Author's Notes: This is it. This is the one.
And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble and fall
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
Say something, I'm giving up on you
- A Great Big World, Say Something
It was difficult going back to the Jones residence after that fiasco in the kitchen. I'd be lying if I said Alfred's father's words hadn't kept me up at night. The enigma that Alfred's father made himself to be was starting to fade with every sentence he spoke to me. Mr. Jones was a completely different story than with Alfred's mother, an open book to the public with her tears and her paranoia.
I could deal with Alfred's mother, to an extent.
I could deal with Alfred's brother.
I did not want to go back to that house where my heels would crunch down on eggshells. And yet I did, at the ignorance of my friend, with every invite he proffered. Alfred still remained glued to the opposite side of the furniture than I was, but he did not stop requesting to see me.
Some days we were alone, smothered in the awkward silences we created. Other times, Alfred's family lingered on the outer peripheral of the rooms we were in. His mother was cheerful and offered snacks, as per usual, and Mr. Jones silently read the newspaper or a magazine.
I did not want brutally honest with Alfred, but all the immediate members of the Jones family I had encountered were uncomfortable to be around in their own right. And a few weeks ago I would have said that Alfred was the outlier, had it not been for this rough patch we were going through.
One afternoon I had had my fill of it.
"Do you honestly think violence is the proper way to respond to this particular issue?" I asked, watching as he dropped a heavy gallon of milk into the shopping cart. Alfred checked off another item on his mother's grocery list and steered the cart further down the aisle.
Watching a large male like Alfred doing a plebian (and stereotypically feminine) task of grocery shopping was somewhat amusing. There were no words to properly describe how badly the cogs meshed.
"Say what?" he spoke, casting a glance over his shoulder distractedly. I slumped my shoulders in exasperation and followed after him.
"The situation with your brother?" I reminded, irritated in the way he avoided my gaze, preferring to eyeball the dairy products on the shelves. "The familial desire for vengeance? Ring any bells?"
"Familial obligation," he corrected. "And I thought we were done talking about this."
"No, you were done talking about it," I reminded, "I have only begun to put in my two cents."
"Dude, you've put in, like, twenty dollars," Alfred laughed, his gums showing for a moment before his lips came back down. "You're going to talk my ears off, and then I'm going to look like humpty dumpty, but with a really awesome haircut."
"Don't be so humble. You'd still look nice," I said, brushing off his joke. I was too busy reading the ingredients on a pickle jar to really notice the way Alfred faltered, adjusting his glasses in embarrassment.
"Well, whatever," he muttered, tossing a package of cheese rather roughly into the cart, hurrying forward. I blinked owlishly after him, watching as my friend disappeared around the corner and into another aisle.
"Hey, do you think fat free really makes that big of a difference? I mean, I know my mom has it on the list, but we're just going to eat the same amount of calories anyway. We're guys." Alfred was at the end of this new aisle when I appeared. He was rummaging around different instant potato packages. I frowned, hating how he gravitated towards the exact opposite side of a room from me, regardless of what building we were in.
"What's the rush?" I asked, noting how he decided upon a box right as I was walking towards him, skirting to the next aisle.
Yes, this thing between us was strange, but I would much rather prefer for it to be strange two feet away from Alfred than twenty.
"Look, all I am suggesting is that you cool off and reconsider the logical answer to this Ryan situation, as well as your brother's wishes," I said, emerging behind Alfred, his torso leaning in one of the frozen food doors.
"Arthur," Alfred sighed, turning to look at me with exhausted eyes and a handful of frozen peas. I had to pause when he looked me directly in the eyes, a luxury that hadn't happened in a while that I dearly missed, I realized in that moment.
"I get that you're trying to look out for me and stuff, and that you don't want old wounds to open up," he carefully said, glancing at his wrist as an afterthought. His smile came out lopsided. "Literally and figuratively. And that's cool. I think it's . . . ," Alfred broke eye contact temporarily and coughed. "It's- It's sweet. But," he rushed, "there are just some things that have to happen. And even as my– Even you shouldn't butt in on some things, y'know?"
"I just don't see what it will prove," I stressed, enunciating every word as if it would get through to him if I talked slower, more diliberately.
Alfred stepped forward to put the peas into the shopping cart. He shrugged and gave me a withering smile. "I do, and that's enough."
The way Alfred spoke gave me the impression of a person reading a lengthy novel they were engrossed in, and finally reaching the last word on the last page before shutting it. I stared at him with a scrutinous gaze that made him fidget uncomfortably, willing him to be able to convey the meaning of his words without having to speak. Was this about standing up for his brother? Was this some way of relinquishing the old Alfred; the Alfred that was a false, built up prop of smiles and pleasantries by his peers? Or was this something deeper, like separating completely from the memories of self-harm, and Ryan was merely the outlet to release it on?
