Jasey Rae

There’s an endless list of reasons why New York is my most favourite city in the world. There’s the never ending rush, the feeling that you have to keep moving every single second. There’s the fact that New York is one of the major media centers of the world. There’s the whole “City of Opportunity” thing to think about. All these are true to a dot but I think my favourite thing about my city is the seasons. Fall came and snuck up on us like it always does. One day Miranda and I were walking through Central Park talking about going to the beach and the next we were running around 5th trying to find new cashmere scarves. Mind you, I was dragged. I had no say in this.

Miranda and I both agreed to pretend like the summer assignment I’d been on never happened and it was easier than I thought it’d be. I guess that saying “time heals all wounds” was proving to be true. Autumn was here and I let myself discard my brain of last season’s drama. It was something that I’d taught myself to do a long time ago. Nothing could be done to fix what had happened so I might as well just pile the thoughts up and discard them like the leaves that were being discarded around the city. It’s fun at first, watching the leaves fall. It’s a parade of warm and crispy colors flying around and you’re caught up in looking at them. Then the leaves start to crackle under our footsteps and we forget that we thought them to be aesthetically pleasing. Instead we rake them up into big piles, shove them into trash bags and leave them on the sidewalk to get taken away. It’s funny how fast humans get sick of things. Some of us are left missing the orange that filled the air. We miss it for a while then we forget that we did when the bare trees get covered by a change, a change of season. Winter comes and the city gets distracted by the flurry of white that comes with it and suddenly the leaves that were taken from us don’t seem so that important to us anymore. Like I said, humans are fickle.

“Thanks for getting all the GK ads ready, Jasey,” my boss, Stacy said as she leaned in the doorway of my office. With the arrival of autumn came new clothing lines and Marky from Glamour Kills had just sent us his new samples this week. Our deadline was today and we were supposed to be done picking which ads to put in next month’s issues and which frames to send back to Marky.

“Yeah, sure thing,” I said nonchalantly. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Stacy it was just that she was overly peppy and I didn’t know how to handle it sometimes. In a few ways she reminded me of May Barakat.

“Hey, since it’s Friday I was wondering if you wanted to come out with me and some of-”

“Excuse me! Emergency! Coming through!” Just then Miranda pushed passed Stacy and ran into my office, which I was crazily thankful for. Her sense of timing was impeccable.

“Oh... Alright...” Stacy slunk out of my office quickly as Miranda started babbling. She knew there’d be no way of getting either of our attentions once Miranda started.

“Okay. So. Emergency. But if we get you to the back door it should be okay. Do we even have a backdoor? But I think you should-”

“Miranda, what are you talking about?” I couldn’t make out a single thing she was saying. I turned so my back was to the doorway, sat her into my chair, crossed my arms, and waited for her to calm down and be coherent. “Okay. Speak.”

“Look! No time, okay? Just get your coat and I think we should just take my car ‘cause it’ll be faster and-”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Just then there was a knocking sound from behind me. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

I shut my eyes tight then opened them with a sigh, looking at Miranda.

“That’s what I was talking about,” she mumbled quietly.

I turned with a sense of apprehension and sure enough I wasn’t hallucinating. He was here. “What do you want?” I said bitterly.

“I heard you were getting off work around now so I thought I’d drive you home,” he said casually. He looked a little different than when I’d last seen him almost three months ago. Maybe I just thought that because it’d been so long since I’d really gotten a chance to look at him. His hair had grown out a little, past his ears now under the black beanie he was wearing, and he’d grown out a little scruff that I wasn’t used to seeing on him. His face was tinged pink from the windy cold outside and his leather jacket clung to him tightly. “So, what do you say? Let’s go?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, completely confused. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, turning away from him.

Miranda looked up at me from the chair awkwardly. “Yeah, I’m gonna go,” she said. She got up and scurried out the door as fast as she could.

With a sigh I turned my computer monitor off and grabbed my cellphone and keys off the table, dropping them into the pocket of the cardigan I was wearing. When I turned to get my trench coat off of the coatrack Alex was holding it open so I could slide my arms in. I cooperated silently and made no eye contact with him. “What do you want, Alex?” I asked while I tied the waist belt of the coat together.

“I drove up to see you. I thought we could, you know, talk or something.”

“You really think I have anything to say to you?” I asked, tossing my scarf around my neck.

“Well probably not but I have some stuff I hope you’ll listen to if you let me talk.”

“It’ll take me three minutes to get out of the building and another maybe two to hail a cab so make it quick.” I pushed past him and began walking down the hall to get out of my office quadrant and get to the elevators.

“Well, you don’t need to hail a cab. I said I’d drive you home.”

“I don’t want you to drive me home.” Alex chuckled a little next to me and I rolled my eyes. “Are you really laughing right now?”

“Is it a crime that I’m happy to see you?”

