APRIL 1997

"Mommy, I'm scared."

"Alex, sh. Go back to bed."

"But I'm scared. Of the storm."

"It's just a storm, honey. Go back to bed; you're going to wake daddy up."

"Mommy, please."

*

"What did I tell you?" His father asks him in a dangerously calm tone.

Alex fidgets with his T-shirt. He wants to hide behind his mother but that would anger his father even more. "Not to get scared."

"And what did you do?"

"I... got scared."

His dad got out of his chair and Alex flinched. His mom said that his dad wasn't a bad guy, he was just impatient. Alex was five years old but he has gathered enough wisdom to know that his dad wasn't just an impatient dad; he was a bad dad. Bad dads are the ones who yell at their children for being scared of a storm. Bad dads are the ones whose very sight makes your bones quiver in fear for if he catches you crying, he's going to flip out.

Alex's teacher was concerned about is drawings at school depicting his father as a tall black figure with weapons of every kind, looming over Alex and his mom as if he were about to strike. When they see such drawings, bad dads don't ask their son what the problem is, they straight away yell.

"How many times have I told you to man the hell up, Alex?" His dad wasn't a very large man but Alex would be terrified of him even if he were three feet tall.

Alex steps back. He looks at his mom who is standing at a side, her hands balled into fists so tight they must be digging into her palms. Steady tears run down her face and she stares at her husband distantly. Alex says, "Sorry, daddy."

"Sorry, my ass," He rasped.  "If you ever come into our room again, Alex, if I ever hear you saying you're scared of a bloody storm... you wait and watch."

That was Alex's cue to start crying and if there was something that would aggravate his father even more, this was it.

*

JANUARY 2008

"Ew." Alex says and gestures to a half-eaten sandwich wedged at the back of Jem's closet.

"That's what the smell was." Jem muses and picks up the filthy sandwich with the tips of his fingers and chucks it into the dustbin.

"No, the smell was you."

"Ha, ha."

Alex was helping Jem clean his room ("properly") because apparently, his mom had had a fit the night before. Jem confessed to not having cleaned his room properly for seven months. Alex, who himself was not the cleanest person he knew, shuddered at the thought and muttered a low pitched "Ew," earning him an approving look from Jem's mom and a dirty look from Jem.

"Wow, I haven't seen this shirt in ages." Jem says, picking up a yellow T-shirt from the heap of clothes on his bed.

Alex stares at it uncomprehendingly. "Is that yellow? I can't even imagine you in yellow."

"I think that's from middle school."

"No."

"Seriously."

"And you call me lazy."

"Oh, shut up." Jem chides. He throws the shirt back on his bed and rolls his eyes. "Come on; help me push the closet up against the wall."
"How about I push you against the wall?"

Jem, half on his way to the closet, stops and raises his eyebrows. He slowly crosses his arms. "Oh, yeah?"

Alex grins. "Oh, yeah."

Jem uncrosses his arms and rolls his eyes again.  "Idiot."

"Loser."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"Why are you so horny right now?" Jem wheezes, trying to push the closet back by himself.

Alex makes a face at him but then realizes that Jem isn't even looking at him. He steps forward and pushes with him after a quick '1, 2, 3'. The closet moans as it is pushed and Alex wonders if it will break apart.

They step back, breathily heavily and Jem pulls in Alex by the back of his neck and kisses him.

When they break apart, Jem holds Alex by the shoulders and grins with pleasure. Alex marvels at how he still feels breathless every time after Jem kisses him. "Did that calm your hormones down?"

"Nah," Alex replies and kisses him again.

*

"Wow, I can't believe you kissed her." Alex says, adjusting the phone to his other ear.

Ronan probably laughs but Alex only hears abrupt, short breaths. "A lot good it did to me."

"To be fair, you were sort of coming onto her."

"No, I wasn't! I'm telling you we had a moment."
"That's why she slapped you?"

"Shut up."

*

Alex woke up in cold sweat from a nightmare that had been plaguing his sleep these past few nights but tonight, it went a little too further. His eyes adjust to the light in the room as he tries to count his breaths, trying to even them out. The wind is howling outside and the rain patters against the ceiling like a distant drumbeat. Whatever he did, he could not drown the ringing in his ears.

