Something's Gotta Give - Original Verison

Jade's Point of View

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, dragging Jay by his shirt away from the larger groups around the house, pulling him into a mostly vacant hallway. “You said you weren’t coming. A little warning would have been nice so I don’t look like an idiot.”

“Sorry,” Jay apologized once I’d let go of his shirt. He smoothed it absent-mindedly. “I texted you I was coming. Didn’t you get it?”

“No,” I replied. “I haven’t checked my phone for hours. What are you doing here? I thought you said this would be too ‘awkward,’ to quote you directly.”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing.” He looked worried, like I was about to lose my shit on him at any moment. “After the whole Alex thing, I mean.”

I stared at him confused for a moment. There hadn’t been an “Alex thing” that I’d been upset about in years, not since Jay and I had gotten together. All the rest was ancient history as far as I was concerned. “What Alex thing?”

“The breakup,” he said slowly, “with Isabel.” He was still eyeing me cautiously. “You know about that, right?”

“I just found out,” I told him and then squinted my eyes at him. “Wait, how do you know?” I crossed my arms waiting for an answer.

He stared at me for a moment and then shook his head. “Jack told me. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to see how you were. I’m guessing Alex told you?”

“Like literally thirty seconds before I saw you, but Skye told me first,” I said. “How’d you find out before me? I don’t think Alex even told anyone yet.”

“Jack knows everything,” Jay explained. “How much did Alex tell you?”

“Not really anything, just the same thing that Skye said – he got cheated on,” I told him. “What is up with you anyway? You don’t talk to me for a month and then you show up here and act like we’re friends? I know we said we’d try doing that, but that’s not the way to go about it.” Honestly, I was irritated that Jay had shown up like it was the most natural thing in the world. We weren’t together anymore and that had been his choice, not mine.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Jay repeated for what felt like the millionth time.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Please. You care now? Jay, you dumped me and you didn’t even give me a reason why. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you just woke up one morning and thought to yourself that you didn’t love me anymore and you wanted out? There had to be something.”

Jay opened his mouth to reply but then glanced just past me to look at whoever was walking up the hallway.

“Is there a problem over here?” Alex asked. I turned to see him with his arms folded and glaring at Jay.

Jay shook his head. “No. I was just leaving.” He turned his attention back to me. “I’m not gonna do this with you, Jade. Not here, and not right now. I shouldn’t have come over here.” He walked past me and pushed past Alex, leaving me staring after him, frowning and angry.

“What was that all about?” Alex asked as I walked with him to rejoin the party.

“I wish I knew,” I told him. I shook my head and shrugged. “Whatever. It’s a party. Let’s just get shit-faced and get on with the night.”

We headed back into the kitchen to see that the crowd around Jack had diminished and he was sitting at the breakfast bar with his face pressed against the table. He glanced in our direction as we approached and looked up slightly. “I think I’m dying.”

I turned to Vinny for more explanation. He patted Jack on the back. “He ate fifty two chicken fries.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alex whispered and I laughed.

“What happened to ‘I can eat three hundred chicken fries,’ huh?” I teased and nudged Jack’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” he slurred. “I’m going to explode.”

Alex, Vinny, and I exchanged glances and laughed again, then headed over to the keg where we found Skye filling her cup. It had been a while since I’d seen Skye drink, but surely after all this time she could handle herself (I hoped). We all got drinks and watched people fail and occasionally succeed at karaoke. We lost sight of Skye a few times and it wasn’t until the party was winding down that I’d found her again.

Apparently Jack had thrown up on her and she was screeching about how she was going to kill him. I had given Jack a “no vomiting” rule and he’d broken it, so at that point, I would have been happy to help her bury him in the backyard.

I led Skye to my bedroom and lent her some clothes, sending her to get dressed down the hall. As she was getting dressed, I headed back downstairs and grabbed some trash bags to start cleaning up. I collected cups and drained them in the sink before tossing them, thankful that most of the garbage had found its way into the trashcans.

“Need some help?” Alex asked, carrying a few paper plates into the kitchen.

“I would love some,” I told him, giving him a small smile. “My asshole brother should be helping me, but I have no idea where he went.”

“I don’t know either.” Alex shrugged. He walked over to check the keg. “You’ve still got a decent amount in here.”

“I’ll have Jack text everybody to come over again in the morning for some kegs and eggs,” I answered. “There’s no way he and I are gonna finish that on our own, but if you feel like putting an extra dent in it now, go for it. You could probably use it.”

“That I could,” he agreed and poured himself another drink. He sat down at the breakfast bar and watched me straighten up. “You’ve got a lot of food left over, too.”

