We'll Share The Sun (A Jalex Fanfiction)

Chapter Five

ALEX'S POV

One of the most awkward things about being a teenager is the lag between when you think you're growing up, and when you're parents think you're grown up.  So around three hours after getting home and expecting to just relax and eat dinner in front of the T.V., I couldn't help the blush that came to my cheeks after my dad recited Grace when my mom said loudly, at the ready-made dinner I was forced to sit down to, "How was school today?  Did you make any friends?"

 Marley snickered.  "Not likely," she said, waving her forkful of take-out pasta in the air.  "He was probably just listening to his dumb ass music the entire day."

"Is that true?" My dad asked sternly.  "You need to be focusing on your schoolwork, Alex.  You can't afford to get behind halfway through the year."

I opened my mouth in disbelief and shock, ready to tell him that May had completely made that up, but I didn't get the chance.

"You don't have to worry about that with me, dad."  Marley butted in.  "I've already finished all my homework for the next two weeks, after hanging out with a group of kids that really like me."

I rolled my eyes.  My sister was possibly the most conceited thing I've ever known.  But there was a reason she was my father's favorite.  Dad had been a straight A's student all throughout high school, and had apparently been extremely popular in his day.  So Marley, who everyone, both teachers and peers, loved, was definitely in the spotlight.

Me, I preferred to stick to the sidelines and was perfectly content getting B's.  I definitely preferred my mother to my stern father, but in all honesty I didn't really feel a close bond with either of them any more.  They had always been a bit on the cold side and they had never really gotten involved the way that I noticed other parents had.  They seemed to just simply be there, as if they thought of it as their duty of something.

I missed the days when I had no expectations to meet, no worries and I still believed that my parents loved both my sister and I equally.  Although only a year older than me, Marley and I lacked the bond that most siblings had, especially ones close in age.

Sometimes I think what it would have been like if my brother, nine years older than me and eight older than Marley, hadn't chosen to die.  I wish I could say that his death was the thing that pushed my family apart, but it was like this even before Tom died.  In fact, he was the person who warmed the room, when he was even around.  Marley and I had both looked up to him devoutly, but he was older and was just starting his life, always at various jobs saving up to get a cheap apartment and bringing home different girlfriends to do things that I obviously hadn't understood at the time.

"Alex, finish your dinner!" My mom snapped, looking annoyed.  In our house we always had to finish what was on our plate, with no exceptions.  I sighed, talk about school clearly forgotten, and continued to spear the lumpy pieces of pasta.

Humming, I finished the last bites and brought it up to the sink.  My dad, who always read the newspaper at night so my mom could read it in the morning, ruffled it loudly.  "Alex, could you please make all that noise somewhere else," he sighed.  "I am trying to read about the problems of the world, and I don't need to hear that irritating music of yours anymore that needs be."

I clenched my jaw, irritated.  Firstly because every single morning he always hummed his stupid jazz.  Secondly, how could anyone dislike Blink-182???  Sometimes I hated how indifferent my parents could be.

JACK'S POV

After Alex left, I chucked all of my binders into the small closet and stretched out onto the floor.  I let out a huge yawn.  Damn, that must have been the first time I had finished every single piece of my homework that I had.  It was only like four o'clock and I was already tired.  I am not one of those people who can stay up late and wake up early, and I had gotten like five hours of sleep last night after trying to play a particularly difficult guitar riff, which was written on a sheet of paper three feet away from my nose on the ground.