He presses his face in the pillow long enough for him to not be able to breathe. His lungs are screaming for air but Alex presses harder into the pillow. He can still hear his father's booming voice, still somehow louder than the storm raging outside.

When the pillow is wet with silent tears, Alex thinks of his dad telling him to man up and stop crying. Well, nobody could stop him now.

*

If Jem noticed something was wrong, he didn't say anything. Alex was half relieved at having to say nothing and half frustrated at not being asked. It was typical, he supposed.

He'd half-heartedly accepted Jem's invitation to hang out and regretted it as soon as he stepped into Jem's house and saw Jem, still in his pyjamas and his hair ruffled up to one side as though he had walked through a tornado, wearing the very smile that made Alex go weak in the knees. He regretted not being able to return it but his lips had felt like they'd been plastered into a stubborn short line.

"Hello Alex," Jem's mom calls out. "How've you been?"

"I'm okay. How are you?"
"Good, good."

Alex waited in the kitchen while Jem changed his clothes and politely made small talk with his mom, answering all her typical motherly questions- how is school? How is your mom?

When he and Jem finally step out into the bitterly cold morning, Alex clings to Jem's arm, shivering like anything. Mostly he was cold but seeing Jem somehow lets lose his feelings and even though he would never speak of them, he sort of thought Jem would make him feel better because these past few weeks, being with him sort of gave Alex a purpose and some consolation that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't a shitty and unlovable person.

If Jem's notices anything, he doesn't say it.

The snow has been cleared to the sides of the road but it's still slippery and damp. More than once, Alex slips. 

"So where'd you wanna go?" Jem asks.

"I don't know. Anywhere."

"Strip club?"

"I would, but it's just eleven in the morning."

Jem doesn't laugh out loud but Alex feels his shoulders vibrate. Jem tries to slip his gloved hand into Alex's but Alex quickly moves it away, pretending to readjust his scarf.

"Are you cold or something?" Jem asks.

Alex looks at him. "No. Why?"

"No reason," Jem says but he sounds strained as though he is holding back words.

They enter Jem's vinyl shop, mostly just to get out of the cold. Alex could faintly smell a tinge of fish in the air. He catches Jem wrinkling his nose in disgust. They wander around the store for a little while, acting like they hadn't seen the place a million times before. Alex could practically work here- he knew where every record was kept. Hell, he'd even been in the store room.

"Hey, look." Jem nudges him and points to the notice board. Alex steps forward to read the notice and raises his eyebrows. "Foo Fighters?"

"Apparently." Jem answers.

"I would kill to see them."

Jem regards the notice again. "It's next month."

"Yeah. Uh, Goldstein Park. Wait, what's that?"

"It's this stadium-type-park thing," Jem answers ad shrugs and Alex's quizzical expression. "I don't know. Something like that. They Black Keys played there a few months ago, that's how I know of it. It's like a few miles out of town."

Alex stared at the notice longingly. "Wow."
"I know, right?"

"You haven't seen this notice before?" Alex asks.

"I've not been coming in for a few days." Jem shrugs.

"Why not?"

"Just. Days off."

"Ah," Alex nods. He longs to ask about the Foo Fighters concert but a) since Jem had no idea and he didn't feel like talking to anyone else, he let it go and b) his mom would kill him if he spent money on concert tickets.

*

"I think I should start writing poetry." Ruth muses.

Jem eyes her over his burrito which to his horror, had pieces of tofu in it. "Why?"

"Because I want to do Slam Poetry."
"So you want to write poetry because you want other people to hear it?" Alex mumbles.

"I think so."

"Cool."

"But there's just one problem," Ruth continues.

"What?" Jem asks.

"I don't know shit about writing poetry."

"What's there to know? You just write it." Alex says monotonously.

"Yeah." Jem says.

Ruth spares them both individual, absolutely disgusted scowls. "That's like me saying, 'I want to learn how to learn how to fly a plane' and you saying 'What's there to learn? You just fly it.'"

Neither Jem nor Alex can argue with that.

