Lost in Stereo

Jade's Point of View

I made the decision to ignore Alex’s calls and texts until I could get everything sorted out in my mind with him. It was something I had to do on my own without anyone else’s opinions to influence the outcome, though I knew what decision I would eventually arrive to. I had to confront and dump Alex, and I had to do it soon. The boys were leaving for tour on Saturday, and I was supposed to be moving into my apartment on Friday morning, so I figured that when Andrea, Liz, and I were done getting settled, I’d go to see Alex one last time.

Friday morning was exhausting trying to get all the big pieces of furniture moved in an arranged. I’d originally planned on asking Alex to help, but for understandable reasons, I decided not to ask. Instead, Liz’s boyfriend came to help, which we were really grateful for. We’d invested in one of those wrap-around couches, so while Liz and Matt moved one of the smaller sections, Andrea and I struggle trying to get the larger piece up the stairs.

“Why the hell couldn’t they take this piece?” Andrea grouched, straining to keep up her side as we carried it up the stairs. “Fuck, this isn’t gonna work!”

“Maybe if we turn it this way,” I suggested, and indicated that I wanted to tilt it to the right a little. Andrea started to turn the couch to her right, being my left, and I complained. “Not that way, you asshat!”

I heard a man’s laughter behind me and turned to see a tall, muscular guy with brown hair, just standing there and shaking his head, smiling. “That’s not gonna work either.”

“Obviously,” I snapped in annoyance. “Do you want to do it then?”

“I’d be happy to help,” he volunteered and aided me in holding my side. “If you just carry it straight and then start to tilt it when you get closer to the top, we can lift it over the railing and then slide it the rest of the way.”

“I don’t wanna fucking lift…” Andrea trailed off in an irritated voice.

“If you would just shut up, we could get this done,” I told her with a glare, and the guy next to me looked like he was fighting off a smile again. I ignored him, and I hated to admit it, but moving that section of the couch was infinitely easier with his help and advice. Once we got it inside the apartment, he went to leave almost immediately and then stopped in the door way. He turned and smiled at me again and said, “If you need any more help, let me know. I’ll be around for most of the day, and I live right below you.”

“Thanks,” I grinned as well. His smile was infectious. “I didn’t get a name.”

“Jay,” he said. “And you are…?”

“Jade,” I told him.

“Well, nice to meet you Jade,” he nodded. “Maybe I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, waving a little awkwardly as he walked away. When I turned to start helping move things again, Liz was standing there with a stupid smirk. “What?”

“Somebody’s smitten,” she teased and walked away before I could protest. I was certainly not. That Jay guy was nice, and admittedly handsome, especially with those muscles, but not my type considering that I was currently in a relationship. At least, for the next few hours that was.

After what felt like forever, we got everything moved in and organized the way we wanted to. With that, we went our separate ways to unpack our rooms and get situated. I got done pretty quickly since I’d marked what was in each box exactly, so it didn’t take me long to find things. When I checked the clock, it was about five, so I texted Alex and asked if I could come over to the apartment around six. He texted back almost immediately and gave me the okay. I hopped in the shower and got changed, making sure that I shoved my journal in my bag before heading out.

I felt the anticipation and anxiety building up in my stomach on the drive over. I’d never broken up with a guy before. The last time Alex and I split up, he dumped me, and I was crushed. I didn’t cry in front of him and saved all that for later, but what if he cried or something? I’d have no idea what to do. The more I drove, the less time I had to wonder about those kinds of things, and by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, I still had no idea what I was going to say to him.

I could feel my heart jumping up into my throat as I knocked on the door and waited to be let in. Skye was the one who answered and I hugged her, coming inside. We made small talk for a little while. Finally, I got to the point. “Where’s your brother?”

“In his room,” she replied, looking a little wary. “Why do you look like you just swallowed a sock?”

“No reason,” I lied. “Just tired from moving stuff, that’s all.”

She accepted this reason and I excused myself to go down the hall to Alex’s room. I knocked on the door and he gave me the okay to come in after a few seconds. When I entered, he was sitting on his bed with his guitar.

“Hey,” he smiled lazily. “Long time, no see.” He frowned a little now. “Long time, no talk, actually.”

I didn’t feel the need to apologize for that, so I didn’t. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t like that expression,” Alex said. “Or that tone with those words.” He looked slightly panicked. “What’s up?”

