Something's Gotta Give - Original Verison

Jade's Point of View

“I’m only going to explain this to you one more time.” After avoiding his calls for far too long, I finally called Michael back a few days later when I had a little more than sixty pages done. When he picked up, he didn’t say hello at all; he just started speaking in a deadly even tone, which was probably much worse than him freaking out. “When I call you, I really need you to answer me. In order for me to do my job, I have to make sure you’re doing yours. And when you’re not answering, I have no idea what’s going on and so when it comes to your book, I’ve got jack-shit to tell the publishers. And when I can’t tell them what’s going on, they are not happy.”

“I know, I’m sorry-” I tried to apologize, but he talked over me and just continued.

“And speaking of people who aren’t happy, you absolutely need to call Shelley back.” Shelley Boyd was my agent, and was definitely a temperamental bitch, but damn good at what she did. “Do you know how many times she’s called me just today? Seven. Seven times. It’s only ten in the morning, Jade. I’m going to go nuts.”

“Michael, I-”

He cut me off yet again. “And on top of that, I have a new intern that can’t tell his ass from a hat. If he spills my coffee on my fucking carpet one more time, I might actually commit homicide.”

I laughed. “Michael. Chill for like thirty seconds. I’m sorry I didn’t answer, I was just a little stuck with the beginning, but it’s fine now. If it makes you feel any better, I got more than fifty pages done. I can’t do anything to help with the intern situation, but I promise I’ll call Shelley as soon as we hang up.”

He held in an anxious breath for a long time. “Fine. Send me what you have written and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and then we continued to bullshit for a little while longer. He told me about the woes of dealing with an incompetent intern, and I told him a bit about Alex coming home, though I left out the whole friends with benefits deal. Michael didn’t need to know about that, and I had no real plans of ever letting anyone know about it, especially him. Michael and I had gotten very close during the time we had been working with each other, and after the whole Jay breakup, he’d been my rock. I hadn’t leaned on Skye, not wanting to add to her problems, and I didn’t talk much with my old roommates Andrea and Liz – they had their own things going on with Andrea moving away to Florida and Liz starting a family with her boyfriend. At one point I’d gotten particularly depressed and confused about the whole Jay situation, so Michael had flown me out to see him in New York for a weekend. After a nice night out, we’d gone back to his apartment and gotten pretty drunk on wine, which resulted in us sleeping together a few times over the rest of the weekend. After, we’d never talked about it; we had just kind of let it become an untouchable part of the past.

About thirty minutes later, we were off the phone and I went back to writing for a little while before Jack woke up and came downstairs with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a frown.

“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” I asked him after he sat down next to me at the breakfast bar and laid his head on the table. He didn’t say anything and just moaned into his blanket. I frowned. “Are you dying? Did you eat too many chicken fries again?”

“No,” he finally answered, though it was muffled. “Though those do sound good.” He lifted his head from the table and shook it slowly. “I have to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone ever, okay?”

“Cross my heart,” I promised, making the motion across my chest like we’d done as kids.

Jack finally sat up all the way, though he was still wrapped in his burrito blanket. “Okay. I really like Skye.”

“I’m shocked,” I deadpanned and rolled my eyes.

“Can you be quiet for like two seconds so I can tell you what I wanted to?” Jack barked, which was definitely rare for him. I immediately shut up. “It’s just really hard to say this out loud. But since she and Kellin broke up, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, more so than usual. And we’ve gotten really close, and I really love being with her. It’s so easy.”

He paused like he was waiting for me to say something, so I took this as an invitation to do so. “Well do you think she likes you too?”

“See, that’s the thing,” Jack replied and starting biting the inside of his mouth. “I’m honestly not sure. I know she just got out of a really serious relationship, and I don’t want to be just a rebound if she even feels that way. I don’t want to make an ass of myself.”

“You always make an ass of yourself,” I teased, though he didn’t laugh. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Sorry. That was a stupid joke.” I knocked my knee against his. “Look, Jack, I’m gonna tell you something that I don’t tell you that often, but you’re an awesome guy and anyone would be lucky to have you. You care so much about everybody and you put everybody else first and you never ask for anything in return. You make everybody laugh and you’ve got the best heart of anyone I’ve ever known.” I placed my hand on his. “Give it some time. If you guys are meant to happen, you will eventually.”

