Love is a Laserquest - Alex Turner/Arctic Monkeys Fan Fiction

2002

It's been almost a whole year of Alex and I fooling around.

We didn't mean for it to happen. We didn't even talk about losing our virginity for weeks after that night. So I acted like everything was normal, though I was frantic inside, and then we were back at Stocksbridge in the autumn, and things were back to normal, so I let it go, tried to forget it. Except Matt went to London with his parents the last weekend of September, and Alex and I were alone in his bedroom, with his parents downstairs, and I was making him listen to the new Wilco album that was streaming online.

One minute we were sitting on his bed, backs leaned against the wall, listening to the music and talking about whether or not we wanted to find beer, and the next he was kissing me. I didn't stop him, thrilled in the fact that he was doing this sober, and when he leaned me back into his pillows, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, that he finally felt the same way.

But, nothing changed after that. Except that, occasionally, randomly, we would hook up. There wasn't a conversation about how we felt– there wasn't even a conversation about what we were doing– it just happened. No one knew– not Matt, or any of our other friends– and it was a weird, shared secret we didn't discuss. And while I thought about trying to bring it up– to talk about it with him– I was having too much fun to risk it. I liked Alex, of course, and it was fun to have someone I actually liked to disappear with at a house party just to make out– who went up my skirt after school, in the middle of the afternoon, on my childhood bed, while we attempted to do homework.

And he was acting more like my boyfriend– texting me all day, flirting with me, playing the guitar for me and showing me the songs he had written. He was sneaking into my bedroom at night just to spoon and talk about music. He was reading my writing, and watching movies with me and Dad, holding hands under tables and jackets, so no one could see, and I thought everything was falling into place.

It was innocent, and hormonal, and felt totally natural. So much so, that part of me hoped it would turn into something more– like one day he would hold my hand while we were out with our friends, and suddenly we would be dating. There was this thought that, maybe, one day soon, he would just tell me he loved me, because we already fit together so well in every other way. So, why not?

That's why I'm confused and hurt and feeling sick when I see Alex walk into a house party in June– one where I've already had too many shots with Matt and Jamie– with Melanie Legare. He doesn't say hi to me right away, and I watch them mingling like a couple, his arm going around her, her lips landing on his cheek after he gets her a drink.

And I push my way through the crowd, into the empty back garden, and I throw up into the rose bushes, the night cold and dark around me, feeling my heart break in a way I never thought possible.