Did Alfred even think in larger pictures like that?
When his nose crinkled, I could see just how uneasy he felt with me looking at him like that. "Are you constipated?" he teased.
My eyes flicked down to the shopping cart handle as Alfred made his way around to the back of it, and I darted forward. I grabbed onto the bar just as he had, my hand partly covering one of his in the minimal space. He jumped, clearly not expecting that, but he didn't remove his hand immediately. Alfred simply cast a wide-eyed glance at me.
"I'll push for a while," I said calmly, though something inside me twisted and fluttered like a leaf in the wind. This feeling was unpleasant, but I wanted it. God, I loved this bittersweet roil in my stomach whenever Alfred made contact with my skin. It terrified me.
Alfred nodded, scuttling away from me and fumbling with the shopping list. He adjusted his glasses again, a habit I recognized as embarrassment over the course of our friendship, and trotted ahead of the cart to where I couldn't see his face.
"Don't go where I can't see you," I called. And to anyone passing us by it would look like a simple request to not get lost in the grocery mart. But I saw the way Alfred's shoulders adjusted and knew he understood exactly what I meant.
"Then keep up," he muttered before descending defiantly into the candy aisle.
I wasn't a stranger to Alfred's calls or texts in the middle of the night. He had kept consistent since high school and made sure to do it near daily. It was fine tuned into my body now to wake up when I heard the familiar ring or buzz of my phone.
Squinting my eye open and seeing the teal light pouring from the screen of my mobile, I heaved a mental sigh before sitting up and snatching the device from my nightstand. In the darkness of the night, at practically one in the morning, the light from my phone was blinding.
"What is it now . . . ?" I yawned, clicking open the new text.
My jaw nearly hit the floor.
i won :P
It wasn't hard to glean the meaning behind his words, but it was so sudden. The incident with his brother had only happened four days ago, and yet Alfred had already acted on it? I was already hurrying to type in my response.
Where are you?
The three minutes it took to get a response while I put my clothes on were torturous. The moment I heard the phone go off I was eagerly reading the message.
the park. can u bring food?
I stared at his request a moment before shaking my head and grabbing my house key. The walk to our park wasn't terribly far – only four blocks – but it was freezing in this weather. My pace was quick and impatient. By the time the outline of it came into view in the darkness I was shivering a good deal, pulling my collar closer to my neck.
I didn't see Alfred sitting on the frozen swing set, though. My eyes scanned the rest of the playground but I didn't have to look long to know where Alfred was when I heard a low rumbling. His red truck was idling on the curb, puffing out smog from his tailpipe.
My teeth were rattling when I opened the passenger door, tossing a grocery bag at him.
"You couldn't have picked me up?" I grumbled, placing my red, frozen hands to the heater vents. Alfred snickered quietly beside me and dug around the plastic sack, digging into the granola bars and chips.
I twisted in my seat to analyze his face in the dim lighting of the streetlights. He didn't look like I'd expected him to. His hair was tussled and the skin on his right cheek looked suspiciously inflamed, but aside from that Alfred was normal. I mentally scoffed.
Normal.
Nothing about Alfred was normal.
"I figured you'd need the exercise," he joked around a mouthful. When he swallowed, he continued, a bit more carefully, "And I knew you'd be mad or something, so walking a couple blocks for you to cool off seemed like a better idea than pulling into your driveway when you're livid."
"I'm not livid," I denied. Alfred made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like disbelief. "I'm not," I repeated with a bit more tenacity. "And even if I was, excuse me for feeling that way when you disregarded everything I said and fought with Ryan – How did that even happen?"
Alfred's awkwardness and shame bled off when I mentioned Ryan's name, and he was back to trying to hide that excited smile he knew he shouldn't be wearing in the first place. "I saw him when I was getting dinner for the fam, and then he sorta came up to me and spat on me."
"He spit on you?" I gawked.
"Uh-huh," Alfred answered in a sing-song tone, finishing up his chip bag and crumpling it in his fist. I noted the rawness of his knuckles and frowned. "So I asked him what his problem was, and one thing led to another and we set a time to meet up so we could get this whole thing over with. No cops, no parents, nothing to get us in trouble with other people. S'why I didn't tell you, cuz you'd'a came and broken it up."
"Of course I would've. You were –"
"Long story short, Ryan's all bark and no bite. He clocked me once, but I don't know if you noticed, but he's kind of a huge guy. Easy target that can't move that fast."
I digested this information and toyed with my fingers in my lap. "You didn't leave him there injured, like you did at that party, did you?" I asked suspiciously.