“Shut up, Alex.” He was still smiling anyways. “Okay, talk. I’m not giving you all day,” I said, when we got into the elevator.

Alex looked down at me, that little grin still on his face. “Hi,” he said lightly.

“Hello. Are you done now?”

“I just...” He just kept looking at me with that stupid smile on his face and I had half a mind to try and clock him in the chin. Stupid boy. “Look, I’m sorry about calling you out at Warped a few months ago.”

I looked away from him and at the lights over the elevator door wondering why it was taking so long to get to the lobby. “Fine.”

“And, I’m sorry for a few years ago too...” he said quietly.

“Yeah, I know. You said that at the time.”

“And you were still mad.”

“I still am.”

“For getting drunk and sleeping with someone else?”

“Yeah,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “But I guess I shouldn’t be because you did warn me. I quote, ‘Look, I just want to enjoy the fruits of my career without any guilt. Is that so hard to understand?’ I hope everything was satisfactory in the end, Alex.” The doors opened then and I stormed out but Alex stayed level with my pace.

“I said that during a fight, Jasey Rae, and I wasn’t even referring to that.”

I ignored him and raised my hand to hail a cab when we got outside. Alex pulled it down. “Stop it,” I said, putting my arm up again. He pulled it down again. “Will you stop being so immature?”

“Will you stop being so stubborn?”

“No.”

“Well fine.” Alex picked me up then and I let out an audible gasp.

“What are you doing? Put me down, Alex! This isn’t funny!”

Alex ignored me and threw me over his shoulder then began walking. I kicked and I banged my fists on his back but he just continued walking towards his car. “Hold still,” he said when he put me in the passenger seat of his Range Rover. If the situation had been different I would’ve complimented the new car but I didn’t. He buckled my seatbelt and I groaned, hitting the back of my head to the seat.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

Alex walked around the car and got in on the driver’s side. “There we go.”

“This is technically kidnap you know.”

“Are you really gonna call 911 for this?” he asked with a roll of his eyes.

“You’re really annoying.”

He started the car and pulled out of the parking space and began driving. “I got your address from your mom by the way,” he said pointing to the GPS he had on the dashboard. “She misses you, just so you know.”

“What do you want, Alex?”

“I want to have dinner. I’m starved. What about you?”

“It’s not even five thirty.”

“Huh. Weird what traveling does to your body then. Where do you wanna go?”

I didn’t reply and just looked out of my passenger seat window.

“Hm... What’s good in New York? Fuck. Everything’s good in New York except for the snarky people and the completely terrible traffic.”

“Then leave.”

Alex ignored me and continued his little monologue. “Hudson. We’ll go to Hudson Place on 3rd.” He took a right and I rolled my eyes. “So, how’re you?”

I continued ignoring him.

“If you don’t wanna talk to me then I’ll just talk. Okay, so-”

I turned to face him abruptly. “You haven’t answered my question, Alex. Why are you here?”

Alex drummed his fingers on the steering wheel when we reached a red light and looked over at me. “I told you. I want to talk.”

“Yeah but I don’t want to talk to you!” I said, exasperated. “Why’s that so hard for you to get?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re still as stubborn as before.” He shook his head and stepped on the gas lightly once the light turned green. “Look, I’m sorry, alright?”

“So you drove from Maryland to New York to tell me you’re sorry?”

“Well it’s not like you pick up my calls.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Well fine. You said your apologies. I don’t accept. Now can I leave?”

“Nope. Oh look. A parking spot. It’s like we were destined to go to dinner today.” Alex eased into an empty space by a parking meter, Hudson Place right next to us. It was a little American-Italian restaurant on the corner of 3rd and 36th that I used to love but I didn’t care for their food today. As soon as Alex got the car in park I unbuckled my seatbelt, unlocked the door, and jumped out. This is also around the time that I was reminded that Alex’s legs were much longer than mine. “Hey, hey, hey. Come on.” He grabbed my wrist. “One dinner. It won’t kill you.”

“You know? It just might.”

Alex looked at me and smiled. “Come on, Jase.”

“No.”

He just kept looking at me, that hopeful grin still on his face.

“...Fine! I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you! Got it?”

Alex smiled and let my wrist go. He tried to fix my scarf which had half fallen off in the process of running but I crossed my arms and walked ahead of him and into the restaurant.

“Welcome to Hudson Place,” an slim white haired hostess said when Alex and I got in.

“Reservation for Gaskarth? Two?” Alex said next to me.

I glared up at him from the corner of my eye. “You made reservations?” I hissed.

“Thanks, Liz,” Alex said when the hostess started to lead us to our table. We got a booth in the back corner which was a little more private, no doubt by Alex’s request. When our coats were taken up and we were finally seated I picked the menu up right away-- mostly to block Alex from my line of vision. That didn’t stop Alex from trying to start conversation with me though. I ignored him the whole while until our orders were taken and the menus were taken too.