I said nothing to him and sat down next to him on the bed. I reached for my bag and pulled my journal out. His eyes widened in fear as soon as he saw it, and I could practically hear his breath hitch. I flipped to an entry I was sure he’d read, since it was the one I’d written the night after our talk about the future of our relationship. I started to read out loud. “Alex has this unfailing confidence in this relationship surviving, but I can’t help not feeling the same. There’s too much that could happen, especially with him going away all the time. He says I’ll be busy with college and my friends, and that I won’t even notice he’s gone, but that’s so unlikely. I think it’s more likely that he’ll forget about me. It’s happened before, it could happen again.” I shut the journal and looked at him. “Sound familiar?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say a word,” I said in a surprisingly calm voice. “The fact that you even recognize the words speaks volumes.”

“I’m sorry,” he tried and attempted to put an arm around me.

I shrugged him off. “Don’t. Just don’t, okay?” I stood now, moving away from him. “How could you do that to me, Alex? It’s not like I ask that much of you, and this was one of two huge things that I didn’t want you to do, and you couldn’t even manage that.” I shook my head at him. “You couldn’t manage either one of them.”

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked, looking even more confused now as well as angry.

“I’m talking about that girl,” I said darkly. “The one with the red hair. I saw you at Denny’s a few nights ago. You touched her hand and you smiled.”

“Jesus, is smiling a crime now?” Alex demanded, his voice raising. “What the hell are you doing, following me now?”

“No,” I defended myself. “I found out that you read my journal and I went to confront you about it, and I saw you in the window. God, you don’t think I have better things to do than follow you around?”

“Well, it’s clear from everything that you write that you’re insecure, so why not?” Alex snapped and then immediately recoiled when he saw my expression. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” I told him. I could feel rage boiling in my chest, just like I had that night I’d found out he read my journal. “And if you want to talk about insecurity, Alex, you should take a look at yourself. At least I don’t need to cheat to prove to myself that people actually like and want me.”

“I did not cheat on you,” he insisted, anger taking over his tone again.

“Oh, really?” I raised my eyebrows. “Tell me, what happened after you left Denny’s? Did you get in your separate cars and drive in opposite directions? Or did you go back to her place?” He didn’t have a response to that. “I’ll take your silence as an admission of guilt.”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “It’s not like I can take any of it back. If I could, trust me, I would. I’d take all of it back. But I can’t, and the only thing we can do is move forward.”

I scoffed. “I can’t believe you’re trying to be so nonchalant about it. There’s no moving forward for us, not together. You can move forward in your direction, and I can move forward in mine. Trust me, our paths won’t be intertwining like that anymore.”

“Don’t be this way,” Alex begged, moving close to me. He tried to put his arms around me to pull me close but I pushed him away.

“No, Alex,” I told him as sternly as I could. “We’re done. I was dumb for even being willing to give this another try.”

“Look, we can work it out,” he pressed on.

“No, we obviously can’t,” I shook my head. “We’ve tried everything. We’ve tried being together, being friends, hating each other. Hell, we even laid out rules for our interactions. Nothing works. We’re better off just leaving each other alone for a long time.”

Alex sighed loudly, looking desperate. This conversation wasn’t going the way that he wanted it to, and frankly, it wasn’t going the way I’d wanted it to either. I didn’t even want to be having this talk with him, but it had to be done. We had to be done.

“I don’t hate you,” I went on. “But I don’t think I love you either. We just need to be apart and figure our lives out. I don’t wish anything bad on you, and I wish you all the luck in the world, and I hope you have a good tour. But I don’t want you to try to contact me either.”

“It’s not like we can avoid each other,” he pointed out.

“I know that,” I said. “I’m not saying that we can’t talk ever. I’m just saying that I don’t want you to go out of your way to get in touch with me.” I grabbed my bag off of his bed and headed towards the door. “I should go now.”

“So what do we do?” Alex asked. “Do we hug, or shake hands, or what?”

I shook my head. “None of that. I just leave.”

I shut the door behind me and unfortunately had to pass by Skye on my way out the door. She looked concerned. “What happened?”

“We broke up,” I replied. It wasn’t like that was a fact we were going to be able to hide, and she probably already knew the answer before she even asked the question.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I shrugged her off. “It’s fine. I’ll see you later, okay? I wanna go enjoy my new apartment for a little while. You can come see it whenever.”

