Jack. Day Twenty Nine - 13:46

It had been almost a month since I'd been outside, well properly, getting driven to Cassadee's apartment didn't really count considering the fact that I was in a dead inside state then and was pretty much spaced out entirely from reality, which perhaps wasn't such a bad decision.

It was weird as hell to be honest; I had almost forgotten the way the fresh breeze felt against your face and the way the grass crunched a little underneath your feet.

Long gone was the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach regarding my capture, because although I was a missing person, I was a missing person walking rather contently through a park and anyway it was Autumn now and I was wearing this ridiculous beanie of Cassadee's so I barely looked like myself anymore.

I think even without the beanie I didn't look the same way I did a month ago; it was kind of weird to explain but I just noticed it. I felt like a different person also and I knew very well that this was all down to Alex.

It was autumn now and the leaves upon the trees were browning a little like off ripe fruit and strangely enough it was kind of beautiful, then again nature would look beautiful to someone who'd seen nothing but blood stains and psychopathy for the past month and fuck, it was one hell of a month, wasn't it?

I couldn't help but wonder what would have become of me if Alex had never started talking to me at that party, honestly it would have probably been absolutely nothing and somehow that possibility scared me more than the current one of kidnap and murder, but there was just this thing about Alex that was irreplaceable, and that was the exact thing that kept me in love with him.

It was very weird to think he was dead, honestly, and it had come to the point where confirming it to myself felt like lying, so then forth I stopped telling myself he was dead and this reality was a hell of a lot more peaceful, having just convinced myself that Alex would come back one day soon and I was just waiting for him right now.

Admittedly that sounded very sickeningly fairy-tale like, but who was I to care? With Alex gone it wasn't as if anyone had a clue as to what I was thinking.

I still couldn't understand how he did that, I guess it was just him, just something he was made to be good at, but that was way too simple especially for Alex.

It was honestly a miracle that Cassadee had let me go out on my own in the state of worry she was already in, but Flyzik had been most definitely proving to be very persuasive, putting forward the very true fact that I hadn't actually stepped outside a house for the last month which most definitely wasn't healthy. After that she let me go, albeit very reluctantly, but I tried to push my conscience aside and leave whilst I could.

It was all so fucking weird man, especially when I realised that I hadn't felt the sun on my skin for what felt like forever, leaving me to wonder just how fucking sickly pale I was. I'd probably get radiation poisoning from standing under the sun's rays for over a second.

As I continued on my journey through the park, I found myself approaching a play park that was just all too familiar and it didn't take me all that long to recognise it as the play park.

My head hurt just a little from that, especially from the realisation as to how close to home I was right now, because with staying with Alex and then Cassadee I hadn't had a clue as to where the fuck in the country I was. With Alex I could have easily even been in a different country.

I found myself sitting down on a bench underneath the enormous oak tree - that enormous oak tree. The oak tree that held more memories than anything ever should.

I remember this tree all too fucking well, and to say it hurt was simply an understatement.

-

Flashback. Jack - Age Fourteen.

To find myself sat under a tree in very close proximity to Zack Merrick was probably pretty close to a dream I'd had the other night, and I was still contemplating the reality of the situation via the means of constantly stealing glances in his direction to make sure he hadn't disintegrated or something and of course all whilst ensuring he didn't catch onto this behaviour.

"You're alright actually, you know?" My jaw dropped open in an astounded state: the guy didn't speak all that much and to have him speak to me to reassure me that he thought I was a good guy was actually causing my heart to fucking soar right out of my chest.

"T-thank you..." I stuttered out, completely at awe with what had just happened, leaving my verbal capabilities somewhat hindered.

"What's wrong, Jack?" He asked, shuffling closer to me where we sat with our backs to the enormous oak tree beside the play park. I could almost feel his breath against my skin as he spoke, causing my breath to hitch in my throat.

I shrugged, not wanting to admit just how much of a failure I was, or perhaps just how in love with him I was. I honestly doubted that either of the two would go down particularly well.

"You're Zack Merrick, like every girl fancies you and everybody loves you even though you barely even speak and I don't understand why you'd be talking to me." I blurted out before I could stop myself, my hand shooting up to cover my mouth in utter astonishment at what I'd just said.

He just chuckled at that, clearly so fucking amusing with my 'accusation' it was almost making me uncomfortable, but as if this situation wasn't already. Man, crushes are stupid.

"I-I'm sorry... I-I..."

"Dude, it's fine." He went in to give me a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but somehow his hand landed on mine and as we both looked at each other we both came to the rather instant realisation that neither of us had any desire to move whatsoever. Fuck.

"Hey, Jack, you wanna know something?" He asked, grinning like an idiot. I simply nodded in response, a little too awestruck to get any words out whatsoever.

