The Devil On Your Shoulder (an All Time Low/Jalex fanfic)

Chapter 8- I am weakness, I am greatness, I am anything you want me to be

There was little things about Jack that I'd forgotten to miss. For example, he would drink all the milk, and then put the carton back in the fridge, to remind me to buy more milk. It annoyed me, a lot, because it didn't remind me to buy milk, it made me think we already had milk. This happened most days, and every time I confronted him about it he'd giggle and kiss me shyly, and I loved that more than anything.

When we slept in the same bed at night, he'd always refuse to cuddle before sleeping. He told me he didn't like cuddling, he liked to be independent, he liked to be a man and sleep on his own. I would tell him it wasn't less manly to cuddle someone while sleeping, I knew he was a cuddly sleeper, I always knew, and every morning I would wake up to his leg over my own leg, gripping my chest tightly and his head buried into my shoulder. I'd lie there until he was awake and let realise what he was doing. Sometimes he'd bury his head deeper into my shoulder and kiss my neck, which was more than amazing and I loved it so dammit much, but more often that not he'd quickly pull away from me, leaving a cold breeze where his warm body had once been. It made me sad when he did this, and I missed him the second he left me on my own.

He ate his cereal weird too. He would pour dry cheerios, his favourite type, into a bowl, and then fill a cup with milk. He'd leave it for a while, in that time he would switch on the TV, get dressed, he even sometimes brushed his teeth, and then he'd come back to the kitchen, pour half of the milk in his glass over his cheerios, eat them, and then drink the rest of the milk. 

Words don't even describe how weird that was to me.

Another thing he did that was alien to me, was he'd boil the kettle before he went to bed at night. Not because he wanted a coffee or a cup of tea before sleeping, but so it wouldn't take as long to boil in the morning. I told him time and time again that it would take just as long to boil in the morning, but he shook his head, telling me that he was right and it did actually work.

Although things seemed great and perfect again, nothing had changed since we'd broken up 8 months ago. I hadn't told my parents about me being gay, I was still scared to tell any of my "friends" about it. Jack knew this. He saw it in my face every time his mom or any friend or relative of theirs brung up the fact we were together. He liked showing me off, he liked it more than anything. The first time I'd met his grandparents, he'd paraded me about like I was some sort of gold medal he'd won in a fighting championship. I wasn't half as good as he made me out to be, he'd tell everyone I was perfect for him and he couldn't be more happy. But I knew he could be more happy. I didn't deserve him, he needed something more than me, and although I knew deep down in my heart that I couldn't fufill his dreams, I couldn't father his child, I couldn't love him the way he needed to be loved, I didn't have it in me to break-up with him again. The look on his face when I'd told him 8 months ago that we couldn't see each other anymore, it broke me, it ruined me. I couldn't hurt him like that, not again, not ever.

I kept an eye on Jack's wrists, making sure he wasn't cuting again. I noticed fresh wounds in his arms once every week. It then cut down to once every 2 weeks, once every 3 weeks, finally, I hadn't seen one in about 2 months. I felt proud, like I was the reason he wasn't cutting anymore, the reason he wanted to stay on this earth, he reason he smiled.

One thing that had been happening to Jack a lot though, was collapsing. He'd get unstable on his legs, lose his ability to hear properly, causing him to fall down, sometimes blacking out for a few minutes. He wouldn't go to the doctors, he wouldn't let me call an ambulance or his mom when he fell. He was stubborn, he won all our fights we had about it.

I knew I had to do something, I knew something could be seriously wrong with him. He told me over and over that he was just under the weather, that he had food poisoning and that he could treat himself. Sometimes, I walked in to his room, pitch black, and he was just lying there. He told me not to speak, and he complained of a stabbing pain in his head. After the pain in his head had left and he was finally feeling some relief, he'd run to the bathroom only to throw up.