~Jack POV~
“Jack. Jaack. Jaaack. God dammit Jack get the fuck up you lazy little shit!” Someone was prodding me in my side. I groaned before rolling over and coming face to face with Alex.
“Ungh. What do you want at this ungodly hour of the morning?” My voiced cracked, still heavy with sleep.
“It’s almost 7…” He started before I groaned again, rolled back into my sleeping position with my back to him and muttered how it was stupidly early.
“Fuck you Lex, why would you do this to me?”
“In the evening.”
“Shit.” How the fuck did that happen? “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
“Because you are a grumpy ass when you wake up, besides you look adorable when you’re asleep.”
“You were watching me sleep? Do you even know how creepy that is?”
“You love it though. Anyway, I woke you because I wanted to play you my new song.” He left the bed and walked across his room to collect his acoustic guitar when he stopped suddenly staring at a spot on the ground.
“Lex, you okay?” I asked, frowning slightly at the older boy who was still, staring at the floor seemingly frozen in place. When he didn’t answer me I pulled back the covers and walked over to my best friend. “Alex?” I waved my hand in front of his face to try and draw his attention, but he didn’t even blink. I followed his gaze and saw a shiny piece of metal on the floor. When I bent down to see what it was, my heart dropped. I saw it was one of his razor blades. I swiftly picked it up and pocketed it before pulling the shorter boy into a hug. It was only then that he finally let the tears fall. I lead him back over to the bed where we both collapsed down on it and Alex just curled up into a ball while still clutching my shirt. I wrapped my arms around his waist, thumbs tracing soft patterns into his hips while I muttered sweet nothings to him to get him to calm down. After about half an hour, his sobs died down into a quiet whimper. I whispered for him to go to sleep, knowing from past experiences that it was one of the only methods that consistently worked in calming him down and giving him something to do. When he eventually did drift off, I checked my phone to see that my mom had called me multiple times over the last day and a half. I went to listen to one of the latest voicemails that she had left when a text came through from her, telling me that I was grounded for not telling her where I was, leaving in the middle of the night and was strongly recommending that I returned my pretty little ass home before I made things any worse for myself. I chuckled to myself as everyone seemed to have an interest in my ass and was constantly calling it ‘pretty’. I glanced back at Alex and he looked content in sleep and was a hell of a lot more relaxed so I didn’t have the heart to wake him to tell him I was leaving. Instead I just left a note for him telling him that my ass was required elsewhere. I knew it was risky leaving him like this as he would definitely be upset when he woke up, but there wasn’t really anything I could do.
When I got home and explained to my mom that I had been with Alex she relaxed considerably as she knew most of what was going on with him (apart from the self-harm part) especially as we practically lived together, whether it was round mine or his didn’t matter. Although I was still grounded for not calling to tell her I was round his. I explained that I had been asleep all day causing her to laugh as she knew how bad my sleeping pattern was. My grounding was shortened to just a week and I could deal with that easily, so I sauntered off to my room to play on my x-box for the rest of the night.
After a couple of hours of me pointlessly yelling at the game as though it could hear me, my phone rang and when I saw it was Alex I knew it wasn’t going to be for some sarcastic response to my cocky note.
“Jack, please can you come back? I don’t wanna be on my own right now. I- I don’t tr-trust myself not to.” He sounded so broken and desperate, that I went back down to ask my mom if I could start tomorrow.
“No Jack, you are being punished for a reason,” she sighed.
“I know and I get it, I really do. It’s just Alex really needs me right now because he had a near panic attack and had fallen asleep before I left so he’s in a pretty bad way right now. I promise I'll be back in a couple of hours and then I won’t ask for any more favors.” I pleaded, holding my hand over the speaker so that said boy couldn’t hear what I was saying.
“We both know that’s a lie, but fine. You can go, but I want you back before eleven or I will never let you leave this house again.” God I loved my mom.
“Thank you! I'll see you later,” I told her kissing her cheek and walking out the door towards my car before telling Alex “I'll be there in a few minutes okay? I’m just leaving now, please don’t do anything stupid.”
“Thank you.” Was the shaky response I received before we both hung up at the same time.