"I never really liked girls anyway." Oh fucking shit, man, perhaps I didn't want to know something as fucking mind fucking as this, but fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Oh." Fuck, here's the guy you've been silently crushing on for just about forever telling you he's gay and there's nothing you can say but oh, well done, Jack, well done.

"What?" He laughed, pulling his hand away, and generally snapping my heart right in two in the process but then again all in a day's work for Zack Merrick. "Dude I didn't hold your hand to show off my fucking heterosexuality, did I?" He rolled his eyes, biting down on his lip. "Gonna say anything?"

"You asking me to say something is rather ironic, don't you think?" I caught him off guard with that one, the words tumbling from my lips without any chance for me to run over them to check if they would instantly cause people to hate me, and unfortunately it seems that they did.

"Whatever, kid. I remembered the reason we're not friends and this is it." He got up as quickly as he could, stepping over me like I was nothing and making his way along the path away from me.

"Zack!" I found myself yelling after him, god knows for what reason; perhaps I was just clutching onto what little hopes of sanity I had left. "What's the reason? I'm sorry." I begged, my eyes widening into a state of pleading, which I assume he took great pleasure in ignoring entirely.

"The reason, Jack Barakat, is that you're a fucking coward, come talk to me when you have the balls to admit who you are."

I never did.

-

15:02

"Kinda nostalgic, don't you think?" I jumped out of my skin as I hadn't registered the guy sitting beside me amidst my daydreams, which was probably for the best considering my missing person status that I had the misfortune of reminding myself of every few minutes.

"Oh I-- I... uhh... sorry I didn't see you there..." I mumbled, embracing my missing person status along with the reminder that this neighbourhood was awfully close to home, rendering it likely that at least one person here knew who I was and I just had to pray it wasn't the guy sat next to me.

"Yeah, you were completely spaced out there man." He smiled at me, and I tried my best to not make eye contact without looking deliberately rude or arrogant, because then he'd probably start punching me and I really was not in the mood for that.

"Yeah..." I mumbled, my gaze never meeting the stranger's, "I guess I kinda was."

"Jack..." The stranger let out a sigh and my head darted in his direction as physically fast as possible. "I know who you are." He clarified his words, leaving me to stare at the stranger who turned out to be not quite so much of a stranger after all.

"Zack, I-I-..." My breath hitched, my thoughts clouding as I glanced back up to the tree and I could almost the younger versions of ourselves, sat there awkwardly, leaving the memories of what had happened there all too familiar indeed.

"May I ask what the hell's going on with you?" He let out with a chuckle, still for some reason smiling at me, which was entirely a conundrum within itself. "I'm not going to tell anyone - don't worry." He added, perhaps for reassurance, or perhaps for bullshitted curiosity, either was good.

"I fell in love with someone." I admitted, starting at the end, deciding Zack wouldn't think I was quite so insane if I didn't start with the fact he'd kidnapped, drugged, and fucked me, perhaps if I just started with the fact that he was Alex and I was in love with him, he'd have some hopes of understanding.

"Yeah, that’s a terrible idea - never do that." He chuckled, giving me a friendly shove; a gesture I never could ever quite understand why people did.

"I couldn't help myself... I... he's just so... fuck..." I let out a sigh, my mind completely infecting itself with thoughts of Alex; I really just could not stop myself and I knew very well that this was going to ruin me someday.

"He?" Zack picked up on with a smirk, meeting my gaze and allowing me to blush severely, because fuck, Zack now knew that Alex was he, and that I was gay... but so was he... I assumed. God this was confusing as hell.

"Am I still a coward?" I asked, the corners of my lips twitching and tugging, as they demanded to be released into a smirk.

"God, you still remember that, don't you?" He buried his head in his hands, leaving me to nod even though he couldn't see me. "I’m fucking sorry, man. I freaked out."

"Why?" I couldn't help but ask, possibly and most likely worsening the situation with my curiosity.

"My reputation, I was scared you'd tell people I was gay... and stuff... I stopped caring about my reputation when they found out about me and this guy, Rian, but Rian, he cared and he cared enough to end it between us and I guess that serves me right. I guess I kind of know how you feel and god..."

"Seriously, it's okay, I've been through worse." I admitted, trying to look as reassuring, comforting and compassionate as possible whilst not really touching him at all, which as you would imagine is a lot easier, said than done.

"So did you like run away or something, dude?" He asked, his eyes wandering back up to meet with mine. "Because clearly you're not being held against your will here, are you?"

"No, I got kidnapped, actually..." It was certainly a hell of a lot weirder to say it aloud, leaving me to wonder why the hell I was, but then again, I remembered, despite the years that had passed, this was still Zack Merrick and I was still just a little in awe of the guy.