*

"I can't believe you. Meat is Murder is great a great album." Jem says.

"It's okay." Alex mutters.

"No, it's great."

"I just have a really hard time taking that song seriously."

"What do you mean?"

"And that calf that you carve with a smile is murder," Alex sings.  "It's just so... I mean, it's almost funny."

"Well, I guess. I mean, Morrissey was trying to spread awareness about animal rights and all."

"Yeah, but he like, forced the other Smiths to stop eating meat too. And he didn't perform anywhere where they served meat."

Jem sighs. "He's kind of an asshole, isn't he?"

"He kinda is."

"Just a really, really brilliant asshole."

"I know, right?"

"God, I love him."

"Totally."

The night isn't as chilly its predecessors but the wind is cold and sharp and Alex just wants to go home. He and Jem are walking home from the poetry café they'd been to last month. Ruth had been dying to check it out and tonight was her lucky night. Then Ruth ran into some other friends of hers from school and she bade Alex and Jem goodbye which sucked because she was supposed to be their ride.

They pass the vinyl store and Jem gestures to it, raising his eyebrows. Alex just shrugs. He just wants to be out of the cold. The store is unusually crowded for a Thursday night. Someone waves to Jem and Jem waved back unenthusiastically. Alex wanders down the first aisle he sees, letting Jem trail behind him. All the record covers look like brainless goo to him and he doesn't even notice his breaths getting shorter and faster until he is almost wheezing. Get a grip on yourself, he tells himself. He begins walking faster and turns a corner quickly, leaving Jem behind in the hordes of customers. He digs his fingernails into his forearm until his skin sears with pain as though he'd pressed an iron to it.

"Alex?" Someone says and Alex turns abruptly, letting go of his arm quickly. Jem stood behind him, his forehead creased into a frown.

"Yeah?" Alex says stupidly. His voice sounds high pitched and odd to his ears.

"I asked about the Foo Fighters concert. It's sold out." Jem says, carefully watching Alex. He was speaking carefully as though one wrong word would set off a ticking bomb, that bomb being Alex.

"That sucks." Alex answers.

"Yeah, it does," Jem shrugs. They are standing in the very corner of the store, between a rack of the Velvet Underground and the notice board which people keep coming to look at. The store is filling up even more- the point of barely having place to move. Alex looks at the head of various people in the shop and he feels claustrophobic. And his arm throbbed like it would never stop.  He moves his hand to his side so that Jem doesn't touch him by accident. Or on purpose. He turns to Jem who is watching him with worried eyes. "Let's leave. It's so crowded."

"Okay," Jem says. He plasters a tight lipped smile on his face and proceeds to slip his hand into Alex's. He accidently bumps his forearm with his fingers and Alex lets out a grunt. A boy looks over and raises his eyebrows at Alex and Jem as though he'd just seen an interesting animal at a zoo. Alex abruptly slips his hand into his pocket and acts as though he didn't notice Jem's hand on his arm. He avoids meeting Jem's eyes. "Let's go."

When Jem doesn't say anything, Alex finally looks at him.

Alex had always thought of Jem as a calming force who never had much of a temper. He was like cold breeze after rain and Alex loved that about him. But Jem was looking at Alex with something new in his eyes. Jem breathes out slowly as though he is holding back strings of unspoken words he doesn't want to utter. He returns his arm to his side and doesn't move them as though they'd been glued there. His eyes look restless and stormy when he meets Alex's. "Okay," He says in a voice which was not his own. He turns around and makes his way through the crowd.

Alex is too surprised to move for a second but he hurries after Jem, accidently knocking people in the stomach with his elbow. Alex didn't realize that he was scared until he stepped out into the cold again. Jem was leaning against the wall with his arms stubbornly stuffed into his jacket. As soon as Alex steps outside, Jem begins walking in short angry steps, not bothering to wait for Alex.

By now, Alex's fingers had begin to tremble so badly that he balled them into tight fists and stuffed them into his hoodie as if it could contain his fear.

The snow was lit with the streetlight- dim and faintly golden so that if Alex extended the horizons of his imagination, it almost looked like liquid gold. Jem was kicking specks of snow out of the way as he made his way home and Alex followed him even though his house was in the opposite direction.

