Chapter Text
From Haley <3: Hey Alex, saw you yesterday at Sam ’s – I was wondering what you were doing there?
From Haley <3: Alex?
From Haley <3: Alex, it’s been an hour?
From Haley <3: I know you aren’t always the quickest to answer, but three hours?
From Haley <3: Are you okay?
From Haley <3: Alex, I’m worried. Please text me?
From Haley <3: I can see you typing.
Alex deleted the letters he was writing, and felt the guilt rise in him. He hated himself for making Haley worried, yoba, he could see the look on her face as she sat in her room with her phone in her hand.
At one point she would have decided that enough was enough and march right over to Alex’s, fist pounding on his door until he opened it to a crushing hug and probably a slap across the face as well.
It broke his heart in about seven different places that she clearly didn’t feel able to do that anymore. He didn’t really know how or when it had happened, but him and Haley were gradually drifting apart. That ’ s a fucking lie, the voice in his head whispered. You ’ re the one pushing her out. Why? Because you know , deep down, you can never be good enough for her. That fucking voice. He hated it. Despised it. Loathed it. You ’ re pushing her out so she doesn ’ t get the chance to push you out. He hated it because while it was callous and hurtful and cruel, it was right and he hated that.
And then there was the question of what the hell Sebastian was.
How the fuck could he explain to Haley why he was at her neighbour’s when he didn’t even know himself? You do know, said the voice. You just won ’ t admit it to yourself. He sighed and threw the phone across his room in anger. It bounced off the wall with a satisfying thud and landed on the floor with a not-so-satisfying sound.
He sighed again and picked it up, almost throwing it again. He wanted to, but that seemed like something Ian would do.
Alex was not his father.
He looked at his phone – there it was, a crack in the centre of the screen, seperating the top half from the bottom. His messages now read like this:
From Haley <3: I can see y... read more
And then a crack, and beneath it:
From Just Seb: hey, so i w... read more
What a nice metaphor. Two halves of his conciousness, each populated by a different person. He knew that one was just a friend and the other was... decidedly not . He just didn’t know which one was which.
He shook his head at himself and pressed on the second contact down. The whole message read:
From Just Seb: hey, so i was thinking about what we were talking about yesterday and im free tomorrow or monday if u want to come over?
To Just Seb: tmw is good for me :)
Sebastian’s reply pinged through.
From Just Seb: sure :))
He wiped the stupid grin off his face and opened Haley’s messages.
To Haley <3: fuck haley im so sorry ill be over in like 2 mins
He knocked on the door and was confronted by the sight of Emily’s usually carefree expression looking significantly not carefree.
She looked ready to commit arson. “I don’t know what in Yoba’s name you’ve done to my sister, because she won’t tell me,” Emily began. “But if you don’t go in there right now and fix it then I will kill you, slowly and painfully, and I will make sure you’re buried in this town so that I can cover it in sugar and your afterlife form will be forever unhealthy while it shovels coal into the fires of Hell as a punishment for hurting my beautiful little sister.”
“Emily, I –” She cut him off with a wave of her hand, pushing him in the door with the other.
“I don’t want to hear it, Alexander.” The use of his full name made him bristle with annoyance. “Just go get back together so I can stop planning your funeral.”
He lifted his head from where he was staring forlornly at his shoes. “Emily, we’re not together,” he said in surprise.
“That’s the problem,” Emily rolled her eyes angrily.
“No, that’s not –” Alex laughed nervously and immediately cursed himself for it. “We never have been.”
But Emily had dramatically waltzed out the door while he’d been talking, and now that she wasn't bombarding him with death threats and incorrect assumptions, he could clearly hear the heart wrenching sound of Haley trying to hold back her sobs float through her bedroom door.
He felt the shame rise within him again, half-running, half-stumbling to fling open the door and pull her into a hug. “Haley,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s okay, we’ll be okay,” he reassured her. Well. Himself.
“It’s not okay, though, Alex,” She cried, looking at him with such sadness in her eyes that Alex wanted to cry too. Don ’ t be stupid. Not. Now. Boys don ’ t cry, Alex. You really should know that. “It can’t be,” she continued, quieter now, almost to herself.
