Semi Charmed Life - 3. Chapter 3

Jack, having slept very little, was still disturbed enough by the previous night to force himself out of bed to go to church with Alyssa. He was generous when the offering plate came around and struggled to stay awake through the sermon, searching for the hint of inner peace he usually found at church, but it didn’t come to him today. His mind kept straying to the night before, leaving him feeling unclean, a dirty sinner that didn’t belong there.

The only good thing was Alyssa found this display of piety good enough to excuse his transgression of the day before and was once again cheerful and warm, holding his hand and smiling at him while he had lunch with her and her parents.

When he came home, he found himself trying, and failing, to study. He couldn’t stop thinking of yesterday. The fight. The way Damon looked at him before turning away. The confusing conversations with Alyssa and his mother. And the thing he almost did last night, while waiting for sleep to find him.

He glanced at his phone, sitting on top of a pile of textbooks. He sighed and picked it up.

Can we talk?

He hit send and tried to go back to studying. He couldn’t help checking and rechecking, and eventually he grabbed his phone again and called.

Instead of the Damon’s usual voicemail, Jack heard an automated message. The person you are calling is unavailable.

Jack sighed and dropped the phone. Either Damon was blocking calls, or his mom had disconnected his cell phone service. Either way, he couldn’t get in touch with Damon.

Fine, he thought, getting up from his desk and pulling on his running shoes. There was no way he could continue studying, and a nice long run would burn off most of his emotions. Fucking fine. If he doesn’t want to talk, then I don’t want to either.

Jack saw Damon in Monday morning Physics with a rush of relief. He didn’t look any worse for wear; maybe he had found someplace to stay after all. He tried giving Damon a short, hopeful smile which was resolutely ignored.

Fuck, he thought, sitting down next to Alyssa.

He wondered if he should give Damon a few days to cool off. Damon wasn’t the type to hold grudges. The conversations with Alyssa and his mom weighed heavily on him.

But maybe he could still go and apologize. Like, yeah, Alyssa had a problem with it, but Alyssa wasn’t Damon’s friend, he was. And Alyssa didn’t have to have anything to do with it. The two of them didn’t hang out normally, and after the coffee shop disaster, he sure as hell wasn’t going to try to get them to hang out either.

Satisfied he had a plan, he waited impatiently for lunch time.

He found Damon easily enough. He was sitting in the quad, back up against a tree that was offering some shade, reading and eating Skittles.

Jack started across the quad, determined to make things right again. Until he was stopped in his tracks by a blur of curly blond hair and a firm hand on his chest.

“Out of my way, Aly,” he said.

“No,” she said. “We talked about this.”

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”

“This is temptation! This is Satan, trying to lure you in by using your friendship with Damon. You have to be strong, for you and him!”

“Look,” Jack said, gripping Alyssa’s hand and moving it off his chest. “I get what you’re saying. I do. But I don’t see it that way.”

He moved to approach Damon again, and she blocked him again.

“You’re making a huge mistake,” she tried again.

“No, I’m not. And it’s none of your business.”

“If you go back to him, then you are not the person I thought you were and things between us will have to be over.”

“What?”

Alyssa looked nervous, but stood her ground.

“I have to make hard choices about doing the right things all the time. It’s hard to walk a righteous path, and it’s hard when the people you care about don’t have what it takes. I need my boyfriend to be someone who can walk a righteous path with me. If you can’t stand strong and do right in this situation with your friend, then I can’t trust you in other, harder situations either. So it’s going to have to be me or him.”

“You can’t decide who my friends are!” Jack felt his face growing warm. He could tell their altercation was starting to draw attention from the other students.

“No, but I can decide how and where to take my stand. This is my hill to die on. Him or me.”

The world seemed suddenly saturated with color. He felt faintly dizzy. His mother’s words echoed in his head.

I would choose your girlfriend. Your loyalty has to be to her first, your friend second.

This was exactly what was happening. Jack looked up, past Alyssa. Damon was watching him. Not smiling, not frowning, but just watching. Neutral. Impassive. Just…watching.

