MARSHALL APARTMENT
Alex
knows before he reaches the
door that it can't be something good.
The knocking -- pounding -- is too
fast, too furious, for this to be a routine visit. Alex's heart races,
as if trying to outpace the knocks and the quickness of his steps.
"Coming!" he calls, just steps away
from the door. He reaches out over the final distance and grabs the doorknob.
"Jason ,"
he says as he pulls the
door open.
"Hi," Jason says. He steps right
inside the apartment. Something is different about him -- the usual air
of friendliness, of goofiness, is absent.
"What's up?"
"I really need to talk to--we really
need to talk."
"Okay ..."
"This has gone on long enough," Jason
says after a barely perceptible pause.
Alex's facial features harden in
a sort of blank expression, and his body tenses even more. "What?"
"This whole ... thing. With
Lauren
and you and--and me."
"Where's this coming from? Everything
is totally fine--"
"Everything is totally screwed up,"
Jason interjects. "With the way you freaked out on Lauren a couple months
ago, I knew something had to be up. And after you kissed on New Year's
Eve, I knew I had to speak up."
"Look, Jason, I know we're all friends
and stuff, but this is really between Lauren and me."
"No, it's not. Not with--not after
everything that else that's happened. I'm involved in this, too. I'm sorry
I let it go this long ... I should have said something before. I wanted
to after New Year's ... but then there was the whole thing with
my brother--"
Alex can feel the tone of the conversation
shift just enough, if only for a second, but he latches onto the change.
"Hey, how are you doing with all that? Last time we talked--"
Jason seizes back the conversation.
"I'm fine. And that isn't what this is about."
"Well, sorry," Alex says with a hint
of sarcasm, "but I was under the impression that we were friends. I care
about you, Jason."
Alex notices the flicker of something
-- fear, perhaps -- dancing in Jason's eye as silence weighs down over
them.
But the flicker is just that --
a flicker. It passes and Jason looks Alex directly in the eyes. "I know
you do. And I think that's the problem."
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