The Good Life

Alex

I was too scared to go talk to Jack yesterday after Izzy left so I was going to do it today. It just sucked because today was Valentine’s Day. We were supposed to spend the day in love and doing cute stuff together. Instead I was sitting in my car outside of our house trying to think of how to apologize to him.

I have fucked up and apologized so many times that it was hard to come up with original apologies. I was hoping that Jack felt as depressed as me and didn't care how I apologized. That probably wasn't the case since from what I remember I was really mean to him. He probably was expecting me to come crawling on my hands and knees begging him to forgive me. I would do it if that meant we could put this behind us.

My phone buzzed telling me that I had a text message. I thought it was from Jack at first but I saw Izzy's name.

To Alex:
Sitting in the car like a stalker isn't going to fix anything lol

To Izzy:
I'm trying to think of what to say

To Alex:
Just tell him that you're sorry

To Izzy:
It's not that easy

To Alex:
Well maybe if you stopped doing things to upset him you wouldn't be in this position almost once a month.

To Izzy:
Whose side are you on? And stop nagging me. I don't need both of you giving me an earful.

To Alex:
I'm neutral! And he has every right to give you an earful.

To Izzy:
How very neutral of you to say

To Alex:
You're stalling for time -_- just get in here and go talk to him.

To Izzy:
Fine I'm coming in now.

I sighed and got out of the car. Hopefully Jack wasn't still angry because I didn't want to leave home again. I missed him and Izzy too much.

I stuck my key in the door and slowly opened it. No one was in the living room so I was clear. Izzy was in the living room upstairs and she peaked her head over the ledge.

"He's in his bedroom." She whispered to me.

"Okay." I said and walked in the direction of our room. The door was wide open so there was no way for me to hide that I was here.

He was lying in bed with his eyes glued to the TV screen when I walked in. He looked at me through his eyelashes and sighed. I couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing. He didn't say anything after that, he just stared waiting on me to speak first.

Instead of saying anything, I walked over to our bed and took my shoes off. I slowly eased down into and laid on my side of the bed. He looked like he was on the verge of tears as he continued to look at me. I moved closer to him and reached out to wrap my arms around him. He didn't move, he just allowed me to do it. I stopped when his head was in my chest and I was resting my head on the top of his.

"I'm sorry." I whispered and kissed his hair.

"I know you are." His voice trembled. ". . . But it just sucks because you really hurt me. And I love you so much that I can't even stay mad at you even when you do shit like that." He sniffled into my chest. Knowing that I was the reason he felt this way made me feel sick.

"I never meant to hurt you, Jack, I swear." I told him.

"I know. And you didn't mean what you said and you'll never do it again right?" He pulled away from me and sat up. He wasn't asking, he was mocking what I normally said when I apologized to him. He had dark circles around his eyes like he hadn't slept well in days.

"Jack I-"

"-Just listen Alex. We've been married for almost twenty years and you somehow still find ways to shock me with what you say or do. I can't believe you were actually able to talk to me that way when I was concerned for your safety." He cried.

"Jack I was-"

"-Drunk? I know."

"I should have listened to you and not went to drink away my feelings. I just made things worse." I said.

"Yeah. Way worse." He agreed.

We were quiet for a minute before I asked quietly, "Do you want me to leave again?"

"I honestly don't know." He sighed. That was not the answer I was expecting. "I really want you back home, but not if I'm going to have to keep dealing with this."

"I promise it won't happen again." I was panicking.

"What makes this promise different than all the other ones?" He rolled his eyes at me.

“. . . I'm actually afraid of losing you this time."

He stared at me for a moment and then looked down at his fingers. I was scared, I didn't know what he was thinking.

"...If this ever happens again...I won't be so quick to forgive you." He warned and I nodded. I was positive it wasn't going to ever happen again. I don't know how I would continue to live if I ever lost Jack.

"It won't." I assured him.

He scooted over closer to me and wrapped his arms around my torso. This was probably was a hard decision for him to make. I knew he missed me, but he also wanted to show me that he wasn't pleased with me.

"I don't want to fight anymore." He whispered and I wrapped my arms tightly around him.

