Something's Gotta Give - Original Verison

Jade's Point of View

I was very cranky when I got off the plane in New York the next morning. I hadn’t slept well since the whole Jay and Alex situation, and now I had my fight with Skye to worry about. The only person besides Jack that wasn’t mad at me was Michael, and I was very thankful to spot him through the crowd of people waiting for their loved ones. I scoffed to myself when I saw him. Of course Michael would be clean-shaven and in a pristine looking suit at seven-thirty in the morning.

“Hey,” he greeted, taking my bag from me and giving me a one-armed side hug as we walked through the sea of people. I’d forgotten how good he smelled. “How was the flight?”

“Somebody kept farting and it smelled like the devil’s ass,” I replied, rubbing my eyes. I hadn’t bothered putting any makeup on before I got on the plane. Who the hell gets dressed up to fly? (Michael, for one, probably in his super clean, Clark Kent way.)

Michael fought off a laugh. “In first class? Seriously? Someone was farting in first class?”

“There’s not some rule that you can’t fart in first class,” I smiled. It felt good, since my face had been locked in a permanent frown for almost forty-eight hours now. “They’re not going to fucking eject you from the plane.”

We continued to talk about the colorful characters sitting in first class during the red eye flight as we walked to the taxi he had waiting outside. He gave the driver the address to his apartment and then turned to me. “I’m gonna have him drop you off, and then I need to head to the office. Sorry, I couldn’t get any time off since this was a really sudden visit.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I wasn’t expecting you to be spending the whole week with me anyway. I know you’re busy. But hey, at least you don’t have to spend hours and hours calling and harassing me.”

“True,” he said, “and hopefully if I can keep my intern from spilling things, I can actually get something done today. But I’ll make it up to you later, I promise. I have something really cool planned.”

“It’s not like a sex club or something is it?” I teased.

He looked horrified that I’d suggest such a thing. “God, no. But you’ll have to get kind of dressed up for it.”

“So it’s a fancy sex club.”

Michael rolled his eyes at me and shook his head, trying not to smile. “No. It’s a classy thing.” I finally stopped giving him a hard time, and he reached into his pocket and gave me a key. “Here, I had this made for you so you can come and go from my apartment as much as you want. You remember where it is, right?”

I nodded. He had some ridiculously huge apartment on the top floor of some fancy-schmancy building. It was incredibly modern, with floor to ceiling windows, lots of stainless steel appliances, and mostly decorated in all black and white. It was like an incredibly impersonal hotel room that a businessman would book on an out of town trip. The only thing personal about it were the sparse paintings that he had hung up, one in each room. Other than that, there were no pictures, no mementos, knick-knacks, nothing. It looked like somewhere that Christian Grey would reside, minus his weirdo room of sex games.

We pulled up in front of Michael’s building and he apologized that he couldn’t walk me in since he had a meeting, but said he’d be back around five-thirty for our mystery outing. I grabbed my bag from the trunk, waved goodbye to him, and headed inside. I took the elevator up, unlocked his door, took my shoes off, and made myself at home as he’d instructed. I went into his room and laid down on his bed and napped for a while, trying to catch up on some sleep. I woke up around noon and decided to try to write for a little while since I hadn’t been very productive the past few days, and part of the reason I’d come to New York was to get some work done. After another two and a half hours, and about eighteen pages later, I was satisfied and decided to relax until Michael came back. I went through my bag and picked out the nicest clothing that I’d brought, a black dress with small white polka dots that I’d found on sale somewhere and could easily pass for casual or classy.

I still had about two hours or so until Michael came back, so I decided to go through his DVD collection, which was overwhelmingly huge, and of course all organized alphabetically. I was trying to find something that I hadn’t watched yet and had been wanting to see, so I ended up picking out The Last Five Years with Anna Kendrick, since I absolutely loved her. I figured out how to work Michael’s oddly futuristic seeming TV and got the movie going, planting myself on his couch for the next two hours. However, I should have probably also sat down with a box of tissues because by the time the movie was over, I was a weepy pile of shit. I was crying so hard that I didn’t even hear Michael walk in at five-thirty.

“Jesus, are you okay? What happened?” he asked, concerned, rushing over to sit next to me.

“It’s this stupid movie,” I choked out. “I guess I just related to it way too much right now, the whole Cathy and Jamie story, like with him cheating on her while she was trying to follow her dreams, and then leaving her. It just hit a little too close to home, I guess.”

He pulled a tissue out of seemingly nowhere and handed it to me. “I didn’t even think about that, but yeah, I guess you’re right.” He put an arm around me. “If it’s any consolation, Jay’s an idiot and I never liked him.”

I wiped at my eyes and chuckled. “You met him one time.”

“So?” he asked. “All it takes is meeting someone once to determine that they’re an asshat.”

“It does make me feel a little better,” I admitted, the crying finally stopping. I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m done having a pity party for myself now. What time is this mystery event?”

“Seven,” Michael responded. “I don’t know how much time you need to get ready.”

