20 Hours - Jack Gilinsky

hour 5; story time

"No, Jack. No more sleeping." I say sternly as he starts leaning the seat back.

"Come on, Aus. I've been touring for 3 months and haven't slept properly since. Cut me a break." He said while whining like a baby.

"Tell me about it." I say, suddenly interested in his life.

"Huh?" He said confused, shifting his seat back into an upright position.

"Tell me about your tour, tell me about what happened, your craziest fan, tell me about it."

"Oh, I didn't think you'd be interested in that." He said honestly while his eyes glazed over in confusion.

"Jack you're crazy of course I'm interested." I surprise myself by saying that instantly, not even giving myself a chance to think about it.

"Wow, okay," he said wearily, eyeing me up and down like I was going insane, "Well I guess I'll start with where we went. We started the tour four months ago in the U.S., we traveled from the west coast then went up and down the country until we reached Miami. My favorite stop was- and is- always Omaha. The energy is always so infectious, the crowd literally moves with my lyrics. They know all the words to the songs, usually singing louder than Johnson and I, and I always see some kids I knew from my high school when I'm performing. This year it was super cool because my 10th grade English teacher bought meet and greet tickets. We took a picture where she was holding my ear and wagging her finger at me, the funniest part is that I'd been in a similar position before." We both laugh at that, his pearly white smile causing my less-than-average smile to grow larger.

As Jack talked more about his show in his home town (and how the crowd was "super hype") the way he spoke instantly put me into a weird mood, I felt at ease. The way his words flowed so eloquently from one to the next let my mind relax, my walls that I had spent 5+ years building up instantly fell down. He was the key that I thought I had destroyed to a lock that no one could find.

My thoughts caught themselves on his words, hanging desperately on each syllable, wanting nothing but for him to talk slower so I can hold onto the warm feeling that he built up inside of me. In a weird way, I could tell that me attentively listening to his every word- watching the way his lips formed the letters perfectly- put him at ease too. There was something about this combination- him talking about what he loves, and me listening and praying that he talked longer- that made my whole body go into a frenzy of tingles.

At some point when he was talking, his hand made its way onto mine. Maybe it was when he was telling me about his security throwing a crazy old lady out, or maybe it was when he threw his head back in laughter- his hormone inducing, addictive laughter- or maybe it was when he talked about Madison traveling with them. I don't remember when it was, and I think that's the most important thing.

Ever since freshman year I hadn't allowed a boy to touch me without flinching, but Jack's touch makes me calm. I invite it with open arms (literally I just want to hug him all day).

"Austin?" Jack says after he's been talking for a while and I've zoned out what he's saying and started just staring at his lips.

"Yeah?" I ask, shaking my head out of my trance.

"I said tell me a story from your trip, since it's obviously story time." He teases and I stick my tongue out at him. He laughs at my childish action and I join in with him.

"Okay, there was this one day, I was in Paris at the time. I was just walking around and eating a whole baguette, and don't judge me unless you've eaten French baguette from France. I found myself at the Eiffel Tower, it was gorgeous, more than I could have imagined. The whole ambiance of the area was heart warming, I was practically in teenage girl heaven. And as I was sitting there- obviously loathing the fact that I'm lonely and single- when all of the sudden three girls came up to me and started speaking French at me. I was so confused because I only know a few words, they looked super excited and they were screaming at me and hugging me violently.

"Soon enough a whole crowd of people were surrounding me and I'm pretty sure not one of them spoke English and I was standing there with half a breadstick hanging out of my mouth and probably looked like I was going to cry or poop myself. Finally, after like 15 minutes of me standing there hopeless, some girl noticed how confused I looked and asked me if I spoke French. I shook my head and she furrowed her brows and said 'oh well we are all just really big fans,' I was so confused and I asked her what she was talking about, they all thought I was some famous actress. I ended up having to explain to them all that I wasn't famous and that i was sorry I wasn't who they thought, which took some time because not one of them even understood English and when I tried to speak French to them it was even worse. After that they all dispersed, but I got followed back to my hotel by like 6 girls who thought I was lying to get them all to leave." I finally finished my story, and I looked over at Jack, his eyes were closed and soft snores were leaving his mouth.

I decided to let him sleep- not because of how tired he was, or because of how adorable he looked while sleeping, or even because I didn't want to seem too clingy after only knowing him for 3 and 1/2 hours- because his hand was latched tightly in mine, his fingers were laced with mine, and a slight smile tugged on his lips.

My heart raced as I though of how on earth his hand got there without me noticing, especially since I can't stop noticing now. I thought about how we still have 14 and 1/2 hours in this plane together, how I could maybe stand out to him in someway, how he could some how remember me and I wouldn't just fade into the crowd of girls that fawned over him. I wanted to be the person Jack Gilinsky told his friends was the one that got away.

So, I ripped a corner of a piece of paper out of my sketch book, I left my address to my dorm and my email, leaving out the phone number but writing
'if you want my digits then you'll have to get them the old fashioned way ;) -yours truly, Austin Not-The-City Fara'
and I slid it into his suitcase.

This was the ballsiest thing I'd ever done, considering before this I had only ever talked to the librarian outside of my regular schedule of teachers and the craziest thing I'd ever done was forgotten to return a library book on time.

I turn to my left, and take in Jack's appearance for the 100th time in the past hour, but this time, he looks different.

He doesn't look like the shielded and broken guy that I've been seeing, he looks like happy, and the light twitches of his hand in mine are all reassurance that he's actually here, and that the feelings that I'm feeling are all too real.

I let my eyes close, I'm allowed to sleep for at least 30 minutes after that stupid story time.