"...and it's just so awkward! Imagine you and Layne having a fight. Wouldn't that be weird?" Alex made a funny gesture with her egg roll before taking a bite of it. She was at Jerry and Layne's, sharing a dinner of Chinese takeout with Jerry, her eyes flickering to the window every ten seconds to see if Layne's car had pulled in.

"Yeah, it would. Stop waving that around, all the green shit will fall out," Jerry said.

Alex made a sour face and stuffed the rest into her mouth. "Shut up. Give me advice."

"Alright, fine. Yeah, I have some advice for you. Don't wave your food around like that."

"I hate you," Alex groaned. "I'm being serious, Jer, this whole thing just fucking sucks. I can't even enjoy this meal. And Chinese food is my favorite. I'm actually so upset over this whole thing with Charlie that I can't even enjoy my favorite food."

"Fine, give me a second. Well...have you and Charlie ever fought before?"

"Not like this. We've just argued. And the arguments never last for longer than a day and they're never over stuff that even matters."

"Damn. I didn't even know what I was gonna say if you told me you guys fought all the time, but this is even harder to try to think of an answer for."

Alex blinked and dropped her head, hitting it hard against the table. "Wow. I mean that. Wow."

Jerry laughed and poked the top of her head. "You have to talk to her, dummy. Tell her you're sorry or something."

"But I'm not sorry! I didn't even do anything wrong," Alex exclaimed, not lifting her head.

"Then why are you the one trying to figure out how to make things better?"

"I don't...I didn't come here to be subjected to this mind game."

"It's not a mind game, Lex." Alex picked her head up at the nickname and crossed her arms, looking down at the food on the table. "But I don't really know what's going on anyway. I think you should just talk to her."

Alex sighed. "Fine, I'll try. So, what time is Layne supposed to come home? Because I know Charlie's gonna be with him and I kinda wanna leave before that." She saw the way he was staring at her and added, "don't give me that look. I'll talk to her eventually, I just need time to think about what I'm gonna say."

"Thought so. He said he'd be back at around ten," Jerry said with a shrug, opening the box of fried rice. "You have time. Try to enjoy this shit--it's your favorite, after all."

✩✩✩

March brought with it nothing but slightly warmer weather and a whole lot of complaints about how fast time was flying. Too much was going on. Temple Of The Dog's album was about to hit the shelves. Matt had finally asked Jo to be his girlfriend (and she'd accepted, of course). Charlie and Alex were still in some kind of freeze-out, but it had evolved into an actual but still very sneaky and unspoken fight, in which each did things she knew would piss the other off. They hid keys, stole favorite desserts, swiped loose change, broke small belongings, made sure to never leave leftovers, separated their clothes so neither could borrow even though Charlie loved Alex's Beatles shirts and Alex could never tire of wearing Charlie's green-and-black hoodie, and more. They both hated such pettiness and had always considered that kind of thing beneath them, but neither was ready to actually talk about it.

Everything was really changing now. Jo spent just as much time as Charlie away from the apartment, staying over at Matt's place most nights. It was a stretch to say that Charlie even lived there anymore. And Alex seemed to have a comfortable little routine going: go to work, spend the evening at Joey's, sleep for four hours, repeat. The cycle was only broken on weekends, when her friends practically forced her to hang out with them instead of spend the entire time at Joey's.

The shit would hit the fan, as Alex would say, on an unusually warm weekend at the end of March. It started out great; Alex herself had been woken up by the phone ringing at nine in the morning and had answered to hear she was being summoned to Stone's for breakfast.

"Aw, look at that! You're actually on time!" Eddie joked as he opened the front door for her. "I hope you're hungry, 'cause we have a million pancakes and a lot of mix left."

"Am I ever not?" Alex laughed, hugging him in greeting before walking in. "It smells like heaven in here!"

"Hey, one of the songs on the album--never mind. Hi," Stone said as Alex made her way into the kitchen. She gave him a hug and looked around with wide eyes, seeing that Eddie hadn't been lying about there being a lot of pancakes.

"One of the songs on the album what? And why did you make so many pancakes?"

"Nothing, it's actually a surprise and I almost spoiled it. And I just made too much batter, that's all."

"Always the smart one, aren't you?" Alex took a pancake from one of the stacks and sat down at the table. "Where's everyone else?"

"It's just us for now. Not only were you on time, you were early. Congratulations, Alex, that must be a real first."

"Shut up, I can be punctual when I want to be." She was glad Stone didn't push it, because try as she did, she couldn't think of a time when she'd been early for anything. "So, what's going on with Pearl Jam?"

"We're gonna start actually recording the album this week," Eddie replied. He put a single white envelope on the table and said to Stone, "you got mail."