“And surprisingly no chicken fries,” I said. “I hate to admit it, but Jack probably made a good call on that. Although I could still kill him for spending over a hundred dollars at Burger King.”

“Good old Jack,” Alex agreed and took a long drink from his cup and then swished it around a little. “I think I might be a little drunk.”

“Probably more than a little,” I teased. I hadn’t drank that much, but then again I didn’t care for beer a whole lot and I only had a shot or two of whatever Rian had brought, just enough to get buzzed and have a good time. I walked over to my side of the breakfast bar and held my hand out. “Keys.”

“I don’t think I’m that drunk,” Alex protested, but cooperated and reached into his pocket to hand them to me. “Here.”

“Thank you,” I said and stood on my toes and jumped to put them on top of the fridge. “You can have them back tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” he said and then Zack came over to join us and chat. A few moments later, Skye appeared with Jack and she was holding some kind of envelope. She handed it to Alex, which revealed a request for a DNA test, and then dragged Zack outside. Jack, Alex, and I sat somewhat close to the door to try to hear what was going on, but Skye quickly left and Zack never came back inside.

“Guess she went home,” Alex announced after checking his phone. He shook his head. “I really don’t know what’s with those two.”

“Does anyone?” I rolled my eyes. Skye and Zack had a complicated relationship and trying to figure it out was almost impossible. “I don’t think they even know.”

“True that,” Jack agreed. He looked around at what was left of the mess, yawned in an exaggerated manner, and then announced, “Well kids, I’m worn out. I’m going to go tell everyone about breakfast and then pass the fuck out. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Pukey!” I called after him. He turned around to flick me off but laughed, then disappeared upstairs. Alex sat in silence while I put some of the food away and it was truly a weird feeling being alone with him again. I hadn’t been in a room alone with Alex since shortly after we’d broken up the second time and I had almost no idea what to talk about, but I tried to force conversation anyway.

“Sorry again about Isabel,” I told him. “That’s really a bummer.”

“You would know, you know how it feels to get cheated on,” Alex said, trying to sound like he didn’t care. He took another drink. “Sorry again for that.”

I finished putting the food away and sat down next to him. “I kind of got over that. It’s been almost five years. You can’t really stay mad forever.”

“How long did it take before you stopped feeling like shit?” he asked, turning a little to face me.

I sighed. “Until I started dating Jay, honestly. So like two and a half years, I guess. But I was also holding a pretty strong grudge. You’ll feel better with time.”

He darkened at the mention of Jay’s name. “What was he talking to you about before anyway?” he asked, changing the subject.

“He kept asking me how I was doing,” I told him. “He could have just asked me through a text message if he wanted to know that badly. He didn’t have to show up here, he told me yesterday that it’d be weird when Jack invited him.” I waved it off. “Whatever. Let’s just drop the whole Jay and Isabel thing for the night. It’s depressing. Let’s do something fun.”

“Like what?” Alex asked.

“We could watch a movie in my room or something,” I suggested. “Or down here or whatever you feel like doing. I don’t care, I’m just not ready to go to bed yet.”

“Watching a movie in your room sounds fine,” he replied and stood to follow me upstairs. “What do you feel like watching?”

“Whatever is fine,” I said. “Anything on Netflix or from my collection. It doesn’t matter.” When we went upstairs and into my bedroom, he went to my DVD wall and started reading through the titles, finally selecting one. Before handing me the case, he glanced at my wall and pointed to a framed poster.

“I never got a chance to read that,” he said and I looked over to the poster, an enlarged cover of my book. “Jack said it was awesome. I had every intention of reading it, I swear. We just got busy.”

“It’s fine,” I said, accepting the Gone Girl DVD from him. “You weren’t missing much.”

“Not according to the rest of the world,” Alex answered and sat down on the left side of the bed, the side he’d usually slept on when we were together.

“Read some of the bad reviews on Amazon,” I countered and joined him. “It’ll humble you, that’s for sure. ‘Pretentious’ seems to be a favored analysis.”

“Well, I could have told you that just from hanging out with you for years,” Alex joked and smiled a little. Since he’d started drinking after he’d arrived, Alex had definitely lightened up a little and the old Alex was starting to show through a bit. It made me relax and truly believe he was going to be okay.

“My harshest critic,” I laughed and then hit play on the remote. “Now quit talking. This is one of my favorites.”

Alex obliged and within an hour or so, we’d both started to get sleepy and had laid down next to each other on my bed, our heads resting on each other. I fought sleep and tried to tell myself to move, that the last thing I wanted was for Jack to catch us in a compromising position, but for the first time since Jay and I had broken up, I felt relaxed. It couldn’t hurt to stay that way for a while longer. Just for tonight, anyway.