Jack shifted his gaze back to Alyssa, staring up at him, her eyes bright with emotion.

“I---” He swallowed. It was an impossible decision. It was impossible. This couldn’t be happening. He felt tears starting to fill his eyes. “I can’t,” he breathed, his voice cracking. “I can’t---don’t—”

“Shhh,” Alyssa said, soothingly, cradling his face with her cold hands. She lifted up on her toes and pressed her mouth against his.

“It’s hard, it’s hard. I know it’s hard,” she whispered, once she had drawn back. “But I can help you. Trust me.”

He blinked back his tears, refusing to let them fall. As his vision cleared, he saw Damon again. The other boy wasn’t looking at him, but rooting in his bag, pulling out a pair of sunglasses.

Right before he turned to follow Alyssa’s gentle, insistent tug on his hand, he saw Damon slip the sunglasses on while his lips formed one word.

“Pathetic.”

Jack planned his next move more carefully. Fortuitously, Alyssa had an orthodontic appointment the next day and was out of school by the time lunch rolled around. It was like a sign. Now he could find Damon and talk without her interference and hopefully put this whole mess behind them.

He scanned the quad at lunch and saw Damon at the same cluster of trees he was at yesterday. Their old spot.

Jack took stock. Damon looked normal, wearing a red and black striped sweatshirt with red skulls marching up the sleeves and a pair of black jeans. He was listening to something on his phone with his earbuds in and sucking on a bright red Twizzler.

Don’t think about his mouth, Jack instructed himself firmly. Don’t think about his mouth.

He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair before he started across the quad.

Don’t be nervous, Jack scolded himself. It’s just Damon.

Jack was rehearsing various greetings he might use as he walked, from reconciliatory to casual joking when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks again.

Instead of an angry girlfriend, he saw another student, not someone Jack knew, approaching Damon.

Jack watched as Damon looked up at the stranger. The stranger said something, Damon nodded, and the stranger sat down next to him.

Jack’s eyes narrowed as he studied the newcomer. He looked their age, with dark curls peeking out from a gray knit beanie. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt with a flannel shirt over it and dark brown hiking boots.

Hipster, Jack thought derisively.

He continued to watch, feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, even though Damon and his companion were sitting out in the open, and Jack himself was far from hiding.

He saw Damon offer the package of Twizzlers to the newcomer. The boy with the beanie smiled and pretended to grab for the Twizzler in Damon’s mouth. Damon leaned back, grabbing at his own Twizzler and then pushed the other boy away, laughing.

Jack felt something shrivel and die inside of him. He had heard Damon laugh like that before, when they were kids, but not recently. He had heard Damon laugh sarcastically, sardonically, falsely, and even drunk, but nothing like this. His laugh was bell-bright, full of warmth and genuineness, so seldom heard Jack had almost forgotten what it sounded like. It rang through the clearing and seemed to lodge itself into Jack’s chest.

Damon glanced up and locked eyes with Jack. The laughter died away instantly. There was nothing in Damon’s expression now. There was no spark of hot electricity between them, no blazing anger, no hurt. Not even recognition. Damon looked at him like Jack didn’t even register anymore.

It hurt, more than the angry words they had exchanged ever could. It choked him, left him mute and motionless as Damon turned his attention back to the newcomer.

Jack spun on his heel, all thoughts of trying to reconcile with Damon disappearing. He went instead to Alyssa’s, and now his, friends and sat down with them for lunch. He tried to ignore the tears he was suddenly blinking back or the hard lump in his throat that made food difficult to swallow.

Jack expected the tension between him and Damon to last maybe a few weeks at the most. But he was wrong again. Their friendship didn’t cool, it went into a deep freeze. Damon wouldn’t return his texts, declined his calls, and wouldn’t even acknowledge him in the few classes they shared.

Jack considered trying to approach him at lunch again, except Alyssa was there too, who Jack was starting to resent, and Damon usually was with his new boyfriend, and hanging out with the art kids.

