The Party Scene

Hometown Heroes; National Nobodies

(You've got to show them what it means to be alive...Dancing through the night has never been so rock n' roll, you've got a good thing and it's time to let them know.)

Over the next few months, we carried on as normal and Alex and I never spoke of that night again. When Alex had walked me up to my front door, we discussed the holding hands and agreed to just stay friends, because it would be better that way for both of us right now. We'd hugged goodbye and the next day at school went on as friends, and I would go over to Rian's with them for band practice afterschool everyday. Alex and I would then either walk home or get a ride off his mom and he'd either stay at mine for a few hours or I'd go to his. Well, this would happen if there wasn't a girlfriend in the picture.

After that night, we seemed to have an unbreakable bond. I knew I could tell him anything and everything, and he knew he could do the same back, so we each became the other's late night caller if anything was up. I knew if I had a nightmare about that night, I could call him at 3am to talk about it, and if he had a nightmare about Tom he could call me. We'd even gone out for walks in the dead of night, ending up at some all-night diner and sitting there with a milkshake each. We could talk or just sit there in silence, there was no awkwardness between us.

For Alex's birthday, the guys and I had organised a surprise party the week before we broke up for Christmas. With the help and permission of his parents, the guys set up his house for the party while Alex and I went to our spot on the docks so I could give him my present alone. I'd made him a mixtape with the songs we'd discussed many times during our midnight walks or alone time, including quite a few tracks off Jimmy Eat World's latest album futures, that always seemed to be on repeat in both our rooms. He looked down at the box, examining it before carefully ripping the paper off and opening it to find the mixtape. I saw his face light up and his smile widen as he took it out of the box and looked at the tracklist I'd put with it. "You remembered each song?" He asked, surprised. I nodded and smiled, not saying a word. "Thank you." He added before hugging me as we sat on the edge of the pier and we just stayed like that for a few minutes before we both came back to reality and decided it was time to go home.

We listened to the mixtape as Alex drove us back, as he'd passed his test earlier that day and I'd been the only person he'd taken out, making me feel special. Every so often, I would see him looking at me from the corner of my eye and a smile would grow on my face. We drove onto his drive, and he looked around suspiciously before getting out the car and waiting for me to join him before we walked up to his front door together. I was surprised that as we walked, he put his hand on the small of my back and I turned to look at him confused, and he just smiled as if it was a normal thing for us. I shook my head as he opened the door, and that's when everyone jumped out at yelled "Surprise!" at him. He looked genuinely shocked, and smiled as everyone came up to wish him a happy birthday and handed him a drink. He looked over to me and smiled, before being taken away by the group of people as I stood leaning against the door frame of his living room. Rian came up to me and handed me a drink, "He means a lot to you, doesn't he?" He asked, and I nodded, watching as Alex was talking and laughing in the kitchen. "Yeah, he does."

A few days after Alex's birthday, I was round at his finishing our english project on Shakespeare. There was paper and plays all over the floor of his room and I would laugh each time he did an impression of one of the characters. We were sitting opposite each other, checking out our research and highlighting relevant information when Alex said in a serious tone:
 "The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
I looked up at him, his face face inches from mine. My heart was now beating faster as he began to lean in and close his eyes, and I did the same. When his lips touched mine for the first time, my lips tingled at the movement as the kiss got slowly deeper and he put his hands over mine on the floor. I felt electricity run through my veins as we kissed and it felt right, but the moment was ruined by Alex's mom shouting us down for dinner.

My head shot back as I tried to contril my breathing and I avoided eye contact with Alex, taking my hands from under his and fidgiting with them as he called down to his mom that we were on our way. "Jen?" He asked, and I slowly lifted my head up to look at him, as he looked at me confused. "Are you alright?" I nodded, not saying a word and stood up, waiting for him to do the same and we walked down the stairs in awkward silence to the kitchen where his parents were sitting waiting for us at the table. I smiled and took a seat next to Isobel, while Alex sat opposite me and we avoided eye contact throughout the meal, and the conversation at the table wasn't much better. Alex and I just nodded or replied using words with no more than a few syllables, and I could tell they knew something was up.

At the end of the meal, Alex asked if we could go out for a drive, and his parents nodded, handing him the keys as he gestured for me to follow him out. I nodded and followed him quietly out to the car, getting in before we drove off in silence to the harbour.

"So..." He whispered awkwardly after cutting the engine in the parking lot on South Broadway, he took his hands off the wheel and started to fidget with them on his lap and I sat there awkwardly next to him. We'd never really hung out alone before like this, and we'd just had our first kiss in his bedroom while studying for our English project when he decided we should go for a drive. I don't think either of us knew what was coming next, all we'd ever been before this was friends. I turned to face him before beginning, "Alex?" He looked up into my eyes and I saw something I'd never seen before in his eyes. Vulnerability. During the time since I'd moved to Baltimore and transferred to Dulany High, Alex had had around 5 girlfriends, all from different cliques and all dumped within a week, two weeks maximum. See, although Alex was the confident playboy to everyone at school, no one saw him the way me and the guys did. It wasn't that he didn't want to make it work, it was that he just hadn't found what he's wanted. "What happened at yours...did you really mean it?" I continued, geniunely not knowing how he would answer. He let out a long sigh before avoiding eye contact with me and trying to control his hands and plant them on his thighs. "I...Yeh, I meant it." He said, "You see, ever since you moved here Jen, I've...I don't know how to explain it. You've made me think differently about life and, well love." At this point, he made eye contact and took my hands in his. "I started falling for you that first day when we met in homeroom. I didn't know it at first, because you make me feel different to the way I've felt with all the other girls, none of them measure up to how I feel about you."

At this point, I was in total shock. How had I not seen this coming? Sure, Alex had got a little jealous when other guys showed interest, and we used to mess around a lot and we felt really comfortable around each other. But could it really be because we were falling in love? While this information was going through my head, I hadn't realised Alex's face slowly coming to mine, and by the time I realised, I could feel his warm breath on my face before his lips touched mine, and just like before, we began to kiss yet again. And this time I felt what he was talking about. The electricity.