"His brother was there, so he took off with him." Alfred shrugged and looked out his window at nothing in particular. "Probably was embarrassed, but that's what happens when you run your mouth."
"Alfred," I sighed, placing my fingers to my temple. His eyes bounced back to me, but he still didn't make eye contact; he just stared at my forehead. "How do you know you just didn't make the situation worse? Ryan isn't exactly what you'd call an understanding bloke. What makes you think he won't harass you more after shaming him in front of his own family?"
Alfred shifted in his seat, the material of his coat making a sort of swishing noise against the leather of the chair. "I just do." The bottom corners of his lips tweaked down and I saw a bitterness flash behind his eyes briefly as he muttered, "He got me with me and my brother, and I got him with him and his. We're even."
"Is this an unwritten rule?" I questioned, leaning forward over the console in between us, trying to see any trace of mistruth in Alfred's face. He tensed up, looking at me with rounded eyes, his neck hunkering into his shoulders. His lips parted and then shut firmly as he waited for me to say anything else. I stared at him for a long moment, nothing but the purr of the engine keeping me grounded to reality, before I surrendered and looked away.
"Why do I keep believing you?" I muttered, placing my hand on the middle console but touching Alfred's instead. I glanced down and saw his fingers twitch, but he didn't wriggle out from under my hand's accidental pressure.
"Because that's what you do best," Alfred commented, a small laugh in his voice. I didn't realize how close we were, somehow gravitating towards the center of the car while Alfred told his ludicrous story, for when Alfred spoke his breath wafted across my face.
I could see how red his cheek was at this angle, knowing that it was going to bruise later. Without properly thinking, my hand when up and touched it. Alfred flinched, letting out a shaking exhale, looking frightened as all could be, but again, he didn't pull away. I knew that was odd for his behavior recently, but I was too caught up in the image of a fist plowing into his face to notice.
"What are you going to tell your mother?" I asked. He had to be running out of acceptable excuses by now. Alfred swallowed visibly and his hand flexed under mine.
"That – That I slipped on the ice on the walkway," he said quietly. I felt myself frowning, thinking over his excuse. My finger absentmindedly brushed over the wound, being careful not to harm him in my examination.
The hand under mine was becoming increasingly warm, but I chalked it up to the heated air coming through the vents.
"You know I hate when you are hurting, Alfred . . ."
I looked up to meet his gaze, surprised at how close he was for a moment, the words of approval for his lie on the tip of my tongue, when the hand beneath mine balled up into a fist suddenly, and Alfred's face became a blur.
I blinked, aware of the warmth on my face, the feeling of moisture against my lips, and realized that Alfred was kissing me.
My stomach shot up like a rocket before falling back down like debris, as if it couldn't break through the earth's pull and crumbled because of it. Nothing but a ball of emotions so powerful that they all tried to escape my throat at once remained. I felt breathless and lightheaded for that moment, it seeming like an eternity when I knew it had only been a couple of seconds.
In that instant I was clawing at his face, pushing him back with enough force that the car rocked a little when he thumped against the door. I plastered myself to my own door, watching him with a sense of horror as my heartbeat threatened to tear me apart. Alfred mirrored my expression, and I knew that he hadn't meant to do that in the first place.
But he still had done it.
Alfred kissed me. Oh my God.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" I demanded, wondering how my vocal cords were working properly when I felt so lightheaded. I wanted to get a paper bag to breathe in to. I wanted fresh air. I wanted to be out of this suddenly painfully claustrophobic vehicle.
Alfred fumbled for his own words, trying to grasp the magnitude of what he had just done and failing miserably. "I-I'm – Arthur, I don't –"
"Why did you do that?" I asked, but the tone of my voice shattered any semblance of control I was pretending to have. My best friend had just kissed me and I didn't hate it. I vigorously rubbed my sleeve over my lips. "What made you think doing that was OK?"
I could see the panic in Alfred's movements as he sat up, the gears turning behind his eyes. "It was an accident. I shouldn't have – Fuck, I can't believe I . . ." He groaned loudly and buried his face in his hands.
I always fancied myself a supportive friend, and I did hate Alfred when he was hurting. He was clearly hurting now. I should help him. Talk to him.
"Jesus, Alfred. Do you know what you've just done?" I breathed, my throat clamping down on itself. This got him to hesitantly lift his distraught face from the sanctuary of his palms, unease carved into his features as if it had been there for years instead of seconds.
Friends don't deny friendships.
Friends don't avoid each other's gaze or sit across an entire room from each other.
Friends don't kiss.