Jack once had decided to go and confront him at his house and was halfway there before he remembered Damon didn’t live there anymore. Jack could see Damon’s house from his front porch, all the way at the end of the street, and he would often stand outside and watch Damon’s old house, though he wasn’t sure why.

He still watched for Damon when he was at track practice, but Damon never showed up looking for a ride.

Jack missed him. Missed his horribly inappropriate jokes, and the way he would smirk when he found something amusing. Missed being able to talk to him for hours; missed the easy banter between them. Dammit, he just missed Damon, but was clueless how to bridge the cold chasm between them now, or if he even could at this point.

So he let it go. Let the years of friendship die out, and Jack had to content himself with watching Damon from afar.

Jack was lounging on the bleachers after school one day, waiting for Alyssa, and his mind buzzing with excitement. He had just gotten his acceptance letter for University of Michigan and wanted her to be the first to know.

He saw a girl approaching him with a drink in a Styrofoam cup. It was Deidra. She had gotten darkly tanned and had her long brown hair pulled back in her usual ponytail. She was wearing a crop top with a plunging neckline and a barely legal denim skirt. She settled down on the bench below him, took a sip of her drink, and leaned back, tilting her face up to the sun. It afforded him an excellent view of her cleavage, and he watched as a trickle of sweat slid down her neck and disappeared into the warm cleft of her breasts. He wondered if it tickled.

“Like what you see?” Deidra asked dryly. He averted his gaze, coloring hotly. When he looked at her; however, she was smiling and seemed amused.

“Maybe,” he said, feeling bold.

She gave him a thin smile. She pulled an ice cube from her cup, ran it over her lips, then down her chest. Jack felt uncertain about whether or not it was okay to look, since she had already caught him once.

“Alyssa said she will be a few minutes. She wanted to talk to Mrs. Harmon about her grade on her math test.”

“Oh.” Jack just now remembered that was why he was out here, waiting for her.

Deidra smirked and hoisted herself up to sit right next to him. She leaned in close so he could smell her perfume. It wasn’t the sweet, homey scent Alyssa wore, it was something darker, fragrant and erotic.

She spoke softly in his ear. “If you ever get tired of trying to pry Aly’s hallowed thighs apart and want to see how a real woman feels—” She took his hand and placed it on her thigh. Her skin was hot from the sun. She slid his hand up her leg until his fingertips disappeared under the hem of her skirt. She gave him a slow, sexy smile. “Just let me know.”

Jack waited until after prom to break up with Alyssa, figuring it would be a dickish move to dump her after she spent money on a dress, and he had made reservations for dinner and a limo for them and their friends. He ended up spending a lot of the prom watching Deidra, who had elected to go stag, in her curve-hugging, leg-baring, sequined dress. Alyssa, in contrast, had worn a fluffy pink concoction that made him think of clouds.

He had tried to be as gentle as he could, having never broken up with a girl before, but Alyssa had still cried. Not the kind of crying she did at church or while watching a sad movie, where it was just dabbing at her eyes with a tissues, but full on, red-faced, sobbing.

“Is it the sex thing?” she asked, in between sobs.

“No!” Jack lied. He remembered something he read online. “I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us, and I’m really sorry.”

“But why?” Alyssa mopped at her face. “I—I thought we were h-happy.”

“I know. I should have said something earlier. But I feel like things have run their course, and I just don’t feel ready for a long-term relationship. And you deserve someone who wants the same things you do.”

“I thought you did want the same thing I did.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said again. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t feel right about continuing things.”

It felt like he sat there for hours, though it was probably only twenty minutes or so, listening to her cry, and repeating “sorry”. She went through begging, pleading, wanting to “work things out”, counseling with her church pastor, and self-blame. He was resolute; however, and her sadness eventually dissolved into anger. She screamed at him for being a “selfish, stupid bastard” and hit at his chest ineffectively with her hands before storming out of his house.

