Sick Little Games (Zack Merrick)

• Burning Deep Within •

{ t w e n t y n i n e }

I slotted my electric guitar off of the wall from where it hung, hugging it to my chest as Jack watched with a half smile. "Going to miss you, baby. It's only a month. We can do this." I whispered to her as I stroked her neck. My guitars are my pride and joy. 

"Alright, alright, hand it over." Jack held out his hand a I hesitantly parted from the instrument, handing it over to him and wincing when he grasped it the wrong way. If he even lays one wrong finger on her, god forbid breaks her, I'll break his neck.

Jack turned and started walking out of my room, halting at the door at the last minute and turning back to look at me. 

"I'm sorry, for the past few days-" 

"No," I cut him off. "I smoked weed, Jack, I can see why you were mad. I don't know what I was thinking." 

"You were thinking you wanted to fit in with your group of shitty friends." Jack smiled at me, leaning the guitar on the wall next to the door and walking over to my bed, sitting down with his back against the wall. 

"They're not all shitty." I argued quietly, joining him to sit on the bed but leaning my back against the headboard instead. 

"Mariah beats up helpless girls, Oli plays them, Alex pretends to be in love with Mariah when he's been sleeping with Lisa behind her back-"

"What?" I cut him off loudly, my mouth dropping open. 

"Yeah," Jack shrugged, "I caught them like a year ago, they meet up every so often in the library, make out and then go to Lisa's place." My eyes couldn't have been any wider as Jack continued talking like he didn't just tell me a huge piece of vital information. "Carrying on, Jenna's a bitch who's totally in love with Vic- a closeted gay guy who has sex with Kellin in the school bathrooms, may I add-"

"How do you know all of this?!" I exploded, my eyes almost bursting out of their sockets at the mounds of new information I was receiving from him. 

"You hear things when you listen, Justice." Jack told me. "Face it, they're horrible people and you don't need to try and fit in with them because you never will- because you are a good person." 

I took in everything he said as he stood up, absorbing everything he told me bit by bit. He picked up the guitar again and I couldn't help when the question fell out of my mouth. 

"What about Zack?" 

Jack looked at me for a few seconds, glancing at all of the features on my face separately before smiling the smallest smile, barely even a lift of the lips but I noticed it. He then looked at me as if he'd just figured everything out, like he knew me inside out and this is exactly what he'd expected. 

He lifted the guitar from the floor, giving me a smile and walking out. "Zack's always been a mystery, J. I've told you that before." I heard him call as he walked and then the distinct sound of his bedroom door slamming echoed through the house. 

With a sigh, I fell back against my bed, pulling the covers around my body and over my face with a long groan. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep in the awkward position. 

*

"Justice! We're late!" There was a wight on top of me and I just knew it was Jack. "Like, hella late!" He added. The wight was gone again and I rubbed my eyes before slowly sitting up. The room did look too bright for it to be early morning and when I glanced to my phone, discarded on the floor and not on charge like I'd hoped, I discovered it was almost 12.30 in the afternoon. 

"Fuck!" I yelled. 

"I know!" Jack yelled back from somewhere in the house. It made me wonder why our parents didn't wake us up when they realized we weren't awake this morning. I dropped the subject and quickly began rushing to get ready. "Do you want some bacon?!"

"We don't have time for bacon!"

"I'm making it whether you want some or not so hurry up and give me your final answer!"

"Make a lot of it!" I yelled finally. 

*

"There's only like, 10 minutes until lunch." Jack told me with a heavy sigh, or maybe his breathing was just still heavy from all the rushing to get into this damn building in time. We'd missed all of our classes except the last one, which was English for me and I didn't even have time to think about what had happened yesterday in the lesson. 

"Wanna get lunch early?" I asked him. He nodded and we began walking to the cafeteria. I could hear him singing something under his breath and turned to him with a grin, "are you singing One Direction?" 

"No!" He said quickly, blushing and I knew I'd heard the song correctly. 

"Everybody wants to steal my girl," I mimicked him, dancing through the hallway and skipping ahead. He started walking faster to catch up to me, "everybody wants to...take it away Jack!" I yelled, gesturing to him wildly as we entered the almost empty cafeteria. 

"You're an embarrassment." He told me seriously, walking to get to the food. I followed him, deciding to carry on with the song myself. 

"Na na na na na na, she belongs to me!" I don't even think I was singing in the right rhythm, never mind tune. "Everybody wants to steal-"

"Stop!" Jack laughed, "You don't even know the words!"

"So you do?" I asked him, "How very...heterosexual, of you." I teased him and heard a scoff come from somewhere next to us. My head snapped in the direction, seeing Mariah at her usual table and all of the others sitting in their usual seats too. I awkwardly looked away from them all, realizing they'd just heard our entire conversation without me even noticing them in the room. 

How did they even get out of class this early.

"Didn't you bring any of that pasta today?" I asked him in almost a whining voice. The school food is just really disgusting. 

"If I do?" He asked, turning to give me a mischievous smile as he started to pick out some sort of potato creation from the hot food section. He picked up a plate of it and paid, walking back to the tables whilst I followed behind him. 

"I won't tell Bassam that you almost fucking set me on fire this morning." I deadpanned and Jack's head snapped up, eyes directed on me and in a glare before he sighed and pulled the pasta and a fork out of his bag, handing both to me. I sat down opposite him, opening the lid to the pasta and beginning to eat. 

"What a cute date." I heard Mariah's voice behind me just as I'd put the first piece of pasta into my mouth.