“But what if I do wait and I ask her out, and she says no?” Jack asked nervously. “It would make everything so totally awkward then.”

“Look, if Alex and I can manage to be friends now after all the shit we put each other through, I’m pretty sure you and Skye would be able to manage,” I assured him. I walked behind him and started to pull the blanket away off of him. “Now no more being Burrito Jack today. We’re going to hang out and have a kickass day, and you’re going to feel better.”

Jack relented and let me take the blanket away. “I thought you were busy with writing today.”

“Well, I was behind schedule with the book, and now I’m ahead,” I said. “I can just stay up late and work on it. Michael has to read what I’ve got and give me notes on it before I can really keep going anyway.”

“Ah, and how is editor boy?” Jack teased.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at him. “Fine, and we’re not talking about him anyway. Today’s about you.”

I sent Jack upstairs to clean himself up since he smelled like he hadn’t showered in two days or so. While he was upstairs, I called my agent just as I’d promised Michael that I would and had a twenty minute conversation with her about making myself available for her calls, and then reiterated what Michael had said a few weeks before about having something huge in the works for me. When I got off the phone with her, Jack came back downstairs and we made a list of all the things we wanted to do that day.

The first stop that Jack requested was a few hours on the beach. We headed outside and while I tried to tan for the first half hour, Jack just laid a few feet away on his beach towel, tossing small stones and twigs that he’d found at me. This quickly turned into a full-fledged war which ended with him picking me up and throwing me in the water.

Jack and I headed back to the house to clean ourselves up again before heading to The Exchange, where he managed to come away with a dozen new games, movies, and albums, while I mostly walked around and convinced myself that I didn’t need to spend any money. We headed to the bowling alley next for a few games, though we didn’t stay terribly long. There was a birthday party of eight year olds in the lane next to us who managed to score higher than the two of us combined (apparently “shitty bowler” was a dominant gene in my family), so we decided to save ourselves the embarrassment and leave for dinner.

Though it wasn’t my favorite, Jack had begged to go to his favorite Mexican restaurant. I’d relented mostly since the day was dedicated to cheering Jack up, but also because I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. The waitress sat us at our usual table near the kitchen and didn’t bother giving us any menus since we always ordered the same thing – a big quesadilla for Jack and chicken tacos for me.

Dinner went mostly without incident, save for Jack throwing straw wrappers and small chips at me, and him also managing to spill his cheese sauce all over the table. After paying our bill, Jack and I started to head out the side exit into the parking lot when something caught my eye. I saw Jay’s car pull into a spot across from ours, and he wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see who he was with until he’d walked around to the other side of the car and opened the door for his passenger. She was blonde and tall, and when she turned around, I recognized her immediately.

Isabel.

I felt my breath hitch in my throat and I stopped dead in my tracks. Jack turned to ask what was wrong, but then he caught sight of Jay and Isabel too. “Well, shit.”

“Go back to the car,” I told him in a low voice.

“Jade, please don’t do something stupid,” Jack said quietly, not wanting to catch their attention.

“Go back to the car,” I repeated. “I’ll be there in a minute.” I didn’t give him a chance to respond; instead I walked forward toward Jay and Isabel. I wasn’t quite sure what I even wanted to say to them once I reached them, but I couldn’t fight the bile crawling up the back of my throat. I had a feeling that every hurtful word that I’d wanted to say to Jay since we’d broken up would make its way out somehow.

Jay stopped as soon as he saw me walking towards him and Isabel and paused awkwardly. He looked at me for a moment and then turned to Isabel. “Why don’t you go get a table?”

She glanced at me nervously and then nodded, hurrying off.

I stood in front of Jay and crossed my arms. “So how long has that been going on?”

“Look, Jade, I was going to tell you about it eventually,” Jay rushed, looking around the parking lot to see if anyone else was around. He wasn’t comfortable with making a scene in public, and neither was I normally, but this time I couldn’t help myself.

“Well, enlighten me,” I said coldly, “when is a good time to tell your ex-girlfriend that you’re banging her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend?”

“They’re not together anymore,” Jay replied, as if this made up for everything.

“Fine,” I spat. “His ex-girlfriend now, whatever. But they were still together when you started fucking her.” I shook my head at him incredulously. “He was going to propose to her, you fucking asshole. I never figured you’d ever knowingly be ‘the other guy.’”

