Home Again, Soldier

13- What Are You Waiting For?

13- What Are You Waiting For?

Title cred: A Little Less Sixteen Candles A Little More "Touch Me" by Fall Out Boy

The rest of the afternoon I didn't want to talk to Jack. It wasn't until around one in the morning that my thoughts got the better of me. I crawled out from under my covers and took a few steps across the floor until I reached Jack's bed, sitting on the edge near his feet.

"Lex?" he yawns sitting up to look at me. I didn't have an actual plan once I got here.

"What happened between you and Sam?" I ask

He frowns, unhappy with that being the first thing that came out of my mouth. "Nothing worth bringing up again." he repeats what Sam had said, word for word.

"I just heard from someone..."

"Sam told you?" Jack nearly screams but brings his voice down because it is one in the morning.

"No, um, some guys in my class did"

He relaxes a little bit. "Just drop it, Alex"

"It's just that you really kind of freaked me out today with Elijah..." I trail off, not looking him in the eye.

He goes to hold my hand but I pull away again. "It's just..." he sighs and ruffles his hair "She's-"

"Stop." I cut him off. "I don't care how much you hate someone, you use their fucking correct pronouns"

He looks at me, surprised, but continues "Sam is just a person from my past" I note how he still hasn't used correct pronouns, but at least he didn't use incorrect pronouns either so.

"What happened?"

"There's just some things I have to keep to myself" Jack says sadly.

"Okay, I can respect that, but why are you so mean to people at school?" I ask. And when I say I respect it, I really do. I'm not going to pull the 'if you love me you wouldn't keep secrets from me' bullshit, especially since there's things I don't want to tell him.

"I can't..." he looks away ashamed.

"It scares me" and it does because what if he gets pissed off and hits me? Which, is a ridiculous and hypocritical fear because I did punch him that one time when I was pissed off for no good reason, but still.

"Look, what happened between Sam and I, we both promised never to say anything about it" I hear his voice crack at the end of it and it takes me a moment to realise he's crying. For the first time, I lean in and hold him, like he does with me, a role reversal. "It's so fucked up Lexi" he sobs. I pat him on the back, because that's about as good as I am with this stuff, despite being the poster child for someone who needs to be cheered up. So, I mean, you'd think I'd know what to do to make him feel better, right?

"Back, a little over a year ago" Jack starts

"You don't have to tell me."

"But I do" he sniffles before continuing "Back then, Sammy and I were a couple, but not like a normal couple. We were really just best friends since kindergarten and as life went on we grew up. We'd do things but we weren't dating and no one knew. Anyways, Sammy, the little girl I knew for almost ten years told me her mom left her. And when I asked why, she told me it was because she told her mother that she didn't feel like a girl that she thought she was agender. Her mom took this as losing her daughter and lost a sense of purpose."

This is all starting to piece together now. I wipe a few stray tears and Jack keeps talking "I freaked out too, told her that I didn't want to be friends with a freak and she left. She promised that she wouldn't tell anyone about our fling thing we had as long as I didn't spill her secret"