"Hey, that's great! I mean the recording stuff, not the mail. Well, the mail's cool too, but, uh..." Alex awkwardly trailed off and shook her head. "Where are you gonna record?"

"London Bridge Studios," Stone replied. He put the last pancake on a plate and turned the stove off. "Alright, that was the last of the batter. Mike and Dave said they'd be on their way soon, but who knows what their definition of 'soon' is. Jeff should actually be here by now. But explaining all that already took too much time and I don't feel like waiting anymore. Let's eat, fuckers."

The trio ate their way through half of the lot before the rest of Pearl Jam arrived. The meal ended up being divided into fairly equal parts, and everyone left the table feeling full. Everyone proceeded to make fun of Jeff for the reason he'd been late (he'd popped his bike tire and had had to walk it the most of the way there).

"He pops a tire at least once a month, and it's always while he's on his way to hang out with us. It's been like that since middle school," Alex told Eddie as the last of the food was being polished off. "I bet he does it on purpose."

"You've known him since middle school?"

"Well, Stone and I were in middle school. He was already in high school. That old loon."

"Yeah, he couldn't make any friends in his own grade," Stone chimed in, making Jeff whack the back of his head.

"You're one to talk. The only ones you could make friends with were Andy and Charlie and this delinquent," Jeff said, faltering just a little at Andy's name but managing to carry on.

"This delinquent?" Eddie turned to look at Alex.

"Yup, that's me," she replied, making that sound like it was a title she'd worked hard to earn.

"Don't sound so happy about that," Jeff said, patting Alex on the back before putting his plate in the sink.

"It wasn't happiness. It was pride."

"Wait, we didn't go to school with you guys," Mike said, gesturing to himself and Dave and Eddie. "Now you gotta tell us why they're calling you that."

"There's nothing to--"

"The first conversation I ever had with Alex was about a crime she'd committed," Stone interrupted.

"What crime? Did you get caught?" Dave asked.

"Graffiti," Alex replied, rolling her eyes. "And no, I didn't get caught."

"Well...she didn't get caught by anyone who'd get her in trouble for it."

✩✩✩

"...and I was thinking we could watch Rocky this weekend. I'll just have to ask my parents to let me have an advance on my allowance so I can pay for my ticket and snacks, but I'm sure they'll say yes." Charlie took Alex's cookie and broke it in half, taking the slightly smaller half and putting the other back on Alex's tray.

"No, no." Alex opened Charlie's milk carton and dipped her half of the cookie in it. "We'll sneak in. And we can just steal the snacks."

"Oh, I don't steal..."

"You don't have to. I can do it."

"Even so, I'm not sure about--"

Alex groaned and rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll sneak cheaper snacks in. I passed the theater last week and I came up with a way to do it--it shouldn't be too hard."

"Your eye for crime is almost impressive." Charlie took a sip from the bottle of Coke they were sharing and reached into Alex's open backpack to retrieve the candy she knew was in there.

They were trying to rip open a package that had an almost admirable determination to stay sealed when someone sat down across the table from them. They both looked up in surprise and the box of Nerds finally burst open.

"Who the hell are you?" Alex asked, picking three spilled pieces of candy off the table.

"I'm Stone. And you're the new girl in Mr. Wilson's class--are you new to just the class, or to the school? And hey, Charlotte."

Charlie lifted a hand and wiggled her fingers in an awkward little wave.

"Stone? For real?" Alex put the tiny green box on her tray and tilted her head to the side a little. "That's cool. And I'm new to the whole school. I just moved here from Chicago." Alex thought for a second. "I'm the new kid in town."

"That's--wait, was that an Eagles reference?"

"Uh-huh."

Stone held his hand out and Alex grinned and shook it. Were the moment in a movie, a narrator would probably come on and say, 'and so was the start of a beautiful friendship.'

"So, how about that whole thing with the graffiti, huh?"

"Yeah, we've heard. It's...weird," Charlie replied, looking down at her own tray.

"What about it?" Alex asked.

Stone blinked. "I know it was you who did it."

"What? She has nothing to do with it." Charlie really sucked at lying.

"Hey, I'm not a cop. I walked past it yesterday and I just wanted to tell you that it's the coolest graffiti I've ever seen."

"How do you know it was me?"

"You left this in Wilson's class." He opened his backpack and reached into it, producing a tattered black notebook and placing it on the table. "I didn't look through it, I swear. But it was open and..." Stone lifted the cover, "...I thought Wilson might recognize it and get you in trouble."

Alex and Charlie stared down at the notebook with their faces frozen in disbelief and horror, respectively. On the page were the words "PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND" and a drawing exactly like the one in spray paint on an abandoned house downtown.

"I think it's really cool. How come the graffiti version has a messy bit near the bottom left?"

