Something's Gotta Give

Jade's Point of View

This was definitely not how I’d foreseen the evening going. Jack, Skye, and I all looked uneasily between each other, trying to figure out what we were supposed to do now.

“Well, shit,” Jack said. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll go talk to him. Seems like he needs a best friend right now.”

“Why don’t you let Skye go?” I suggested. They told each other just about everything, and I couldn’t see this being any different. “He’s her brother, after all.”

“Let’s just all go,” Skye suggested. Before either of us could actually respond, she started making her way down the hallway to Alex’s door, so Jack and I followed. She stopped in front of his door and knocked softly. “Lex? Can we come in?”

“No,” came his muffled response. “Not all three of you.”

“We should probably just let him be for a bit,” I said and tried to herd Jack away from the door and back into the family room. “We can finish cleaning up and then we should head home.”

Skye asked Alex if just she could come in, which he apparently agreed to since we could hear the door open and close from the kitchen. While they talked, I made Jack help me with washing dishes so he wouldn’t be tempted to sneak back up the hall and listen at the door. I couldn’t blame him, though. I desperately wanted to know what had happened, too.

It seemed that I was going to get my chance, because a few minutes later, Skye came back out and into the kitchen. “He wants to talk to you.”

“I told you this was a best friend situation,” Jack said and began confidently striding out of the kitchen.

“Not you,” Skye told him, putting out a hand to stop him. “He wants to talk to Jade.”

“Me?” Part of me was confused, but the other part was relieved that my curiosity was about to be satisfied. I wiped my hands on the dish towel and set it off to the side. When I got to Alex’s door, I knocked and let him know it was me before letting myself in.

He was a pathetic sight to behold. He’d flopped himself face down in the center of his bed, spread out like a starfish. It would have been funny if he wasn’t heartbroken.

With the way he was laying, I felt awkward about sitting down on the bed, so I shoved some laundry from tour onto the floor and took a seat in the chair next to his bed. He wasn’t saying anything, and I was at a loss for how to start the conversation. Finally, I just decided to keep it simple. “I’m sorry you got cheated on.”

“Sorry you got cheated on, too,” he said, turning his head to the side so I could actually hear him.

I rolled my eyes. “Alex, it’s ancient history. I’m not mad at you for that anymore.”

“I’m not talking about us,” he replied. “Although, I’m still sorry about that. But I’m talking about Jay.”

“What are you talking about? Jay didn’t cheat on me.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you, but yeah, he did.”

All at once, my stomach dropped and I started to feel dizzy. Jay suddenly breaking up with me six weeks before our wedding, his bullshit excuse for doing so – it all made sense now. God fucking damnit, I couldn’t believe I’d been cheated on again. And with Isabel, the girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend? That was a new low.

Alex pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Sorry, Jade. It fucking sucks. I just thought you should know.” He let out a bitter scoff. “Looks like we’re a couple of fools.”

“What happened?” I asked him.

“I was going to ask Isabel to marry me tonight,” he started. “I had it all planned out: we were going to go to the ice festival and I was gonna propose in the park by the gazebo, and then we’d celebrate with a nice dinner and some fancy wine. Really classy and shit. And it was going great, picture perfect. Then when I got down on my knee to ask her, she just blurted it out.”

“Just like that? Just, ‘I’m cheating on you with Jay’?”

“Well, no. Not exactly like that,” he answered. “I started to ask and then she interrupted me and said, ‘Please don’t, I’ve been seeing someone else and I love him. I’m so sorry, I was going to tell you.’”

“Verbatim?”

“Trust me, I won’t ever forget that,” he said. “She asked if we could talk about it, I asked who, she told me it was Jay, and then I said we really didn’t have anything to discuss. And I left.”

“You just left her there?”

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. As if you wouldn’t have done the same thing.” He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m not a complete monster, Jade. I ordered an Uber for her so she wasn’t stranded.”

I couldn’t say I blamed him. I wouldn’t have been able to stomach sitting next to her if I were him, either. Talk about awkward and uncomfortable. “Well, we got super fucked.”

“That’s an understatement,” Alex replied, and then sighed heavily. “And Skye said the worst she could say is no. What a crock of shit, huh?”

“It’s not like she could have known,” I told him.

He shook his head. “I know, I know. I’m not pissed at her, I’m just…pissed. And really fucking sad. Sorry I ever put you through anything like this.”

“Ancient history,” I said again. Besides, him cheating on me when we were in high school just wasn’t the same magnitude as Jay cheating on me while we were engaged. “I was done being mad about that ages ago.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” he asked. “I cried the whole drive home, and my heart is absolutely broken. If we weren’t talking right now, I’d just be wallowing, which is what I really want to do.”

“Guess it just hasn’t totally sunken in yet.” But once it did, probably once we got back home and I could be alone, I knew it was going to be painful.

“Well, when it does, you want to wallow together?”

“Wallowing’s more of a solo activity,” I said, leaning forward to pat his knee. “And one I should probably let you do.”

Once I said goodbye to Alex, I went to get Jack so we could give Kendall hugs before we left. Skye didn’t press me for any information on our way out. I wasn’t sure if Alex had already told her or she was just leaving it alone for now, but I told her we’d talk the next day. On the way out, she asked if Jack and I could watch Kendall on Sunday and if Kellin could pick her up there, which I agreed to.

Jack, on the other hand, grilled me about everything the whole drive home. Alex hadn’t said not to say anything, and I figured that Jack would find out soon enough anyway since he was nosy as hell, so I told him the whole story. He interrupted a few times to express his anger, but mostly let me get through it.

“What a fucking asshole!” Jack exclaimed when I was done. “I can’t believe he did that – that they did that.” He crossed his arms and looked out the window. “We should send them a douche bag in the mail. Or an envelope that explodes with glitter. Or one of those bags of dicks. Oh! We should shit in a bag, leave it on his doorstep, and light it on fire.”

I laughed. “We are not shitting in a bag. I’ve let you get away with cleaning our ears out together for a long time, but this is where I have to draw the line. I will not shit in a bag with you. Absolutely not.”

“Well, we should do something,” he said. “They can’t just get away with it.”

“Look, Jack, I love you for being willing to square up, but it’s not going to change anything.”

“Fine,” Jack said. “But will you at least consider the glitter thing? I think that would be extra annoying.”

I half-smiled. “Annoying is where you thrive.”

“And I’m damn proud of it.”