Confessions of a Teenage Alcoholic

Chapter 15

"I can do whatever I want Cole."

"Yes, of course you can. But are you telling me you want to be hurt by him again?" Cole says and I squeeze my eyes shut.

"He wasn't really the one that did the hurting last year, it was me. He helped me so much and I just-"

"You don't owe him anything."

"I know Cole, that's not what I'm saying."

"Then why? At home, the last thing you wanted to do was go back there and see this lad, and now you're voluntarily spending one to one time with him and not telling your friends?"

"Did you not hear the whole bad day thing? I don't want to be told off."

"I'm not telling you off, I just think you're being reckless. Going to Jayden's so much, hanging out with Jackson, what are you doing?"

"Just spending time with my friends." I whisper and he hums a noise of disapproval.

"And you serious?"

"Cole, why are you so annoyed about this?" I sigh and so does he.

"Because I'm not there to protect you, I know you would just destroy yourself to put someone back together, that you would take the oxygen out of your own lungs and lend it to them if they were struggling to breathe. And sometimes you have to realise that there's no point doing that if they wouldn't do the same for you."

But Jackson had done that for me. And I wasn't doing it because I wanted anything else back.

"I don't agree though, you shouldn't love someone just because they love you back." I whisper and I hear him groan at me.

"Are you saying you love him?"

Sigh, that's not what I meant.

"No, that was just a hypothetical. That's not what I was saying at all. I just mean you wouldn't give someone a present just because you want them to give you one back."

"You also don't deserve to give someone a present and for them to jump on the box and kick it across the room."

"That's not what's happening." I sigh.

"Yes, it is Ivy."

Nobody would understand how it was with Jackson and I. I knew this now. When Jayden said something about him never hearing Jackson talk that much yesterday after our argument. I think it dawned on my then that the reason why they wouldn't see him, and the fact he was struggling, was that what we shared between us was so intimate that of course nobody else is going to see what I saw. This is how he acts around his friends, so it was normal. His distance, nonchalance, silence. But that's not the Jackson who I knew, the one that let me see him fully.

That was affectionate.

Loving.

A bright person in my darkness.

"No, Cole it is not like that. I'm sorry I won't ever be able to explain it to you. I need you to be my friend right now because, yeah I am very well aware I am being a mug, and yeah it did hurt me yesterday, but you are right, I'm not going to stop trying just because I am in a little bit of pain."

"But you should."

"Cole." I groan and realise this conversation was going nowhere.

"Have you told him about me?" He says and I frown.

"No, we don't talk about that shit."

"You mean about how you had a fuck buddy best friend when you went away."