"Charlie messed that part up," Alex quickly answered. Charlie turned to her and she sputtered. "Shit, I mean..."

"I said I wasn't gonna tell. That's all I wanted to say, anyway. Well that and this: be really careful about leaving stuff like this around Wilson, 'cause he's a snitch. See you in class, huh?"

"Wait," Alex said. She held the box of Nerds out. "Thanks. Wanna sit with us?"

"Well, yeah, but I can't leave my friend hanging. He's at his locker and I said I'd meet him there after this."

"Bring him here," Charlie said with a shrug.

Stone left the table with a handful of Nerds and a promise to return with his friend, who happened to be a boy named Andy Wood. That would also be a good spot to insert the 'beautiful friendship' line...

✩✩✩

"It was hardly a crime. The house was abandoned and everyone forgot about it soon enough."

"Yeah, 'cause they were too busy focusing on the person stealing all the damn cigarettes," Jeff said with a pointed look at Alex.

"You smoked in middle school?" Eddie asked.

"Occasionally...now stop asking stuff. This information is all classified."

"It's weird. Don't you do that same stuff even now?"

"Um, no...I mean, I still sneak into movies because I'm broke, and sometimes I just don't have enough extra money for cigarettes. But I don't do graffiti anymore, and that means I'm different now." She turned to Stone and said, "no more strolling down memory lane--you're making me look like a complete hooligan."

"We already see you that way," Mike piped up, and Dave shrugged and nodded.

"Screw you guys," Alex laughed. "I bet you were nerds. Or teachers' pets."

"You wish," Dave replied, but Mike gave a weak shrug and didn't do anything to deny it.

They ended up continuing that same conversation; Jeff and Stone seemed especially eager to share the story about sneaking into a nighttime showing of Rocky, which included a terrified and paranoid Charlie and way-too-excited Alex and Andy.

Alex spent most of the day there, watching TV and playing Stone's guitar for a while. She'd offered to help clean (mostly just so she'd have something to do), but had instead been given a magazine and the suggestion that she relax instead.

"I don't even need to relax. I'm not, like, old," she said to Eddie, who was trying to rig a clock to go backwards.

"No one said you are," he replied. "You just kinda look like you haven't slept in days."

"But I have, and I'm offended." Clear evidence that she wasn't actually bothered at all by his statement was the smile on her face as she turned the page of the magazine.

"Alright, I take that back. Anyway, um, question..." Eddie said in a low voice that made it sound like he wasn't sure he actually wanted to ask anything.

"Shoot," Alex replied, turning the next page.

"Um, about Rhea--what's her...I mean, is she...why does..."

"Do you actually have a question, or are you just hoping one will come to you?"

"I have one, I just don't know how to ask." He stared at the clock for a moment before continuing. "I just wanna know...fuck. Forget it."

"She asked me about you," Alex said, not taking her eyes off the page she was reading. "If that's what you're trying to find out."

"Uh, maybe--what did she ask?"

Shit, I get the feeling I might've been supposed to keep that to myself. "Just...stuff."

"Like?"

"Something about whether or not you're involved in a romantic relationship with anyone," Alex rushed out, now making it an absolute point to keep her eyes on the magazine.

"And...what did you tell her?"

Well, I lied at first. Maybe it's because I didn't want you to go out with her. I still don't, but God only knows why--it's not like I have feelings for you, right? "That you weren't. You're not, right?"

"Uh, no, but I just kind of...well, I thought I...you know what? Never mind. I guess I really don't have anything to ask."

Alex finally looked up. "Well, I'm not going anywhere. If a question comes to you, ask it."

But not a single one did.

✩✩✩

Alex left Stone's somewhat late in the evening, remembering the lighter she'd accidentally left at the AIC house and not having any other matter to attend to before it. She figured she might as well go get it; Charlie would probably be out with Layne and it was likely she wouldn't have to cross paths with her.

"It's a real pity," Alex mumbled to herself as she climbed the stairs leading to the party. "I miss Layne."

She was about to knock on the door when it was pulled open. She blinked and said "I forgot my lighter" at the exact same time Jerry dropped the trash bag he'd been taking out and said "you forgot your lighter."

"Yeah," Alex said with a laugh. "Is..."

"It's just me. I don't know what time Layne's coming back, so if you're still avoiding Charlie..." He picked the trash bag back up and gestured for her to follow him to the bins.

"Kind of. But whatever. I don't even care anymore."

"I thought you said you were gonna talk to her."

"I meant to, but I kind of forgot after she stole--she stole--my coconut. That is unforgivable."

"Really?"

"Yeah! It was a coconut! I'd kill and die for those fucking things!"