“Look, just cut to the chase, alright?” I said with a sigh. “You wanna talk? Talk.” I folded my hands and laid them on the table looking directly at him.

Alex looked down with a little smile and shook his head. “You’re not even gonna let me try?”

“Try what?”

“Try to you know, converse. Try to have a nice evening with you.”

I glared at him for the hundredth time in the past forty minutes. “Alex. What exactly do you think you’re doing by taking me out? You think this fixes anything?”

“No, I never said that I was just...” Alex sighed and took one of the crayons out of the little glass cup at the end of the table. He started drawing little circles on the white paper that was laid over the table cloth as I drummed my fingers impatiently. “Why couldn’t you have just waited?” Alex asked, looking up from his doodles.

“What do you mean?”

“I asked you to wait till I got home. You ran. You couldn’t even just wait for me to get home so we could try and work things out? Did you really hate me that much?” He shook his head and went back to doodling. “I mean I know what I did was fucked up but you didn’t even let me try.”

“How long do you think it’d be fixed for, Alex? You didn’t want to be there anymore. I said that. How long do you think we could’ve kept going?”

“But we always fixed everything in the end.”

“And it stayed fixed until the next inevitable argument. You’re still not getting it, Alex. This isn’t about you sleeping with whatever her name is. This is about the fact that your life was headed somewhere that didn’t have it me in it.”

“Of course it had you in it, Jase!”

I shook my head. “Alex, it didn’t. You were getting impatient with coming home and I was waiting everyday for you to call me and tell me you just didn’t want to come home anymore. I’m not stupid and sometimes I think I knew you better than you knew yourself.”

He didn’t say anything and went back to doodling.

“You got mad and got drunk to make that go away. Getting drunk lead to slipping up. It all happened cause you got mad and why did you get mad? Because that’s all that was there anymore. Did you forget how much we were fighting?”

“No, I remember,” he mumbled. He looked like a scolded school boy. Then he looked back at me. “So what you’re saying is that I was so caught up with everything that no matter how much we talked it would’ve gone back to us just shouting at each other?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“But you could’ve given me time, Jasey, given me time to grow up a little.”

“And what? Let ourselves torture each other more? Let the chaos drag out longer? All we were doing was hurting each other so why stay together for the title that we were still together when we were just ripping each other to shreds?”

“Was it worth it then?” he asked, looking me in the eye.

I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything. I just took a crayon and started scribbling.

“Do you think...” Alex said, glancing over at what I was writing. I was just writing my name in big curly font. “That since it’s been a few years...”

I kept my eyes on my writing and shook my head. “Don’t do this,” I said. I looked up at him. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“Why?” he asked, pushing his beanie back a little. “Why not?”

“Because! You really think a few years changes anything?”

Alex smiled. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”

I wasn’t ready to reply. Just then I saw Alex’s eyes look at something from behind me and he smiled.

“Can I help you?” he asked the person behind me with a smile.

I turned to see some girls, two of them. They must’ve been fifteen years old or so and their smiles were almost explosive.

“Hi,” one of the girls said nervously. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but you look a lot like this guy Alex Gaskarth from a band called All Time Low.”

Alex smiled. “I sure hope so considering I am him.”

The girls behind me fluttered about, the smiles on their faces growing bigger. They looked sweet and mostly shy. “I told you so!” one of them said. “Didn’t I say that that was him?”

“Can we get a picture and an autograph please?” the one with straight brown hair said. “We’re really sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

“No it’s alright,” Alex said, getting up. He looked at me apologetically and put his arm around one of the girls who had curlier hair. Pictures were taken and autographs were signed to “Lexi” and “Austyn” then Alex sat back down. “Sorry,” he said, situating himself.

I shrugged. “It’s fine.” That’s when I heard some foot steps from behind me.

“Hi, sorry,” a voice said from behind me. “We heard that a couple of girls came over and took some pictures with you. You’re Alex right?”

The voices multiplied and soon enough there were about five or six people surrounding our booth. Then one of the girls pulled her phone out and called someone. “Yeah! I’m serious! He’s right here!” She pushed the phone towards Alex. “Can you talk to my friend?”

“Alright,” I mumbled to myself. I got up and slid out of the booth and started walking to the door. I had Liz give me my coat and I handed her a business card. “Can you just charge tonight’s dinner to Stacy Parker at RL Press?” Hey, I had company privileges. Sue me.

“Sure. Was everything alright, miss?” Liz asked, her eyes filled with concern.

“Everything was great I just realized I’m late to something.” With that I walked out of the door and back into the city.

“Jasey!” I heard him call my name from behind me but I didn’t stop. My feet were moving fast but not fast enough. “Jasey will you just wait for a second?” Alex grabbed my wrist and I spun around.

“Alex, leave me alone!”