“Yeah, I never thought it would happen either, but it did,” Jay tried to explain. “Look, she was lonely with Alex gone, and you were away so much too, and it just kind of happened.”

I felt like my breath had been stolen away. “What?”

“Yeah, you were gone all the time,” Jay went on. Now he was the one raising his voice. “You were flying all over the place with that editor of yours-”

I cut him off. We’d had that particular conversation only fifty million times before, especially towards the end of our relationship. “Jesus Christ, Michael is just a friend. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that.”

“Yeah, just like Isabel was just my friend when you and I were together,” he snapped. “Look, you were never around anymore, and what the hell was I supposed to do with an absentee girlfriend? Just wait around for you to come back?”

“Yes!” I yelled. At this point I didn’t care if there were other people around, though there thankfully wasn’t anyone except Jack who was still waiting in the car. “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do! It’s exactly what I would have done if the situation was reversed. We were supposed to be in love, Goddamnit.” It felt like my heart had leapt up into my throat and I had to fight to keep my tone even. “I can’t believe you’d cheat on me after everything. I didn’t deserve that.”

“And I didn’t deserve to be left alone either,” he countered, narrowing his eyes.

“You’re the one who told me to go!” I responded indignantly. “I asked if you were okay with it, and you said you were. If you weren’t, then you should have said something.”

“Maybe I could have told you about it if you were ever around,” he replied. “Look, I was okay with it first, but then it really started to suck. The turning point for me was when you were supposed to come home for a few days and you decided to go to that video shoot with the band instead. You could have come home to me instead, but you didn’t. So I called up Isabel and asked her to go out for a drink, and then things just happened.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t go out that night with the intention of fooling around. I just wanted to not feel alone for once.”

All I could do for a few seconds was just stare at him. There were only a handful of moments in my life where I had been at a loss for words, and this definitely took the cake. I shook my head at him and glared, not wanting him to see that I was close to tears. “You know what, Jay? You’re really not the person that I thought you were at all. You can go fuck yourself, you absolute twat.”

Before he could respond, I turned on my heel and walked back to the car. I waited until I was in the car before I let a tear fall down my cheek.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jack asked gently. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it to comfort me.

I wiped the tear away and started the car, shrugging. “There’s nothing to say. He’s been fucking Isabel for months now.”

“What?!” Jack exclaimed, turning around to look at Jay through the rear window as I pulled away. “I could just kill him. Are you okay?”

“Jack, please,” I said weakly. “I love you for caring, but if I talk about it right now, I will absolutely lose it and I really don’t want to start crying, all right?”

He nodded solemnly. “Okay. But if you change your mind, you can tell me about it.”

“I know,” I said, and smiled at him a little. “Thank you, though.”

We drove in silence for a few moments before Jack started to speak again. “I’m really sorry that that happened.” I nodded, and he continued. “I’m kind of surprised Alex didn’t say anything about it. I mean, when I talked to him about the whole Isabel thing a few nights ago, he said he’d know the guy anywhere, but he didn’t say it was Jay.”

“He knew,” I whispered, thinking back over the past few weeks, and suddenly everything started to fall into place. Alex had been hostile to Jay at the coming home party, though he’d had no real reason to be that way at the time, or so I’d thought. And when Jay had shown up that night, he’d seemed almost apologetic, which hadn’t made sense. In the moment, I thought he’d been regretting the breakup, but he’d really just been afraid that Alex had told me about him and Isabel. Aside from that, anytime I’d asked Alex about the breakup, he’d avoided the subject like the plague. I’d assumed that was simply because the wound was too fresh, that he needed to heal before he could talk about it, but he was actively keeping important information from me.

“I need to make a stop,” I told Jack, and turned down Skye and Alex’s street. Jack didn’t question this, and I was thankful because I wasn’t sure what I would have told him if he had. All I knew was that I had to see Alex.

We pulled up outside of their place and I parked the car, asking Jack to stay inside it yet again. I walked up to the front door, continuing to think about the whole situation, turning it over and over again in my mind. I was pissed – at Jay for cheating, at Alex for not telling me, and mostly at myself for being so blind. I was on the verge of tears again but I fought them back as I knocked on the door.

“Hey,” Alex answered, standing in a t-shirt and boxers, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. “You know it’s kind of late, right? I mean, I could use a little more warning-”

Before I knew exactly what I was doing, I reached out and slapped him across the face.

