My Exact Opposite | Jachary AU

14

"Zach, that was amazing!" Dani says with a grin once everybody's packed up to go home. I smile and reach for the stuff in my desk, but as I grab my notebook, a slip of paper falls out. Bending down, Dani picks up the paper and reads it out loud.

"'Meet me on the roof of the school after class. We need to talk.' Who the hell wrote that?" Daniel asks, confused.

"A curly-headed boy who wants to redeem himself," I grumble and gather up all my stuff.

"You don't have to go," Dani says gently, but I shake my head.

"Holding a grudge was never one of my strong areas," I trail off, biting my lip. "I'll go, but -" Go alone, says a voice in my head. A voice that sounds so much like -

"Jack." Dani practically growls. Shhh, Jack says inside my head.

He has fucking telepathy.

How?!

Keeping a poker face, I put my hand on Dani's arm and see Jack's eyes flash with anger. "It's okay, just go back without me." Dani nods with his jaw clenched, and as he goes out of the room, he grabs the front of Jack's shirt and whispers something in his ear. Jack pales and nods, and Dani releases the front of his shirt. Dani casts a pitying look over his shoulder, and then he's gone. I walk up to Jack and we shadow travel to the roof.

"You know somewhere else we can talk? If people see us they might assume one of us is gonna...." I purse my lips, thinking of a place we can go when an idea suddenly strikes me. I actually chuckle a bit and see Jack looking at me weird.

"You good bro?" He asks, and I nod. I hold my hand out for him to take and he hesitantly takes it.

"I-if I take you there, you gotta promise to not be freaked out or anything, o-okay? It might not - "

"Zach," He cuts me off with a light laugh. "It's fine." I look at him, grin then jump with him off the edge of the roof. Jack's eyes widen as he realizes what I just did and he starts screaming as we approach the pavement. When we almost crash, I make a pool of darkness just big enough for us to travel through and we plunge through it.

The minute we land, I open my eyes and realize I've done it.

I've traveled to the shadow world.

"Oh, wow." I breathe. The shadow world looked like the world above, but there was nobody there. No colors either. The whole world was black, white, or different shades of gray. Right now we were standing in a park, just me and Jack.

"Jesus, Zach. Did you really have to - holy shit." Jack says as he focuses on our surroundings. "What is this place?" He asks incredulously.

"The shadow world. When I shadow travel I've always wondered what the world in between look like, so here we are." An awkward silence settles over us for a few minutes until I speak again. "W-what did you want to talk to me about?" I'm stuttering for some reason and I don't know why.

Jack shifts on his side to face me and sighs. "To tell you I'm sorry for the billionth time, and to - talk."

"I guess I forgive you....but what did you want to talk about?" Looking up from my hands, I see Jack's piercing gaze and I suddenly know what he's gonna talk to me about.

"Zach, you shouldn't have went through what you went through. No one deserves that kinda dirt, an - and I'm sorry for the way I acted. I guess I just wanted to prove myself to those jerks and - " Jack sighs. "And I guess that I didn't really think about who I was gonna hurt in the process. It was only after I broke up with Gabbie that I realized how much she'd changed me and - fuck it - I found out yesterday that she'd been cheating on me the whole time with Brad....I caught them making out in an empty classroom. My uncle came a week ago to watch over us 'cause mom and dad had to go on a business trip and h-he found out t-that I was b-b-bi. He d-drank some alcohol and got out a belt and h-he...." Jack breaks off and looks at his hands, tears silently falling.

"Everything's going so bad, Zach. I don't know if I can do it anymore." Suddenly, it's as if my mouth gets a mind of its own.

"I was ready to do it before we moved here," I say, then scoot closer to him and tilt his head up, wiping away the tears. "But then I started to notice the little things in life, like the sunset, or the way the ocean glitters at noon or the way the wind blows the leaves at night. I guess what I'm trying to say is that once you notice the little things, everything starts to come together more, I guess. That's also the most I've ever said." Jack chuckles at my last sentence.

"Very philosophical, Herron." He sighs and looks at the lake, the gray pool completely still.

"Why don't you talk that much? Or go to parties, for that matter?" Jack's gaze burns into the side of my head as I look down at my hands.

"I can't answer that, but I think I'd rather watch from the sides. You can learn a lot by not being in the picture. I've gotten pretty good at reading people, actually." I sigh contentedly and lay down, looking at the sky. After a few minutes, I remember Jack's voice in my head. I sit straight up as Jack looks at me alarmed.

"You have fucking telepathy. How the fuck do you have telepathy?" Our eyes lock with each other and I can see the excitement in his eyes.

"I can mimic different Skills."

OMG I AM SO SO SO THANKFUL FOR ALL OF YOU GUYS WHO READ MY BOOK!

Also, I kinda don't know what to write next apart from Jack telling Zach bout him being able to mimc skills. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE suggest ideas down belowu.

I WILL BE BACK.

VERY SOON.

kthxbaiiiiii :):)