It Has To Be You

Chapter 5

The next day, all Alex could think about was the training session he was going to have with Danielle later. Since she perfected throwing knifes, they were moving on to training with guns. He smiled at the idea of him saving her by taking a bullet for her. His imagination wandered to a world of its own as he went to the dining table.

     There, he found Michael and Danielle eating breakfast and Danielle was laughing at a joke Michael just told.

     “Hey guys. What’s new?”, Alex said, swallowing the bile that was rising up his throat.

     “Oh nothing much, Mike just told me a joke about himself when he was a kid. This is your share. I hope you like it!”, Danielle said as she pushed a plate towards Alex.

     Alex ate his breakfast in silence as Michael told another joke and Danielle cracked up. Alex struggled to keep himself from glaring at Michael as he wished he had a story about himself to tell just so Danielle will laugh at him, like how she was laughing at Michael’s jokes.

     He finished his breakfast and cleaned up. Then he turned and said, “Okay for training today we train with guns.”

     “Cool”, Michael said. “I’ll be happy to train you, Danielle.”

     “Wait, what?”, Alex asked. “I thought I was going to train her.”

     “Not today big boy. You had your chance yesterday. Today, it’s my turn”, Michael chuckled.

     Alex wanted to argue but he knew if he did, he might end up fighting with Michael. With difficulty, he nodded and went to the living room to watch television.

     Charles had already gone out to tend to his clients so Alex was free to watch anything he wanted to. But as he watched his favourite show, Alex could not help but be distracted by Michael and Danielle training at the backyard.

    The backyard stretched all the way to the front of the house and they were training right in front of Alex, the same place where he trained Danielle yesterday. Alex could not help but turning from the television to look outside at them training.

     Everytime Danielle smiled at Michael when he said something, he felt as though Michael was performing an egregious transgression. When she laughed at him when he told her a joke, Alex felt as though Michael had committed a cardinal sin. As Danielle fired the last bullet and it almost hit the target, Michael gave her a word of encouragement that made her blush, Alex’s nerves were driven to almost a breaking point at what Michael did which seemed to be a crime so unpardonable that Alex wished he could trash Michael senseless for it.

     In a flash he knew why, because he was jealous. Good God, he was jealous of Michael.

     Alex had seen people suffer from jealousy in reality TV shows, watched his father languish away because of it. He had always thought of them mad to let jealousy affect them that way. No girl had ever affected him this way, he had always thought he was immune.

     To discover that he was not immune, Danielle held astounding power over his feelings. He could not deny it, because it ate his gut worse than Michael’s home cooked meal. He had to find a way to deal with it and at the same time keep Michael away from her.

     Alex scrubbed his hands over his face, suddenly tired beyond words. This mad obsession consumed his energies and he had no way of escaping it.

      Alex could not stay there anymore. He had to be somewhere else where he will not had to look at them. He had to escape this obsession that was eating his gut like a gastric attack. He looked at the clock and saw that it was noon.