Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Seventeen - Story of My Life

I was tapping through a digital deck of cards a couple days later, leaning on the stone façade of the local theater, frowning in the cold air as my thumb flicked across the screen. A message popped up at the top, notifying me of another text from Alex as I rubbed my hands against my thighs, getting the fabrics of my jeans and hoodie to catch on each other so my sleeves shifted to rest over my knuckles. Patrick Stump was singing Thriller in my ears, and despite the fact that I fucking loved that song and I was actually out of the house, spending my time on something not completely dissatisfying and useless, I  was in a pretty pissy mood.

Kellin had begged out of the trip in order to go to church - or something - on that Sunday afternoon, I’d been alerted through Alex half an hour ago that Josh had been taken off to his grandparents house instead of showing up for Warm Bodies, and Alex himself, the A plus guy he was, was late. So late that the movie was supposed to start in five minutes and I was still alone outside the theater, not even in the heated interior of it because I felt like too much of a pathetic loner standing in the corner of the lobby, next to the fucking ridiculously huge cartoon character cardboard cut outs, by myself.

All I wanted was to be sipping a coke and wiping buttery popcorn grease on my skinny jeans while watching that stupid First Look thing they do before the film starts with teenage brunettes who I knew from gym surrounding me. But, apparently, that was too much to fucking ask for, because, no, I was huddling in on myself against the Baltimore wind, legs crossed in a way that probably made me look like I needed to piss because my jeans had torn straight across the left knee when I was bending over to tie my shoes that morning and my leg was cold, tapping my foot impatiently to the beat of my music.

I scowled upon reading Alex’s latest text, promising that he was almost there and it was just a minor bit of traffic holding him back, and going back to my game of solitaire. I really, totally, passionately hated solitaire, but I also could not stop playing it.

Just as my song switched over to (Coffee’s For Closers) I realized that I had completely screwed myself over and had no possible way to win my game. The ace of hearts that I needed to unravel the rest of the solitaire game was stuck somewhere in the only remaining uncovered stack of cards, and even my phone admitted that I was fucked after displaying the dreaded ‘No useful moves detected’ message when I resorted to clicking the hint button.

So it was with a somewhat annoyed, surprised yelp that I turned around when a poke landed on my shoulder, coming face to face with a grinning Alex who said something that I could not hear.

I pulled out my ear buds, uttering a ‘huh?’ and looking Alex up and down as I coiled up my wires and phone, tucking it into my pocket and wrapping my arms around my waist to press the material of my t-shirt closer to my cold skin.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Alex assumedly repeated, giving me a sheepish grin. And even though I was still chilled and slightly ticked off, I really couldn’t do anything but smile back and reply that it was fine as we headed towards the entrance together, because Alex’s hair was a little bit ruffled from the wind, and he was wearing these tight black jeans and thin white v-neck and blue button down rolled up to the elbows, which actually made no sense because the weather was just tipping over towards winter and the sky was overcast, and that boy must have grown up in fucking Antarctica or some shit because how was he not freezing to death, exactly?

But he had his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans and his sneakers kind of shuffling along the pavement and those annoyingly cute dimples were on show, so screw if he should rationally be wearing a jacket. He looked good either way, even though I was slightly baffled by the clothing he’d chosen, especially when I felt his goose bump wrist brush against my fingers as we made our way inside.