"Uh...you're not gonna kill Charlie, are you?" He laughed as Alex smacked his shoulder in response to the question, put the bag in the bin. They went back up, racing each other up the stairs without even agreeing to do so.

The forgotten lighter was retrieved and Alex would've gone on her way then had Jerry not offered her some canned peaches. She couldn't say no to those, so they stood at the counter and ate the peaches right out of the can. It was nice; Alex considered that the ideal way to end a Saturday.

But the day wasn't over yet.

Alex and Jerry were fighting over the last slice of peach when they heard a key being inserted into the front door's lock. The piece of peach was forgotten as Alex realized that most likely meant Charlie would soon be walking in. "Shit," she mumbled, looking up at Jerry, "it was nice knowing you. I'm going out the window. If I die, I want Highway To Hell played at my funeral. The song, not the album. Well, fuck it. The album."

There was no way in hell Jerry would ever let her jump out the window, but she was too late anyway. The door opened and in walked Layne and Charlie, the latter of which immediately caught sight of Alex and promptly turned away.

"Hey, Alex," Layne said, waving at her as Charlie moved to sit in the living room without another glance in Alex and Jerry's direction. "What's going on?"

"I'm just...I forgot my lighter here." Alex held up the mentioned lighter and cleared her throat. "Got it."

"Oh, that's cool. We're probably gonna head back out in a bit, so..." Layne trailed off, nodding and doing a random little motion with his right hand before turning it into another wave and following in Charlie's tracks.

"You can have the last slice," Jerry whispered, holding the can out to Alex. She shook her head and crossed her arms, looking away in disinterest. But he picked the slice out with Alex's fork and waved it in front of her face for a moment, and, somehow dismissing the urge to slap his hand and send the peach flying, she took and eventually ate it.

"She also took one of my cans of peaches, you know. You'd think she'd want nothing to do with that kind of stuff after all that save-money-not-food bullshit, but I guess that's not the case."

"A coconut and a can of peaches?" Jerry asked with a sarcastic edge to his voice, putting the empty can next to another just like it.

"Shut up, you know I take my food too seriously. And now what? Am I just supposed to stand here and whisper everything I have to say until they leave?"

"Why don't you just--" Jerry was cut off by Alex shaking his arm and putting a finger to her lips to get him to be quiet. He was about to ask why he was being silenced when she pointed in the direction of the living room and then at her ear.

"I don't usually make it a point to eavesdrop, but..."

"What do you want to do now? Do you still want to go somewhere else?" Layne was asking Charlie.

"Well, whatever you want to do is fine...but I kind of wanna go back out. "Somewhere," she lowered her voice, "Alex isn't. I really don't want to be around her..."

Alex's eyes narrowed and she turned to Jerry again. "You believe this shit?" she whisper-shouted.

"Yeah, uh..."

Alex shook her head and stepped out into the living room. "No, no. I'd hate for you to have to make arrangements just to avoid me! There's no need, really; I will go. And Charlie, darling, if my presence bothers you so much, do us both a favor and don't come back to my apartment, okay? This was lovely--I'll see you around."

"Wait," Charlie said, standing up. "What do you mean your apartment? And what do you mean don't come back?"

"What part of any of that don't you get? You don't live there anymore. At all. Just don't come back. It's not that hard to understand."

Charlie blinked and lifted and dropped her hands. "So you're kicking me out?"

Alex pretended to think about it. "Um, yeah. If you really want to put a label on it, I guess you could say that. I mean, it's clearly too much for you to be around me, so one of us has to go. Unfortunately--for you--I don't see you as being able to afford the place without me. Fortunately for me, I can afford it without you."

"I--Fuck you, Alex. I don't even know what I did to make you mad at me. Just fucking leave, then."

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Alex went back to the kitchen and re-emerged a second later dragging Jerry by the hand.

"So that's it? Just like that?"

Alex didn't even look at Charlie, offering only a shrug for a response as she unceremoniously pushed Jerry out of the apartment.

"Well, fine then! Fucking...bye!"

Alex finally looked Charlie in the eyes and grabbed the doorknob. "Arrivederci, Charlie." And with that she left and slammed the door closed behind her.

✩✩✩

"So...where are we going?" Jerry asked as he and Alex walked along up the sidewalk to the main road.

"I don't know. Somewhere Charlie isn't," Alex replied in a mocking voice.

"Did you really mean what you said? About her not coming back?"

Alex shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. She'll be back anyway."

"I don't know if--"

"C'mon, let's talk about something else. I regret nothing."

Jerry sighed and agreed. "Well, really, where are we going?"

Alex thought for a moment, turning a shining eye on the liquor store just up the block.

✩✩✩

:)

please remember to stay safe, stay hydrated, have fun, listen to some good songs, be what you wanna be, and stay sober for Layne<3

until next time...