Damned If I Do Ya.... So I'll Do Ya (Jack Barakat story)

The One Who Deserves A Subway

"Leeann, get your skinny little ass out of bed!" I groaned as my mother, being her delightful self, shouted and yanked my quilt off my bed. I rolled over onto my belly so the light didn't burn my eyes, and pressed my face as far in to my pillow as possible.

"Go away!" I moaned at her, but I could hear her going through my wardrobe. Usually my clothes would already be lying out, but I'd been at my best friend Jack's last night, and since he lives across the road, mum doesn't really care what time I get back. I don't think I got in until about 3 AM, so as soon as I got in, I crashed out.

"Come on, you've got school! The holidays are officially over!" She paused to plonk my jeans on my legs, but I could swear I heard her mutter, "thank fuck".

As you can tell, we aren't a polite family. There's only three of us. My big brother Olly has just finished high school so he rarely emerges from his room, but I guess he still counts. Dad is still in Scotland. Originally, we're from Glasgow, but we moved to Baltimore when I was 12, and I made instant friends with Jack. He's like me in so many ways, so we instantly clicked. People always seemed to assume we were more than that, but really we were simply good friends who tended to forget there was a gender difference from time to time.

Back to the family situation, we left dad because he used to hit me and make me not tell mum, but one day she saw him. That made it sound way better than it was so I think we'll stick with that. We left straight away, originally coming here to visit my maternal grandmother to escape, but eventually we decided just to stay. Best. Decision. Ever! We've never seen dad again, and we're not particularly bothered to be quite honest. Olly was to begin with, because he had been really close to my dad, but he was a caring big brother so he agreed to come. He was one of those big brothers who was always there for his sibling. That changed when he got a girlfriend last year and things got serious, but I try not to hold it against him.

"Leeann!" Mum screeched when I'd nearly drifted back to sleep. The American ways hadn't quite overpowered my heavily Scottish background quite yet. I try to say mom and faucets and things like that, but I'm so used to saying mum and taps that I just keep going back. Our other friend, Alex, knows how I feel. He's from England, and sometimes we just sit and talk about good ol' Britain. Not often though, because the other boys take the mick out of us, but we still do once in a while.

Eventually I dragged myself out of my bed. I shoved on my favourite purple skinny jeans and my Blink-182 t-shirt before walking over to my hoody chair. Basically it's a normal chair, except I don't sit in it, I just dump my hoodies over it. I picked a black one up that I recognised as Jack's and shoved it on, knowing he won't care. As soon as I shoved on my purple Converse the doorbell rang. Legging it downstairs I pulled the door open. Jack was standing there, hair over his dark eyes, with his bag over his shoulder. One look at him told me he was just as tired as I was.

"Morning sunshine," he mumbled, before shoving past me into the house.

"Yes Jack, just come in, make yourself at home!" I muttered to myself, while shutting the door. I walked through to the living room, which is just beside the front hall, and saw Jack sprawled on the couch, his bag lazily dumped at the side. He put his arm up, inviting me into a hug, which I gratefully accepted. I curled up against him, resting my head on his chest. I playfully punched him in the arm.

"Ow! Oi! What was that for?" He said, but his tone of voice told me he didn't really care.

"Its your fault it took me half an hour to wake up this morning! If you weren't so hot I would've left sooner last night!" I said jokingly, in the same cheeky tone I usually used with him. I heard him chuckle quietly.

"I'm sorry, I guess it's just a gift really! And I'm pretty sure I'm part god, so that's not helping your sleep either. I bet you dream about me with no top on every night," he said grinning down at me, flicking his hair out his eyes.