"Jem?' Alex calls out.

Jem doesn't stop walking. "What?"

"Just stop for a second."
Jem stops. But he doesn't turn around.

Alex takes a deep breath and jogs up to him. He takes him by the shoulders and gently turns him to face himself. When Jem looks at him, Alex feels a chill in his bones. The way Jem is glaring at him remind him of Jem in his dream, sneering while pushing him down a cliff. But this Jem, his Jem would never do anything like that. Jem is looking at Alex's hands on him like he wants to get as far away from him as he could- like Alex's touch burned his skin. Alex abruptly lets go and lets his hands hang at his sides.

"Are you okay?" Alex asks awkwardly.

"Fine." He answers in a carefully controlled voice. He meets Alex's eyes uncertainly.

"Oh."

"What about you?"

"I'm okay."

"Really?" Jem sounds frustrated.  "Are you?"

"What are you talking about?"

Jem shakes his head. "You've been acting odd all week."

"Have I?"

"Yes."
"Oh."

"And I get that you don't want to talk about it, Alex but like"- Jem grits is teeth. "Are you ashamed of us or something?"

Alex stares at him. "What?"

"Us. Our relationship. Are you ashamed of it or something?"

Alex gaped at Jem, wondering if this question even made sense. Ashamed of it? There were a thousand things he could say- No, I'm not ashamed of us. I'm not ashamed of you. You've made my life less shitty and I could never thank you enough for it. He says none of this. He just continues to look at Jem's face, waiting for an answer he was dreading.

"No." Alex finally said.

"Really, are you sure about that?" Jem demands. "Because it doesn't fucking feel like that."

There was something so wrong, so sick about this that Alex couldn't wrap his mind around it. Jem didn't yell at him. Jem didn't look at him like this- as though he was the last person in the world he could stand the thought of being around.

"Is it because of the whole guy and guy thing?" Jem asks. "Because if it is, just tell me, okay?"

"It's not," Alex answers quickly. "It's not that, it's nothing. God, Jem, please."

"Then why do you act like me even touching you in public is a sin or something? Because I'm getting a little tired of this being so one-sided."

One-sided? Alex almost wants to laugh. If Jem knew how much he meant to Alex, he would run away. "One-sided?"
"Yes, one sided."

"It's not like that, okay? God, come on. How could you even think that? "

"Because it fucking feels like that.  And it sucks to feel something for someone who doesn't feel it back." Jem's voice is cracking.

There's a short pause. Then Alex simply says, "How could you possibly need me like I need you?"

Jem stares at him and finally sighs. "Then why is this so complicated?"

"I don't know."

Jem bites his lip. His anger seems to have cooled down but Alex still watches him like a bomb about to go off. He wanted to touch Jem, to pat his shoulder or hug him and put his head in the crook of his neck or even kiss him and let go.

"I'm going home." Jem finally says.

Alex looks away. "Okay."

Jem takes one last look at Alex and opens his mouth as though he wants to say something but closes it as quickly. He exhales slowly, his breath fogging. He steps back and begins walking home without another word.

Alex watched his figure disappear into the night. He stands glued to his spot. His limbs felt as they could never move and his arm was throbbing with pain and yet Alex didn't even flinch. He blinked hard and walked home.

*

Alex couldn't bear being alone all weekend, poring over Jem so he called Ruth in a moment of desperation and told her everything that had happened. She listened to him and for once, she seemed at a loss of words.

"So what, you're broken up now?" She asks.

"I don't know."

"Don't you want to know?"

"Not really."

'Why not?"

"I don't want to know that we are."  Alex answers in a small voice.

Ruth sighs. The static irritated Alex and he holds the phone a little away from his ear.

"What did Jem say?" Ruth finally speaks up.

"About what?"

"You guys."

"I don't know. He just went home. I didn't talk to him after that."

"Alex, that was two days ago."

"Yeah, I know."

"Talk to him."

"I don't think he wants to talk to me."

"Believe me when I say he does, okay? Just call him. You guys have something so fucking great- don't let it go."

"Yeah."

Ruth sighs. "Call him, Alex."