Out of respect to her injured feelings, he waited at least a week before contacting Deidra again. Karen had peeled off their group to comfort Alyssa during this time, but Deidra and Nathalie, along with the guys, didn’t seem overly concerned about how Alyssa was faring, and felt Jack was justified in breaking up with her.

“In all honesty, the two of you were kinda of soppy and disgusting,” Deidra said, sprawled out on the quad and sunning herself like a cat. Her arms were above her head, drawing her shirt up to show several inches of midriff, and he could see the faint traces of white lace peeking up from the waist of her jeans.

He went home with her that afternoon. Deidra lived in a large house on the nicer side of town.

“Are your parents in?” he asked, noting the empty driveway.

“Nah. Dad is a realtor, and he’s almost never at home. I swear he sleeps in his office some nights.”

“What about your mom?”

Deidra unlocked the front door. “She moved back to Europe after the divorce. I usually go see her over the summer holidays.”

Jack was keen to look around, but Deidra had him by the hand and was leading him through the house, so he had to settle for glimpses of the spacious rooms and the items in them as he passed.

Deidra’s bedroom was about the size of Jack’s parents master suite, with its own en suite bathroom, and full of expensive looking furniture, clothes, and electronics.

“Have a seat,” Deidra said, gesturing to a dark purple loveseat set against the wall. “Do you want a drink?”

“Um…sure,” Jack said.

“I have Coke, Monster, water. I have some wine and beer too.”

“Water is great,” Jack said. His throat felt very dry, and he wondered why he was so nervous. This was what he wanted, what Alyssa wouldn’t give him, and what he wished he wouldn’t think about whenever his mind strayed to Damon.

Deidra tossed him a bottle, and Jack uncapped it and drank down half of it in a few gulps. Deidra popped open a bottle of Smirnoff.

“So, how far did Alyssa let you go?” Deidra asked, sitting next to him. Her leg was warm where it pressed against his own thigh.

“Please, Alyssa would barely even kiss me,” Jack said.

“Let me guess, she’s “saving herself for marriage”.” Deidra said, the note of mocking chastity clear in her voice.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jack said.

“Yeah, but it’s hardly realistic,” Deidra pointed out. “Sex is healthy and normal, and I don’t see the point in not engaging in it if it’s what you want.”

“The Bible says—”

“The Bible was written by a bunch of old men thousands of years ago. And most of the people in the Bible were not chaste virgins either. And-” she gave him a wink and stood from the loveseat, “-neither am I.”

Jack returned home that evening feeling like a different person. Despite her veiled expression on the bleachers, he had gone to Deidra’s house expecting little more than some making-out and maybe some touching. But Deidra had stood up from the loveseat, taken off all her clothes, except for the white lacy panties, and had straddled his lap. He was allowed to look and touch, and they ended up making out while she unzipped his jeans and stroked him until he came. He felt like he had gone from one extreme, with Alyssa, to the other with Deidra.

That didn’t keep him from recalling the experience that night in the shower and getting off on it again. He couldn’t get off from Alyssa, didn’t want to get off from Damon, but Deidra would work well enough for now.

He and Deidra never talked about being in an actual relationship, but as Deidra didn’t have a problem with showing affection in public, the entire school was soon talking about them. Jack initially worried this would annoy Deidra, but she actually seemed amused by it, and kept bringing Jack over to her house.

Jack eventually had to account for where he was with his parents, and brought Deidra home to meet them one day. While Deidra was well dressed and polite during that meeting, he could tell his mother much preferred Alyssa. Alyssa was sweet and wholesome in appearance and demeanor, and there was none of that with Deidra. Everything about Deidra radiated sexuality and no amount of modest clothing could hide it. His father didn’t seem to care either way, but Jack saw him surreptitiously checking out her ass when Jack’s mom wasn’t looking.

Alyssa still wouldn’t talk to him and refused to have anything to do with her former group of friends, and Jack couldn’t honestly say he missed her. Not like he missed Damon. But thinking of Damon hurt, and Deidra was continuing to be a welcome distraction.