Lonely Lost & Found

Chapter Three: New Friend

I showed up to the house, it was a nice looking place, two stories, a shit ton of space, and there was a decent sized boat on a trailer on their side driveway. It was a house that I'd dream about whenever and if ever I became rich. 
I turned my car off, took a deep breath, got out and walked inside.
I looked around, the living room was huge, the kitchen was something boujie that you'd see straight off of a Food Network show. 
There were lights all around, just like a sort of nightclub and music blasting so loud I could hardly hear a thing. The music was subpar at best, it was the usual pop and rap you'd hear on the radio. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't my thing.

I could feel my heart starting to race, and I got a little sweaty.
'Not now, you just fucking got here.'
I nodded to myself determined to not start panicking at the fact that people were crowding everywhere, red solo cups were being held by every single person, and no one gave a fuck that they were in the way.
There was no clear path and it was genuinely starting to freak me out.
I backed myself up against a wall and sucked in a few deep breaths, closing my eyes just trying to realize that I brought myself here for a reason. I wasn't going to chicken out and bail now.

"You alright?" I heard next to me. I jumped a little and opened my eyes. For a split second I swore it was someone who recognized me coming to yell at me or beat me up or some shit. 
I took a minute to focus, my heart still pounding, I was starting to get dizzy.
"So....Are you alright dude?" The guy asked again, looking at me with a rather confused face. I'm sure he thought I was mute or something, at the very least I was socially inept, and that much would be true.
I looked at him, he was pretty much gorgeous.
Big brown eyes with the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen, a skinny petite body, a little taller than me, dressed amazingly in a slightly loose fitting black shirt, black tight jeans, a black leather jacket. My god. His hair was black and a bit spiked up with a huge platinum chunk in it, with a bit of fringe hanging down.
He backed away a little, "Okay then." He muttered.
I had to recover myself.
"No! No sorry...Sorry...Yeah. I'm okay." I blushed red, thankfully the lights were changing colors so many times, you'd have to be staring pretty hard to see it.
He smiled a little, "Alright. You looked freaked out. First time?"
I nodded, "Y-yeah....See...I don't get invited to shit...I'm only here because someone was stupid enough to hang flyers around the school..." I looked down.
He didn't respond for a minute.
Great idiot, now you've said too much. 
"Why do you not get invited to things? You look pretty nice to me." He shrugged, looking me up and down. I wasn't going to take that to heart, I'd get my hopes up just to let them be crushed.

I sighed, "Because everyone hates me."
"Oh come on, that can't be true."
I nodded, "No man, it's genuinely true. I'm pretty much sitting here against this wall hoping like hell that no one recognizes me and knocks me out." I pouted my bottom lip a little and pointed to my split open lip.
He looked genuinely concerned. That was a look I hadn't seen from anyone in a while.
"Why do they do that? And who does it?" He put his hand on my shoulder.
I almost didn't want to say, because it was so loud that we were practically yelling just to speak to each other.
"Can we talk outside?" I asked, not wasting this opportunity.
He nodded, then got two cups, "the punch is spiked with vodka. Want some?"
I nodded.
He filled his cup, then mine. He handed it to me and took my hand and lead me outside.
My heart pounded even faster.
'Stop it already, for fucks sake. Calm down, heart. It's just a gesture. He's just helping your dumbass get outside.'

I sucked in a deep breath when we got outside, away from all of the people and the heat they brought on from being compacted so close together.
My heart stuttered. It hurt. It always hurt. It felt like the top chamber of my heart would pound fast, then it felt like it stopped completely, then I'd get a huge kick from the bottom chamber of my heart and that's the one that hurt the worst.
"Really, are you okay?" The boy asked, watching me. I hadn't realized I'd put my hand over my heart, putting pressure on it. That never worked, but I always tried to do something.
I shook my head, being honest, "No, my chest hurts." 
"Let's sit down then, and you can take a breath while you tell me why people hate you."
I nodded and followed him to some bench in the side of the overly fancy yard. 
He sat down first and I sat down next to him. I genuinely can't remember the last time I had an actual conversation with someone.
I looked down at my cup, "Well. First off, I have no idea really why they do that. I mean, they say I look gay, whatever that means, and they'd be right, but I'm not out of the closet or anything except for my parents and now you I guess, and the other thing is apparently there were a bunch of rumors floating around about me. See, I don't talk to anyone at my school. I have no friends and I mean that in the most truthful way. I did have friends in middle school, but they stopped talking to me." I bit my lip and dared to glance up at him.
He had a soft smile on his face, "Well first of all, you don't look gay, even if you are. You look like you stole your clothes out of my closet, so I must look gay too. Secondly, rumors are stupid. Do you think they started them because you don't talk to anyone? So they have to make assumptions? I don't know why gay would be the first one they come up with, but then again, it is high school and the most common slur is 'faggot' so maybe they don't really think that at all, and it's just an easy insult." He shrugged.

