Ever After

Wake-Up Call

---

This chapter is in Jack's perspective.

---

I received the angry vibration of my phone as a wake-up call, its ear-shattering ring hissing against the tile floor it'd slept on. It brought me to remember plugging it in the night before, thankfully having dug up my phone charger in the backpack I'd brought along for the plan - unfortunately, now that it was ringing at what was supposedly five o'clock in the morning, I wasn't too thrilled.

I shifted only the slightest in order to grab at it, not wanting to disturb Mark. I found it too adorable how he found solace in resting his head against my chest, need not mention how cute it was that he'd only stirred in the slightest throughout the night, usually in order to wrap his arms about my waist or nuzzle in deeper.

Although it was an unknown caller, I decided on picking it up, for it certainly wouldn't be the first unknown caller I'd ever received, seeing as I rarely ever listed contact names in my phone. However, very little of my acquaintances ever called.

"Hello?" I groaned, my voice accustomed to not knowing who was on the other end.

"Who is this?" a deep musk responded. Then, "Doesn't matter. Is my son there?"

"Your... son?"

"Mark," he said angrily, "my son. Is he there?"

I froze for a moment, my hand slowly moving my phone further from my ear so that his father wouldn't hear my heavy breathing. I stole a stare down at the kid, watching as his eyelids fluttered in reaction to something in a dream - I didn't bother wondering what as I sat in silence, save for the humming sound of some sort of machinery in the school's basement.

"Hello?" his father finally pressed on, his voice seemingly a mile away from mine considering the distance between my ear and phone. "Are you there? Who is this?"

I felt my heart rate rocket as I clicked the End Call button, not wanting to be ridiculed by his father any more (for our relationship was shitty enough as it was, just another to haunt me forever). Another few minutes dragged by, his father's angry tone not to be heard (thank the Lord), before Mark shifted and lifted his head up, turning to face me with a lazy expression.

"Who... who was that?" he asked, eyelids barely hovering in order to show their pupils.

"No one," I said, plugging the phone back in. "No one important, at least."

He shrugged, going back to lie on my chest before saying, "That was fun."

"What was?" I asked, not quite getting what he was hinting at.

"What we did last night."

And then it all came flooding back to me, as if the sight of him shirtless (against what I now recognize as my bare chest) wasn't enough. What I'd dreamt had happened had actually happened - the images of us kissing, touching, and feeling one another weren't just a figment of my imagination.

I found it hard to believe, really - we were the furthest two opposites could become. He was an antisocial nerd, the kid who would hide in corners and never speak up, the kid who did exactly as he was told and couldn't get a word in edgewise even if he wanted to. He was the kind of kid who worked day and night, whether it be doing homework, at the Coffee House, or struggling to escape his own worries.

I, on the other hand, was much different. Although I had my share with social anxieties and daily worries, I found our personalities to be quite different (and I'm sure others did, too). I, unlike Mark, was the kind of person who never did as the man told, who barked back at every opportunity given. I wasn't the type of guy who would let the three stooges trick me into doing their work for them with their blackmailing schemes, for I would've ended up sprinkling arsenic into each and every one of their coffees if that were the case. Nor was I the type of person who would let things go by without being acknowledged; if I were to catch someone I'd supposed was my boyfriend kissing my worst female enemy, I certainly would do more than run off sobbing.