Pushin' Me Away • {Joe Jonas}

05. t w i l i g h t . z o n e

When Lex woke up in Nick's arms, everything was blurry for a long couple of moments. At first she assumed they'd hooked up; obviously it wouldn't have been the first time. Her head pounded and she peeled herself out of his grasp to go into the bathroom to get Aspirin and water. It wasn't until she looked at the mascara and eyeliner that was tear-stained down her cheeks that everything came rushing back. She'd told him. She'd told him... everything?

"Oh, fuck," she mumbled, feeling like she was about to vomit. A few moments later, she did. When she was finished, she pressed her forehead up against the cool side of the bathtub beside her and sighed.

"Lex, you okay?"

Nick's voice was gentle on the other side of the door, and when she didn't respond to him he tried the knob and opened it.

"I didn't... I didn't mean to tell you," she whispered as he came and sat beside her on the side of the tub.

"It's okay," he told her, and she shook her head.

"No, it's... I've never told anyone. I don't... I didn't want anyone to know. I just wanted to forget," she rambled, her voice becoming more and more frantic. Panic gripped her and felt like it was squeezing her lungs.

"Hey. Alexandria, look at me," Nick said firmly, knowing the use of her full name usually caught her attention pretty effectively. Her eyes floated up to his and he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not going to tell anyone. It doesn't change anything between us. You're still one of my best friends in the whole world, okay? This doesn't change how I see you."

His words made tears rise to her eyes and she nodded. She'd always been so scared that people knowing her big secret would make them think less of her somehow; it was one of the things she'd always been most scared of, so to hear him explicitly say it didn't change anything made her emotional.

They sat quietly for a while as she tried to compose herself, and as they did another thing she'd shared with him hit her like a truck.

"Did I tell you that I'm still in love with Joe last night?" she asked suddenly, embarrassed. It had been so long and she didn't feel like she had any right to still have a thing for him, even though she definitely did. Nick nodded.

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm not."

"Of course you are. I'm not totally convinced that he's not still in love with you too," he said, and he might as well have dropped an actual bomb on her.

"W-what?"

"What's so shocking? You two were together for, what, like four years as teenagers? That doesn't happen unless it's something real, Lex. Especially when you two were who you were. Either of you could've had anyone you wanted, and you chose each other and were completely loyal to each other. You really think that with how everything ended he just completely lost interest in you?" Nick asked her, and she shrugged.

She'd never really thought about it that way, and she was about to tell him so when the doorbell rang from deep within in the house. They exchanged looks and she reached for his wrist to look at his watch. It was only eight in the morning. She searched her brain to try and remember if she had any other events that day that Meghan might be there to make sure she got to and came up with nothing.

She shrugged again and Nick helped her stand. She scrubbed at the makeup on her cheeks with her t-shirt as she walked to the door, smoothing her hair. A glance through the peephole revealed Joe's impatient face on the other side of the door. Lex's heart felt like it fell right out of her chest and down into her stomach. What the hell was he doing there?

She opened the door slowly and he looked up at her like he was almost surprised to see her.

"Is Nick here? Why is Nick here?" he asked her at once, motioning to where his car was parked in the driveway.

"Why are you here?" Lex asked, genuinely completely confused. Joe closed his eyes and gently shook his head like he was trying to clear it.

"I, uh... I felt like we left off somewhere yesterday. I just... I feel like there's things we need to say to each other," he said quietly, like he was embarrassed at the notion. "Wait, have you been crying?" he asked her suddenly, seemingly actually looking at her face for the first time. So much for her effort to scrub it off. She nodded.

"Yeah, I have," she said simply, just as Nick came around the corner and into the entryway.

"Okay, I feel like I'm in the goddamn twilight zone here. What's going on?" Joe asked, clearly frustrated.

"We should probably talk," Lex said, deciding in that split second that she was going to tell him everything. She'd already told Nick, it was probably time to tell the one of them that probably needed to hear it more. Maybe now that she'd said it once it would be easier to say it again. She doubted it, but maybe.

"Yeah, I think we should," Joe said quietly, his eyes floating between her and Nick.

"I'm going to go, okay? Will you be okay?" Nick asked her, keeping his gaze steady on her even though she was sure it was killing him to not look at Joe and try to get a read on him. She nodded.

"Yeah, it's okay. Thanks for everything, Nicky."

"You're welcome, Lexy," he said, nodding at Joe as he picked his car keys up off of a table near the door and headed out.

"What the hell is that?" Joe asked as soon as the door was closed behind Nick and Lex shook her head.

"I'll tell you everything you need to know, okay? Can we just go sit down first?"