She agreed, said good-bye, and I left. I felt numb upon driving back to my apartment and sat in my car silently after parking in my spot. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be feeling. Relief that it was over? Anger about everything that had happened? Sadness that I’d lost him once again? I tried to push the thoughts from my mind and headed into the vestibule with the intent of going up to the apartment, but instead sat down on the bottom step. I wanted to clear my head a little more before going up. Surely Andrea and Liz were going to bombard me with questions, and I wanted to take the time to clearly think out my answers.

I let the whole scene with Alex play out in my head. In fact, I let our relationship mentally play out like a montage; every fight, every kiss, everytime we made love, every insulting word uttered, it was all there. I felt my heartstrings tug with every passing moment and felt a few tears slip down my cheek. However, my private moment wasn’t private for long. I heard a door open and shut behind me.

“Jade?” I turned to see Jay heading out of his apartment. He gave me a concerned look, the first time I’d seen him not wearing a smile. “You okay?”

I nodded in an unconvincing manner, wiping away the few tears that had fallen. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He frowned, his eyebrows furrowing in curiosity. “Well, obviously you’re not fine.” He sat down on the step next to me, an acceptable and comfortable distance away. “What’s up?”

I shook my head. “It’s stupid.”

“I doubt it, if you’re crying about it,” he said.

“I wasn’t crying,” I insisted, slightly embarrassed.

“Funny, my definition of crying always included tears falling from someone’s tear ducts,” Jay joked. That got a small smile out of me.

“It’s a long story,” I relented.

“I’ve got time,” he shrugged, leaning back on the steps. Jay glanced at his watch. “Actually, I have approximately fifty-seven minutes before my show comes on, but I feel like your story will fit within that time frame.”

As much as I didn’t want to and hadn’t meant to, I spilled my guts to Jay. I told the story from when Alex and I had first gotten together up until tonight when we’d broken up for the final time, and threw in everything from my mother thinking I was depressed, sending me on tour, and Skye being pregnant. He didn’t try to interrupt me, and he didn’t try to offer me any advice. He commented at the appropriate times, and asked a few questions when I wasn’t completely clear on something. Finally when I was done, he spoke.

“I think,” Jay said slowly, “that you are in need of McDonald’s therapy and should therefore come with me to get some before my show starts.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he insisted. “You weren’t holding me up. I was the one that asked you, remember? Besides, I really want McDonald’s, and you seem like you need some cheering up. So I am going to buy you a Happy Meal and make sure that there’s a toy included.”

I chuckled. “Thanks, but really, I’m fine.”

“No, you look starved, so we’re going.” Jay grabbed my purse and started walking away with it. He paused as he waited for me to follow him. “You’re not getting this back until you come with me.”

I rolled my eyes and followed him out to his car and we went to McDonald’s together to pick up food. Jay didn’t try to make me talk anymore about the Alex situation, and we switched to more neutral topics, like school. He was a recent graduate from the college I was going to, with a BA in social work. He was currently looking around for a job in that field, but was settling for now with his job at the bookstore. We had a nice time talking, and then went back to his place to eat our dinner. His apartment was slightly disheveled in true male fashion.

“So what show is it that we’re watching?” I asked him, continuing to look around.

“You’re gonna laugh,” he said a little shyly, “but Teen Wolf. The fight scenes are pretty cool.”

“My best friend likes that show,” I said. “I’ve never seen it.”

“It’s in its third season,” he said. “You probably won’t understand it, but I’ll answer any questions during commercials.”

I agreed and we ate in front of the television while MTV played all of the episodes of season three leading up to the latest one. I had quite a few questions, but I waited to ask them during the commercials as he’d requested. By the time the new episode was over, I was pretty interested in the show and felt emotionally invested, so I promised him that once I got my Netflix hooked up later that night, I’d start watching it from the first season.

As I went to leave, I gave Jay a hug good-bye. I rested my head against his chest. The guy was amazingly tall. “Thanks. For, you know, helping with the couch. And listening to me whine. And dinner.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, hugging me back. Jay smelled really good on top of everything else. “Anytime you wanna talk, I’m here. You know where to find me.”

“I don’t know, I might just get lost,” I joked, pulling away to let myself out. We said good-bye and he shut the door after me. I headed upstairs towards our apartment, feeling a lot better. It was nice to talk to someone who had never heard any Alex stories before and didn’t actually know anybody that I was talking about. Jay was genuinely a nice guy and I felt lucky to have met him, especially at such a crucial point in time with everything going on. I smiled to myself before letting myself into the apartment. Maybe something good could come out of this Alex situation after all.