Dude, I love you

Chapter Twenty Four

Jack Johnson’s POV

I woke up with Jack’s arm lying on my hip. I felt both surprised and giddy inside because this isn’t how we fell asleep. The spare mattress was chewed up by Stanley awhile back so my mom suggested we just share my bed like we used to when we were kids. Jack’s head at one end and mine at the other, though we’re bigger now we still had enough room on the bed for both of us. We stayed up late watching movies and playing online in the basement. My parents and Jeff came home and fell asleep but we continued to stay up and pig out after coming to my room.  

A knock at the door made me jump out of bed in a heartbeat. I almost fell on my face getting caught in the blanket. I threw my pillow to the opposite side and whipped the blanket back so it would look like I slept on that side.

“I’m making breakfast come and eat when you’re up.” My mom says from the other side of the door. I heard her footsteps walking away. She didn’t even open the door and I had a heart attack for nothing.

When I turned around Jack was looking at me still half asleep rubbing his eye with his fingers.

“What’s up?” he asks with a deep raspy voice. Why don’t I get a morning voice like that?

“My mom almost came in and you were spooning me.” I say with whispered urgency.

“Oh,” he paused to wake up more. “You sleep like a damn starfish and kept waking me up when you kicked me. So I just slept on your side to actually GET some sleep.”  He says rubbing his face with his hands now.

“Weren’t you scared my parents would walk in?” I ask still in a tone of urgency.

“No, I didn’t exactly plan on spooning you. That was just an accident.”

“Oh okay that explains that, but why did you take off your shirt?” I ask noticing he wasn’t wearing it anymore. It wasn’t a big deal we still had our own blankets but it would have still looked wrong if one of my parents walked in and seen him holding me with no shirt on and spooning me.

“I got hot. What’s the big deal?” he asks sitting up and leaning on his hands to look at me.

“Dude, my parents could have walked in anytime.” I state lifting my palms in the air like that was an obvious issue.

“Isn’t that what you want? This thing we have going on?” he asks

“What do you mean? What ‘thing’?” I ask, confused.

He paused to look at me, wide awake now “Uhh, the kiss. The holding hands. That thing.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Where did that leave us? I mean I wouldn’t mind just being best friends but at the same time I wouldn’t exactly mind if we were more than that.

He noticed I wasn’t responding “Where DO we stand anyways?”

It took me another while to contemplate everything and respond “Best friends.” I say meekly.

“Best friends that kissed and held hands?” he looks at me questioningly.

“Uh, I guess.” I shrug.

“Okay.” He says getting out of bed. He walked towards me and hugged me, holding me for a prolonged amount of time when I hugged him back. Why is he always so warm?

He started to walk towards the door but seemed to remember something and turned back.

“JJ can you pass me my shirt? It’s on the ground over there.” He says holding onto my side as he asked. His hand lingered in the air as I walked to pass him his shirt.

“Thanks.” He says with a smile. He pulled on his shirt and then put his arm around my head and pulled me in as he ruffled my hair. He kept his arm around my shoulder until we reached the door and entered the hall. I could smell bacon and eggs wafting in as soon as the door opened.

We both rushed towards the smell and the start of a new day.

* * *

It’s been two weeks and things have changed quite a bit. My family stayed home for Thanksgiving and so did Jack’s family, so we had the feast at his house. Our moms cooked and we pretty much ate ourselves into food comas. I slept at his house that night and we shared a bed again. More comfortable I might add since his bed is bigger than mine.

At school there seems to be another division happening among our grade. Justin seems to have less friends than before because a lot of people didn’t think he would go as far as beating me up apparently. Rochelle has gotten a bit more popular since Jack and I both hang around her now, along with Daniel of course. Jack’s friends have also been more open to being friends or just being nice to Rochelle and me. Rochelle calls herself ‘your queen’ now that she has gained a bit more popularity.

Justin got suspended from school for a week and he was forced to apologize to me with both our parents present in the principal’s office. He hasn’t even acknowledged me since then besides a ‘hey’ when Chris and Jack stopped to chat. I see Claire often hanging around Justin and Chris in the cafeteria or on the bleachers now. She still glares at me sometimes but Rochelle tells her off when she’s with me and that happens.

Jack came over one night and gave me a king chess piece. It was quite large and wooden. I asked why he was giving it to me and explained that he threw out that blade I had and said to use this as the new totem. He had the darker king piece at home and gave me the light one. I asked him where he got such heavy chess pieces from and he said it was from his grandpa’s antique chess set.

It made sense. The kings commanded and governed their lands in the olden days for better or for worse. He gave me the light colored piece and kept the darker colored one because they represented us with my blonde hair and blue eyes and him with his dark hair and brown eyes. It made me happy to think of how much thought he put into this.

In a week Winter break is going to start and my family is going on vacation some place. My parents haven’t told me and Jeff yet. It’s a surprise. Jack is staying here for the winter break and I won’t see him until Christmas day when we come back before going to visit family.

Things are looking up and our future’s getting brighter every day. I no longer feel disconnected from reality, in fact I look forward to it every day. Knowing I’m never going to be alone as long as I have my family, Rochelle, Daniel and especially Jack.