraid. But even though he trembled on the outside, his shout was deep and smooth, bearing the strength and honesty and belief of nothing I'd heard before. His shout was true, sure, unshaken.

"I don't need you, Alec." I stated bluntly and shrugged. "Not anymore."

"You need me," he replied quickly. "You don't have anyone to love you in your life and you feel like no one loves you either, I can tell. That's why you're so rotten. But I can change it."

"So? What are you saying? You love me?" I laughed, annoyed.

Alec didn't speak. I adjusted my standing position so instead of looking at him sideways, I faced him completely. His head blocked the sun, creating a crown of gold around his feather-soft hair that smelled ever so lightly of freshly peeled tangerines.

"I don't know if you've noticed, or if it has been even close to obvious, but I'm extremely detached and emotionally numb. There's no way I'll come to love you."

Out of the sheer determination set in Alec's heart, for god knows what reason, he pushed aside what I had just said and continued on his own.

"I see you at home sometimes when I go on walks. Through the window. Your dad beats you,"

My eyes averted to the white picket fencing along a neighbor's lawn. I impatiently bounced my foot up and down.

"I remember you'd come to school with bruises. In the locker room. All over your body. You told everyone you were wrestling with your friends, I remember."

I shut my jaw tight and looked at Alec again.

"I couldn't figure out what you did to make him stop...but one night, when you came over, I noticed the cigarette burns on your sides."

I felt like throwing up.

"You started hurting yourself. He didn't have to anymore."

"You don't know SHIT!" I screamed unanticipatedly. Alec didn't flinch.

"I know how it feels to have no one." Alec said bluntly – so casually, so plainly. "I know you don't want to love anyone, 'cause everyone you love either hurts you or leaves." He frowned. "Why would you think I don't know that?"

Shaking my head in refusal, denial, rejection and mistrust, I shook in my skin and felt a steaming tear cut down my face. Alec walked up to me and hovered his cheek right next to mine, not touching me with his hands – just standing there. His sweet, cool breath immediately drifted into my ear.

The sun was visibly starting to set, the half, brilliant globe of light standing on top of the suburban homes.

I stood staring into the sun. Just then I felt a flush, silky touch against my cheek. Alec's lips were careful and gentle while his hands moved to hold mine.

"I'm no good." I tried. "You know it. Why do you keep coming back for me?" But Alec moved his lips to mine, passionate and calming behind the radiance of the yellow star.

For once in my life, or for as long as I could remember, I let my heart take over – something I thought I would never do again and thought I'd forgotten how to do.

I rested a broad hand on Alec's delicate cheek, lightly moving him into my lips and rubbing my thumb across his jaw. I felt like I was kissing him goodbye, or kissing him in apology, or kissing him to love him and wanting him to love me too, all in the span of a sunset, in the middle of our neighborhood, in the spur of the moment. I pulled his face apart from mine. We stopped kissing and stood in the after light of the sunset with our foreheads touching and our hands hesitantly intertwined.

"What you said back there," Alec broke the silence. "It – it meant a lot to me. For you to say that...I never thought you would do...something...like that..." Alec stammered.

"That's because I've never done anything like that," I laughed anxiously, rubbing my nose.

"Well, you shouldn't let it all go to waste. I mean...go big or go home...right?"

I laughed faintly, then laughed freely, then laughed exuberantly and crossed my arms over my chest. I leaned in to land another drop of love onto Alec's blushed, plump lips. For a split second, my imagination wandered and I visualized making love to Alec again.

"I really want to go to your house right now." I shyly admitted.

Alec didn't need to say anything. All it took was the winking light in his eyes and I turned around so he could jump onto my back. We ran through the darkening street, under the soft purple sky that lingered in light as long as it was granted.

Alec's weight was no burden to my strength, and I was able to let go of his legs and spread my arms wide while running in the cool air. We laughed and shouted in relief. I spun around in circles and he kissed me on the cheek again and again. His cold arms remained fastened around my neck, promising to hold on forever, trusting me not to falter.

I'd never seen Alec smile so big and for so long. Little wrinkles around his eyes and laugh lines on his cheeks began to show through, as though he'd been happy once before, and slowly but surely the past joy began to return to familiar ground. Every time I looked up at him, he sported a bright, pearly toothed smile with twinkling eyes and full, genuine laughter. It looked and felt like all of the wonder and happiness in him had been stored away for ages and suddenly it had found its way out and was savoring every single second of being alive. He warmed my heart and made me feel like I'd done something selfless and good and right.

We barged into his house and bounded up the stairs. I took no time to lay him on the bed and slip him out of his rolled-up sleeve sweater and reveal his rounded, pebble nipples that puckered farther when I rolled them in my fingertips. His ribs were bruised, and a reducing swell shown on the skin above his heart. His face was scratched and prickled with drying blood, and his sweater sleeves and back were dirty from the parking lot floor. But he didn't seem to care or be aware of any of this, and instead focused on tracing the lines on my upper arm...lightly running cautious fingers over the healing cigarette burns on my side...

"You did it there so no one could see." Alec murmured. His raspy voice made it nearly inaudible. I pushed my palm from his stomach, up his chest, around his neck, and to his face, cupping his cheek in one mighty hand. I watched him watch my body. I sat on my knees above his midsection and stretched tall so I could peel my shirt off of my back.

"I don't want to talk about the past." I threw my shirt to the floor. "Or my problems." I propped myself up on my elbows. "Or anything about me." I let my face venture close to Alec's. "Just you. I wanna hear about you."

"I always tell you about me, Jett." He slightly shook his head. "You never listen."

I smiled subtly. "I'll listen this time." Alec looked into my eyes for something more.

"I promise."