"What?" His eyes almost bulged out of his skull.

"It's kinda fucked up because, it's this guy who kidnapped me..." I slowly pulled the words from my lips. "He's my boyfriend and then... things changed and we fell in love, but fuck, he might be dead right now, right now he could be dead and no one knows what the hell's happened..."

"Slow down a minute there." He exhaled loudly, clearly having difficulty either believing or simply wanting to believe the words that left my lips. "You fell in love with the dude that kidnapped you? That's kinda messed up, man."

"I know, I know." I let out a sigh, burying myself in the situation and just how utterly fucked up the whole thing was. "I thought he left to kill himself or something - he wrote kind of like a note and he took loads of pills and then I went to stay with a friend and a friend of his is over there now with her and the friend of his, Matt Flyzik, he thinks he isn't dead, because Alex wouldn't kill himself, but I don't know, everything's really fucked up..."

"So you have a possibly dead boyfriend and your staying in a house with some girl and a drug dealer.... that's really not okay, Jack, you know." He met my eyes, almost preaching this shit at me, which I mustn’t lie disconcerted me more than just a little, but he has a kinda scary preacher voice, who can blame him?

"How did you-" I began, confused as to how he knew about Flyzik.

"Everyone in my circles have heard of Flyzik, dude." He let out with sigh, reminding me of just how polar opposite the two of us were meant to be.

"Yeah well, that’s what's happening." I admitted, wondering just how completely astounded myself from a month ago would have been if you told him all of this shit was going to happen. I bet he wouldn't even believe you.

"Do you not want to tell your brother about this, he's been completely fucked up over this?" Zack exclaimed, his voice emphasising in all the right ways to ensure guilty flooded my brain, blocking off any hopes of any rational decisions.

"Wait.. what?" I looked up at him in shock, not accounting for the fact that Joe might give a damn about his missing. "He cares?"

"What the fuck, Jack? Of course he cares!" Zack yelled, almost pissed off at me now, which was just fucking lovely. It wasn't as if I was in enough stress with my fucking boyfriend possibly dead already was it?

"It really didn't seem like it." I admitted, my head hanging kind of limply. "It was at his party that this happened - Alex was there and... Then I wasn't..."

"Everyone freaked the fuck out when you were missing you know." Zack explained, seemingly far too insist upon enforcing the fact that someone cared about me; I knew someone cared about me, I knew people cared about me and I knew that they were Alex and Cassadee, and possibly Flyzik on a good day.

"I thought it was my fault." He bit down on his lip after releasing the few words that I might possibly have wanted to hear least in the world.

"Wait, what?" I couldn't fucking believe this; how could he think it was his fault when we hadn't even spoken for a few years by then.

"This was just after Rian and god I felt so bad about what had happened with you, I knew it was years ago but I couldn't help but blame myself..." He trailed off, blushing a little and generally causing me to feel like shit.

"I'm sorry, for being such a coward." I smiled up at him.

"No, Jack, seriously. I was an ass."

"No, I was a coward."

"Oh shut up." He laughed at me, and soon enough I had joined him.

"Are you going to tell your brother anything?" He asked once more, a little more timidly this time.

"How well do you think he'll take the whole possibly dead kidnapper boyfriend shit, and the fact that Alex has killed six people isn't exactly helping things-" I threw my hand over my mouth as I came to realise just what the hell I'd spurted out.

"Fucking hell... Jack... so he's a serial killer too?" I nodded, simply glad he hadn't utterly freaked out on me yet. "You know he was probably planning on killing you too?"

"I know." I bit on my lip, not entirely wanting to relive certain memories in Alex and I's relationship. "He told me."

"Jesus... this is weird... did you two ever have sex?" He asked out of nowhere, although he really shouldn't have.

I drew my eyes downwards, memories I really did not want to think about running rampant in my head. "Yeah, a few times."

"He went and r aped you, didn't he?"

I wanted to answer, to deny it, but the words were stuck in my throat, leaving me with no hopes of fixing the mess I'd created.

"Fucking hell, Jack." He let out a sigh. "You can't be fucking in love with someone's who did that to you."

"But I am..." Was all I managed to force out.

"Jack, I'm not letting you go back to him and whoever the hell you're staying with." He grabbed my hand in a manner that brought me back all too much.

"I need to go back though, Cassadee's going to be worried..." I begged.

"He's fucked you up, Jack. I'm not letting you stay in this kind of world, okay?" 

"Zack, please I-"

"Do you want me to tell your parents where you are and what's happened?" I shook my head firmly at that.

"Then come on," He tugged on my arm, "you're staying at mine for a while."

The Last I Heard We Hadn’t Changed For Anyone To Celebrate You Paste Your Hate For Attention And Hang It High For Everyone To See

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