And then she did something that really surprised him. She wiped away her tears, laughed wryly to herself, and then she
Leaned in
And kissed him.
It wasn’t bad , per se. Not that Alex had much experience with kisses in general, but he thought that as far as they went it was fine. Pleasant, even. He wasn’t quite sure what do with his hands. Or his lips. Or his eyes.
Haley’s were closed, so he figured that would be a wise move. He thought briefly that she tasted of ice-cream, and wondered why, given that it was freezing outside.
Vanilla. That was it. Not ice-cream. Vanilla and caramel, which was an odd combination, but it was sort of nice. It would make a nice cake, actually. He ignored the fact that it felt fundamentally wrong to kiss her and leaned into the side that felt vaguely nice, slowly opening his mouth and tangling his hands in her hair.
It felt curlier than he had expected, somehow. Longer, too. He was surprised by the way it wove in between his fingers rather than slipped straight out of his grasp. Strands of it tickled his neck, and suddenly, he was being strangled by it.
And when he realized that he realized that her nails were too long, that as they dug into his shoulders he was suffocating, that the caramel-vanilla taste of what must have been her lip-gloss was too strong and too sweet and too much , and it didn’t taste enough of cigarettes, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that hers were open as well, and the blue of them wasn’t grey enough, and her hair was definitely much too long, not nearly dark enough –
He pulled away, cursing. “Haley, I can’t do – that is, I don’t really feel like that about you.” That was true, he now realised. He didn’t, and he had been lying to himself the whole time when he thought he did. “I’m sorry.” And that was true as well. He was sorry, for her and himself, because it would be infinitely easier if he did. For both of them.
“Alex, don’t be sorry,” She laughed. “I don’t either.”
Now he was seriously confused. “What? But you just kissed me!”
She laughed again, and it was so happy that he smiled a bit himself. “Can I tell you something?” She asked.
“Of course,” He responded. “So long as you haven’t murdered anyone, because I wouldn’t be able to hide that,” He amended quickly.
She snorted. “Do you really think I could kill someone?” She raised her eyebrows when he nodded. “Alex, I... I figured it out just now,” She looked frightened suddenly, like she thought he would react badly to whatever she was going to say. Her arms curled around herself and she began to blush. “I don’t think I like boys,” The words came in a rush, and she looked shocked, like she couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. “I... um... I think I prefer girls.”
Alex smiled. “Okay,” He told her. “You know I love you no matter what, right?” She made a face. “Not like that, obviously, but...”
She nodded and leaned in to hug him again. “Thank you,” She whispered.
“Does Emily know?” He asked.
“No, I wanted to wait to tell her,” Haley responded. “Not that she’d have an issue with it, given Sandy,”
Alex laughed in agreement. “Hey, thanks for telling me,” he said. “It really means a lot that you felt comfortable sharing.”
“Of course,” She smiled. “Now, want to watch a trashy chick-flick?”
“Well, duh !” He put on an exaggeratedly high voice, flicking imaginary hair over his shoulder. Haley erupted into giggles, and he knew in that moment that they would be okay, now and for the rest of his life.
When Emily came back that night after her shift at the bar and found Haley asleep on Alex’s lap in the living room, she grinned smugly and turned to face Alex with her hands on her hips.
“You listened to me,” She smiled.
“Yeah, we fixed it,” Alex returned.
“So, you’re finally dating, huh?”
Haley looked up sleepily from lying down. “No?” She answered.
“No, Emily,” Alex laughed.
“But you’re in love!” Emily protested.
“Haley,” Alex said between laughs. “I’m, uh, going to leave now,” She nodded at him, turning to Emily, and as Alex shut the door, he heard Emily squeal excitedly and knew she was hugging her sister at that moment.
He was so happy for her.
He hated himself for not being brave enough to tell her the truth.
Well, Alex, it ’ s good she likes girls, the voice laughed cruelly, Because you clearly don ’ t.
Yeah, he thought sadly. That about sums it up.