My mind raced of how long Alfred had possibly harbored this idea; to kiss me. I didn't have much time to mull it over because something changed in his body language that had my guard up. He wetted his lips with a dangerous look in his eye.
"Alfred – "I started, as a warning, but he beat me to the punchline.
"I- I'm sorry. I think I like you."
Horror, elation, fear, betrayal, excitement. I was flooded with too many sensations at once, my head was starting to spin. In the end I found myself scowling at him and scrambling to get the doorknob to twist.
"I can't believe this."
Alfred saw my escape attempt and panicked, lunging across the console and my lap, pulling the door shut against my furtive attempts to keep it open.
"Piss off!"
"Arthur, hold up a sec – Ouch! Don't elbow me. Dude, just listen. Listen for a second!"
His build was larger than mine, and years of sports certainly had Alfred at an advantage. He managed to clasp his hand almost painfully around my own that was grasping the handle, and shoved my back against the door when he pulled it shut. I was trapped between a rock and a hard place, it seemed, forced to face this game against the static that had been clinging to us. I couldn't meet his eyes, feeling trapped.
I wasn't ready to admit this.
"I royally fucked up. I'm sorry," Alfred rambled, and I could hear the embarrassment and terror in his voice as he spoke. The arms that caged me, placed on either side of my head, trembled. "But don't run away. God, I do something this stupid and you bolt on me? No fuckin' way. You gotta let me fix this –"
"How?" I ordered. "How can you fix something that doesn't exist anymore?"
Alfred jolted, clearly distressed. "What do you mean?"
I rolled my eyes and shifted my legs as best I could when they were pinned under Alfred's weight. I could feel heat creeping up my neck and making breathing a more difficult task. "What you just did," I paused, swallowing heavily and looking him seriously in the eyes, "Kissing me –" Alfred couldn't hold my gaze. "It doesn't work that way. You can't just do that and not expect . . ."
Even I couldn't voice what felt like the friendship I knew and cherished had disappeared.
"Why would you do this, anyway?" I nearly pleaded, feeling betrayed that he'd cross a line that I needed him to stay behind. I couldn't handle these sorts of thoughts fluttering into my head at alarming rates. What would my parents think? How would this change our dynamic together? Alfred's parents –
Mr. Jones and his stony, judgmental eyes rose to the forefront and I shut my eyes tightly. Damn it.
"I didn't mean to, I said that already –"
"But you wanted to." It was an accusation. Alfred didn't speak up to deny it and my stomach squirmed.
"You've . . . You're just really important to me. And I've never had a friend like you who supports me and actually gives a shit for what feels like one hundred percent of the time," Alfred said, choosing to stare the glove box like it was the most interesting thing in the world. "And then you said you liked someone and something kinda smothered me inside. Like, I got angry about it. But I couldn't tell why and then when you'd smile and say stuff like you didn't like me hurt and that I was someone to look up to and everything, it made me feel happy, really happy, I've never been this happy and scared before like I wanted to barf a couple times because of it and I just don't know I didn't mean to like you, Arthur, fuck, fuck –"
Alfred's sentences began to blend together until his voice tapered off and he had to remove one of his hands against the door to rub at his eyes, pushing his glasses into his hair.
My leg was starting to cramp under one of his knees but I didn't dare move. Not when Alfred was torn open so raw.
Alfred . . . liked me. There it was. The label my inner thoughts had been trying to avoid. I feared this word. It wasn't a bad word, but it changed everything. I feared change.
I didn't know how to deal with Alfred liking me.
I didn't know how to deal with liking him back.
"Don't cry," I muttered awkwardly.
Alfred stopped that snuffling noise he was making and looked at me. He looked exhausted and tired, but his eyes weren't red or full of tears. He took a couple of breaths before speaking.
"Do you hate me?"
The fear in his voice had something crack down something inside me and my arms moved of their own volition. I pulled him into a hug, one that caused him to tense up.
"The farthest thing from it. Wouldn't even dream of it," I reassured quietly into his shoulder, my fingers feeling wooden and stiff against the material of his jacket. "We'll figure something out, alright?"
Alfred relaxed in my hold at my words, pulling me close and burying his face in my neck. We didn't move. We didn't speak. I feared even a thought would shatter this fragile thing we now shared.
"Hey, Arthur," Alfred mumbled into the skin of my neck, the feeling of his lips against me sending tingles down my spine. "Who was that person you said you liked?"
Like a balloon losing helium, I sagged against Alfred's chest, chewing at my lip.
It wasn't a bad word, this label.
"Just some dumb kid I befriended in high school."
The sensation of Alfred's grinning teeth against me as he squeezed all the air out of my lungs had me wanting to vomit and cry and laugh all at once.
I liked Alfred.
This was it.