He drew in a sharp breath, holding his palm against the cheek I’d just slapped. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You knew,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Had I increased my volume, he’d hear my voice quivering and then I’d start crying. “You knew and you didn’t fucking say anything to me.”

“What…?” he started to ask, but then realization dawned on him as he figured out what I was talking about. “Oh. Jesus, Jade, I was going to tell you-”

I held up a hand to stop him. “You know what? Just don’t. You lied to me Alex. Again.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” he answered, finally moving his hand away from the red mark I’d left across his face. I wondered if it would end up bruising.

“It was a lie of omission, Alex,” I insisted, crossing my arms. “You had plenty of opportunities to tell me about them being together. It’s not like I haven’t seen you.” I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “I thought we were friends, and if you were really my friend, you would have told me. I deserved to know.”

He sighed loudly. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like it was easy to talk about.”

“Really?” I asked accusatorily. “Because it seems like a pretty easy sentence to get out: Hey Jade, by the way, Jay was fucking Isabel, just thought you should know.”

“Like I wanted to be the one to deliver that news to you,” he scoffed. He pointed to his face, still red, though his skin seemed to be lightening. “It’s not like you never overreact or anything.”

I wished I could take it back, but in that moment I was so angry that I just couldn’t. “You’re an asshole, Alex.” I started to walk away and then turned around to get one last dig in. “Have fun moping around over that whore.”

I didn’t have to see his face to know that I’d crossed a line; I could feel it in my heart. I knew that that had been a terrible thing to say before it had even come out of my mouth, but it was like the “don’t-be-an-asshole” filter in my brain had completely switched off. He went back inside and slammed the door as I walked back to my car.

Jack made a low whistling noise. “That didn’t look like it went well.”

“It didn’t.” He didn’t prod me for any more details, and I didn’t offer them.

When we got home and went back inside, I announced that I was going to bed and claimed exhaustion. I was about to head upstairs when Jack hugged me, something he usually didn’t do.

“Thanks for a mostly great day,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry about everything else that happened, though.”

“It’s not your fault,” I told him, “but thanks for being sorry.”

We said goodnight and I headed to my room, trying to sleep the day off. Instead, I lied awake for hours, my stomach twisting and turning as I replayed the events of the day. My chest hurt as I thought about the confrontation with Jay, and I was about ready to get sick when I thought of my fight with Alex. I needed someone to talk to, but by the time I decided that, I knew Jack had already gone to bed and I didn’t want to bother him. Instead, I reached for my phone and dialed the one person who I knew would answer.

“Jade?” Michael’s voice answered groggily. He didn’t sound mad at least, just tired and confused. “It’s three-thirty. What’s up?”

I drew in a sharp breath, trying to keep from crying again. What the hell was this shit? I was never this emotional, and I hated it.

“I just-” I didn’t get any further before my voice cracked.

“Hey,” Michael said softly, sounding more awake now. “Hey, don’t cry. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

He listened to me while I went on for the next twenty minutes, explaining everything, from Alex and I reconnecting (and yes, including the stupid friends with benefits part this time) to seeing Jay with Isabel, to slapping Alex and that whole Goddamn mess. Michael didn’t say anything the whole time, aside from asking me not to cry every now and then when my voice would really start to waver.

Finally I finished and wiped the tears away from my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up or fuck up your night or anything. I just really needed someone to talk to.”

“It’s okay,” Michael said. “You don’t have to apologize. But get on your laptop and check your e-mail.”

He couldn’t possibly want to talk about the book now, could he? I certainly hoped not, but I checked my e-mail as he requested. I had one message from him in my inbox, and when I opened it, it was a link to a plane ticket to New York for a few days.

“Michael, you didn’t have to do that,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, I did,” he replied easily and sighed. “Jade, you need a break. Maybe some time away from home would do you some good. Besides, you can’t dodge my calls if you’re here and I can make sure you’re working on your book.”

This managed to make me laugh a little. “Touché.”

He chuckled too. “Look, try to get some sleep and we can talk again in the morning if you want. You’re not going to feel any better if you don’t get any rest.”

“I guess you’re right,” I admitted, glancing at the clock. “I’m sorry again for waking you up. But thank you again for listening.”

“You’re welcome,” Michael replied. “See you in a few days.”