I liked this guy's logic.
"Maybe."
"Why did your old friends stop being friends with you?" He asked, looking at me with his full attention. I didn't know if he was lonely looking for a friend too, or if he was just an overly kind person, or lastly, the one I didn't want to believe, he was put up to talking to me so he could report back and give these assholes something to use against me. 
I sucked in a deep breath, "I don't know if I really wanna say." 
"You can trust me you know." His tone was gentle. I wanted to believe him.
"I just have a feeling like you're doing this to get information from me and go tell someone who's just gonna have a new reason to fuck me up, especially since I was just a fucking idiot and confirmed to you that I am in fact fucking gay." I groaned, putting my cup on the bench and putting my head in my hands. My sleeve rode up without me realizing.
"Well, I don't go to your school. I go to the stupid private school, so I really have no one to tell your secrets to. I'm only here because I saw the same flyer at my school. I'm assuming someone knows whoever's throwing this party, so I tagged along, but my friend got drunk and is fucking some girl upstairs I'm sure, unless the idiot is drowning in the pool because he's so shit faced. He drank pre-party like a rookie, and now he's just sloppy." He shrugged, then he reached over and tugged my sleeve back where it needed to be.
I felt my already pounding heart sink and pound even harder. I got clammy, my hands clenched and I began shaking a bit, my breathing picked up and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to calm down. It wasn't working. I already knew what was gonna happen next. I'd be curled up on this bench or on the floor. Except I wasn't. He spoke up again.
"Hey, hey, you're okay. It's okay. You're having a panic attack right?" He asked. I nodded. 
"Okay, open your eyes and watch me." He took both of my hands.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, "Follow me. Breathe in," He breathed in, I copied him, "Out" He exhaled. I breathed out. We did that a few more times before I came back down to earth.

"Th-there's another reason e-everyone hates me." I whispered.
"People are stupid. Having anxiety isn't a reason to hate someone." The boy who's name I still hadn't gotten gave me another one of those gentle smiles. Why was he being so nice to me? I was a nobody. He didn't bring up what he saw on my wrist either. That, or he was disgusted by it.
Probably the latter. 
"They, my old friends, abandoned me after my brother died and I freaked out," I started, sucking in a deep breath, "So, I already have depression with manic tendencies and generalized anxiety, found that out when I was a kid and lost my shit, so anyway long story short, my brother died when I was 12. He was living back in the UK, where I'm originally from, at the time but he and I were really close before he died, and I looked up to him so much, and then he died because of his alcohol dependency, and I lost my shit again, holed up in my room for about a month and a half straight. Didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Thought of ways to kill myself. Then tried to actually hang myself. Didn't work clearly. So I lost all of my friends. At first they tried to be supportive, but after a while they stopped trying, and I don't blame them. I mean, we were in middle school. What were they supposed to do? They all go to different schools now, so I'm just kinda stuck here. People from middle school remembered the time that I freaked out in class once. I kinda did what I just did now, but I kinda blacked out and was on the floor just shaking and crying. My teacher almost called a fucking ambulance." I rolled my eyes. "So...Yeah. That's why I don't have any friends. I'm gay according to them, and like I said, they're right but they don't know that, and I lost the friends I had because I'm absolutely mental, and I guess I'm just the easy target." I stared down at my lap, twiddling my thumbs, wondering if I'd regret telling him all of this. He seemed to care though.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to unload on you like that." I said quietly, just in case. I wondered where my ability to speak even came from. I mean honestly, I wasn't a complete freak. I just didn't talk around many people, I didn't speak up in class, and I didn't like people talking to me. People intimidated me. This guy though, he seemed to be different.

He smiled again. He had a nice smile.
"I asked you though, you didn't unload anything on me. And there's more to you than your sexuality, your anxiety, depression and what happened to you. You're not your demons." 
I never thought of it like that.
"I let the demons talk to me too much though. You saw that, I won't pretend you didn't, as much I wish you didn't." I lifted my sleeve again.
"Well, you can see mine too then, nothing to be ashamed of." He unbuttoned his pants just enough to show a few long faded scars then buttoned them back up.
I looked up at him, then did the same, but my cuts were brand new and still pink, soon to scar over into white.
"You used to?" I asked. I couldn't say the words 'cut' or 'self harm' they embarrassed me.
He nodded, "I did. I'm not really a depressed person, but I do have some everyday anxiety, you know, and my life is fine in general, but a lot of bad things happened in a span of a few months last year. My sister was in a car crash and was in a coma for a month before she died. I didn't know how to handle it. Neither did my brother. He moved as far away from Baltimore as possible. I honestly don't even know where. Somewhere in Oregon according to my parents. They work more now, longer hours to distract themselves. I just sort of exist." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I know that feeling. My parents wanted me out though. They couldn't handle me freaking out and having panic attacks. They're worse for me, I have a heart problem as it is, so when I have a panic attack my chest hurts so badly that I feel like I can't breathe at all. It's just. Not good. So they let me get emancipated at 16, and I live in my own apartment now, and they just...Leave me to it. They don't call much. Maybe once a week, at least my mom does, and we eat together once a month or more than that. I don't really mind being alone though. It's better than being around people who stare at you like you're some pariah. Although I guess I am, by technical definition."
I was looking at my lap again.

"What's your name?" He asked.
"Alex." I looked up at him.
"I'm Jack. Let's hang out sometime. Give me your phone." He unlocked his and held it out to me.
I took it, surprised, and added myself as a contact, then handed his phone back to him.
"You got a picture?" He said as he added his number to my phone and handed it back.
I nodded, "Quite a few. I'm sort of obsessed with how I look, so I take a lot, sort of stupid." I opened my camera roll and let him pick one. Of course, he picked the one where I was grinning. I hated my smile, but I tried it out anyway to see how it looked. He texted it to himself. "You pick one of me." He opened his camera roll.
I picked a really cute one that looked like him with morning hair.
He rolled his eyes, "Of course you'd pick my most embarrassing one. I took it hoping I looked good."
I smiled, "It is a cute picture, plus, you picked the worst one of me."
Jack shook his head, "Why do you think it's the worst?" He looked at the picture again that he'd set as my contact picture.
"Because I'm smiling. It's fake, and I hate my smile." I shrugged. I was being completely honest.
"Well, I think you look good, and fake smile or not, it's good looking." He picked up his nearly forgotten cup and took a drink, making a face but got over it quickly as he took another drink. Whoever spiked the punch must've spiked it a lot.
I picked mine up and took a drink.

Maybe I just found myself a new friend.
This party wasn't such a bad idea after all.