“I should probably start,” I said, pushing off the couch and heading towards his bathroom. I vaguely remembered how to use his shower from the last time I’d stayed at Michael’s apartment, but it took me a few tries to get everything just right. I scrubbed myself clean, toweled off, dried and styled my hair, did my makeup, and got dressed in just the right amount of time. Michael was just coming to knock on the door when I stepped out. “Okay, we can go.”

By the time we’d gotten down to the taxi, Michael still hadn’t told me where we were going. He kept saying it was a surprise, but finally my persistent questioning got the best of him (or at least got on his nerves) and he told me, “Jesus, you’re giving me a headache. Fine, we’re going to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. You mentioned that you’d never seen it and wanted to, so I got tickets for orchestra seating yesterday.”

I was definitely impressed that he’d remembered. “Wow, how’d you pull that off?”

“A friend owed me a favor,” he said. “Otherwise we would have had to sit in the nosebleed section, but that’s no way to see this show. You should be close.”

“Well, thank you,” I said. I couldn’t remember Jay doing anything that thoughtful for me in the entirety of our two year relationship. The most romantic we’d probably ever gotten was him buying me a fucking McDonalds Happy Meal.

We got to the theater fairly quickly and headed inside, finding our seats with ease. We were the fourth row back, and it almost felt like we’d be able to reach out and touch the stage. Shortly after, the show started. I sat mesmerized for the duration of the first act. I had plenty of asshole comments that I’d wanted to make (like that the chandelier rising above the audience as part of the show would surely drop on us and kill us all), but kept my mouth shut.

Michael and I decided to stay seated during the intermission and spent the fifteen minute break talking about the show, which I was definitely mesmerized by. I relayed my idiotic commentary then, and Michael face-palmed, though he laughed. We shut up when the lights started to flicker and turned our attentions back to the stage. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, the show was over and I was still thinking about it on the cab ride back.

“So did you like it?” Michael asked, looking worried that I hadn’t enjoyed myself.

“Oh, I loved it,” I told him. “Thank you so much for that. It was really amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

We discussed the show a little more on the way back to Michael’s. Both of us were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got back, so we crashed early, barely bothering to get properly undressed. For once, I slept like a baby and didn’t stir until around five-thirty the next morning. I heard some kind of almost whirring noise outside the door and heard Michael talking. I rubbed my eyes and got up, padding out of his bedroom and into the family room, where he was speed-walking on a treadmill, talking on his phone, and working on his laptop. I just stood there for a few seconds and watched him. Jesus, did the guy ever fucking rest?

A few moments later, he finally noticed me. He held up his finger to indicate that he’d just be a minute. He finished up on the phone, slowed the treadmill to a stop, and closed his laptop, hopping off. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

I shook my head. “No. Good God man, do you seriously have to be businessing at all hours of the day?”

He raised his eyebrows at me good-naturedly. “Businessing? That’s not a word. Or a verb for that matter.”

“Now it is,” I countered. “Seriously, do you ever take a break?”

“I did,” he said. “Last night, when we went out.” He set his stuff down on his breakfast island. “You want any breakfast?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m good.”

He shrugged and started to pour himself a bowl of cereal. “Well, help yourself to anything later if you want. Do you have any plans for today?”

“I’m probably just gonna stay in and write, maybe call my brother and see how he’s doing,” I replied and then mused, “I hope he didn’t burn down the beach house yet.”

“Knowing your brother, that’s kind of iffy,” Michael replied. Jack and Michael had met a few times. When Jay had gotten fed up with all the book parties, I’d often brought Jack as my date instead when he was home. Of course, he stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the uppity book people crowd. At first it had been embarrassing, but he was always able to liven things up. After a few parties, whenever he wasn’t there, people would always ask why Jack hadn’t come and were disappointed. However, that had ended when he’d accidentally started a small fire somehow at one of the parties. It was one for the books, and though Michael and I had found the situation kind of funny, Jack was placed on a temporary party ban. “How’s everything going, by the way? We didn’t really have a chance to talk about it yesterday.”

“Oh,” I said as casually as possible. I didn’t really want to get into this at five-thirty in the morning. “Well, Jay hates me, which is fine, Alex hates me, which sucks, and now Skye hates me, which is even worse.”

“Wait, what happened with Skye?” Michael and Skye had never met, but he knew of her through the many stories I’d told him of our party days together.

I explained the stupid fight we’d had to him. “I don’t know why I can’t stop saying twat-like things. I mean, okay, I see the point that Alex was trying to protect me. But I deserved to know, and it would have hurt a lot less hearing about it from Alex straight up.”

“Well, did you tell Alex or Skye that?” he asked as he ate his cereal.

“No,” I answered.

“And why not?” he continued.

“I don’t know,” I said, getting frustrated. “It was kind of hard to articulate at the time. I was kind of on an unfamiliar level of pissed. Like I haven’t been that mad since Alex read my journal.”

“Well, when you go home in a few days, just go over and talk to them about it,” he advised, pausing to chew. “Maybe start with Skye since you didn’t, you know, assault her.” I playfully slapped him. “Okay, and now you’re assaulting me.” He picked up his cereal bowl and went to wash it out. “On that note, I have to go shower, change, and head out. Why don’t you get some more sleep?”

I nodded and laid back down, muttering a goodbye when he’d come out of the bathroom to let me know he was leaving. I slept for a while longer and woke up again around ten. I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon writing, getting another twenty-five pages done. I took a break to call Jack to make sure the house was still intact and to double check that he hadn’t gone on another chicken fry binge in my absence. When I was through talking to him, I wrote eight or nine more pages. Michael came home the same time as the previous day. We decided to go out to dinner at some place in Little Italy that he liked, which had some impressive spaghetti.

When we got back to the house, I sent Michael what I’d written since I’d been in New York and he read it on his laptop while I worked next to him on mine. He took about an hour and a half or so to read what I’d gotten done. I hadn’t been nervous about how Michael would feel about it until he closed his laptop and sighed loudly. “Okay, I have to say something, and I’m probably gonna come off sounding like a dick.”

“Okay…” I trailed off, anxious about what he had to tell me. “Go for it, I guess. I’ve got thick skin.”

“Let me preface it by saying that I’m sorry about how bad you’re feeling right now and I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” he said. I nodded, waiting for him to continue. “And like I said, this is going to sound really shitty, but in a way, your heartbreak’s kind of really paying off.”

“Really?” I asked, my chest loosening.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Look, this is easily your best work. Lines was awesome and everything, don’t get me wrong, but this could easily be your masterpiece. This could be your motherfucking Fight Club.”

I felt the urge to almost laugh. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he nodded. “You know I’m the first person to give you shit if something isn’t working, but this book is really turning out to be amazing.”

“You really think so?” I inquired, borderline in disbelief. The only other person who’d ever been that excited about my writing was my brother, and maybe Alex.

He nodded again enthusiastically. I was almost worried that his glasses were going to fly off of his face. “Absolutely. The writing is just charged with so much emotion. I mean, it almost physically felt like I’d been shot in the chest when Jackson killed Alana. I don’t know about you, but I don’t experience that much. The only other time I’ve felt like that was when I read Fight Club and I could practically feel the burn of Tyler’s kiss.”

“The fact that you’re comparing my little pile of shit to Fight Club is blowing my mind,” I admitted.

“Except it’s not a pile of shit,” Michael shook his head. “Look, this came from a very dark place. Maybe a little too dark for some people, but so is Fight Club, and that’s become a classic. This has the potential to leave that same kind of mark on the literary world.”

“Do you think I need to change anything?” I asked.

“Well, I mean, I have some notes regarding wording, but content wise, it’s very disturbing and intense, but it works,” he said. We sat together and went through my copy of the document, combing through all the pages I’d written and making the changes that Michael had suggested. By the time we were through, it was almost three in the morning, and he’d probably only end up with a little more than two hours of sleep.

“I hope you get paid overtime for this,” I told him as we got ready for bed.

“Nope,” he said with a shrug, peeling back the covers on his side.

“You work way too hard,” I said with a frown, following suit and slipping beneath the silky sheets. “You need to take a break or something. You’re gonna wear yourself out if you’re not careful.”

“I like to keep busy,” he said and reached to turn out the light. “But maybe I’ll take some time off soon and visit you. I’ve never been out your way.”

“You’re welcome anytime,” I assured him. “Just let me know so I can make sure that Jack’s dressed when you show up.”

We said goodnight and slept for a little while. I woke up with Michael again the next morning and kept him company while he ate breakfast. After he left, I crashed for a long time and when I woke up, instead of working on my book, I decided to clean Michael’s apartment a little as a way to say thanks. Of course, the place was near immaculate, so I wouldn’t have too much to do. I decided to start by doing his laundry, carefully making sure that nothing I was throwing in the machine was dry clean only (Michael would probably have a stroke if I ruined one of his shirts by doing this; I, on the other hand, usually threw dry clean only shirts in the washing machine and hoped for the best – if it survived the machine, it could stay in my wardrobe, and if it didn’t, then I didn’t really need that article of clothing anyway).

When that was sorted, I threw a load in and went in search of cleaning supplies. I scrubbed his bathroom down, and once the first load of laundry was done, I tossed it in the dryer. While I waited on that, I dusted his family room and cleaned the counters in the kitchen.

After what felt like ages, I took his socks and underwear out of the dryer and sat down to fold them, which was strangely relaxing. When I was through, I took the laundry basket into his room and started opening drawers until I could figure out where those things went. I tried the top drawer first, which was wrong, as was the second drawer. I finally found the right drawer and started to put things away, but something caught my eye. There were pictures stacked up in the corner of the drawer, and even though it was none of my business, my nosiness overcame me and I sat down on the floor to look at the frames.

I didn’t get any farther than the first photo. It was of a girl with medium-length dark blonde hair, artfully messy. She had hazel eyes, leaning more towards the green side, and an overly white smile. Her facial features matched mine perfectly, right down to the barely noticeable mole on her cheek near her nose. Aside from my hair being longer and darker, the girl looked exactly like me. This was way too surreal.

I put the photos back in the drawer, stacking some of the socks on top so them I wouldn’t look at it again. I tried to shake the picture of the girl from my mind as I continued my cleaning spree, but it began to eat at me. Michael would definitely have some explaining to do when he came home.