"I don't either. I'm sorry I put you through this." I apologized again and he nodded against my chest.

I slowly laid us down so that he was lying on my chest and I was laying on my back. He needed to rest he looked so sleepy. Plus we still had a reservation for dinner tonight and he wasn't going to go if he didn't think he looked good. So I rubbed his back soothingly and let him drift off to sleep.

I let him sleep on me for thirty minutest so he would be in deep sleep and not wake up. Then I slowly slipped from under him and replaced myself with a pillow. I had six hours before our reservation and I needed to go buy Valentine’s Day gifts. I was probably going to have to fight to get things since it was Valentine’s Day today.

I slipped my shoes back on and grabbed my keys.

I went upstairs to Izzy's room first to tell everything was okay now, but she was taking a nap in her bed. I turned to go out of her room and saw her makeup paint stuff was almost empty. I took a picture of it and decided to go to the mall. I could buy both of my Valentines gifts from there.

I drove to the crowded mall and went to MAC first since I already knew what to get Izzy from there.

"Hi can I help you find something?" An associate asked. I noticed she was one of my students from school. "Oh hi Mr. Gaskarth!" She laughed when she noticed who I was.

"Hey Makenzie, how are you?" I asked.

"Good well as good as I can be while working on Valentine's Day. Are you here to buy something for Izzy?" She asked.

"Yeah I saw she was out of this stuff." I said and showed her the picture I took.

"Okay it's a liquid foundation. Let me check if we have that foundation color left." She left to go look. She came back seconds later holding the box in her hand.

"We had it in stock!" She told me.

"Awesome. Do you think I should get her anything else from here?" I asked.

"Um maybe a lipstick. Do you know what colors she normally wears?"

"I think red and pink are the only colors I see her wear." I told her.

"Well you should get her this color. It's like a dark purple color, I'm sure she'll love it." She suggested. She knew more about this still than I did so I got it. I paid for the items and thanked her before leaving.

I was walking to Dillard's to get cologne for Jack when I heard someone call my name. I stopped and turned around to see Rian walking to me. He was holding like eight different bags.

"Hey Ri, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Shopping for Cass." He huffed.

"You actually waited to the last minute." I gasped dramatically. Usually he would do this stuff way ahead of time.

"Yeah yeah I accidentally forgot. What are you doing here? I thought Jack was mad at you." He said.

"Yeah he was but I went over today and fixed everything."

"Oh good! So now you’re buying gifts for him and Izzy I'm guessing." He said while looking at the MAC bag in my hand.

"Yeah I made reservations for the three of us at Mastro's Stake House." I said.

"Wow I'm jealous you actually got a reservation there." He laughed.

"Yeah I had to do it like six months ago, it's ridiculous. What'd you get for Cass? Looks like you spent a lot."

"Yeah I did. I got her some shoes, a new purse, some perfume, lingerie, and a dress to wear to dinner tonight." He said.

"Damn that's a lot." I laughed.

"Yeah and I still need to go get flowers and balloons so I'll see you later." We both said bye and walked away. He reminded me that I too needed to go get flowers and balloons for Jack and Izzy too.

I went to Dillard's and got Jack's favorite cologne for him. It was called Velvet by Dolce and Gabbana. It cost three-hundred dollars for the set, but I tried not to think about that as I handed the cashier my credit card.

This was just the beginning though. I still had more to buy for them. I think the reason I wanted to buy so much was to make up for everything that happened. I needed to do more than just apologize.

I went to the jewelry store next and bought them both diamond studs. Izzy's cost a little bit more since hers were the ones for women and Jack got the male version, but both pair were well over two-hundred so it didn't make a difference.

I went to buy them both one last gift. I got Izzy those Kanye West Adidas shoes she's been crying about for weeks. For Jack's last gift I had to go to a wine store. I bought a small version of the champagne he got us for our honeymoon. It was called Bicentenary Cuvée Dry Imperial, and I had no idea how to pronounce it. I had to point to it for the associate to grab it for me. The large bottle he brought cost three-thousand dollars. The one I just bought was twelve hundred. I most likely will have to eat saltine crackers for lunch for the rest of the year after all the money I just spent.

My next stop was Party City to get balloons for them. The line was practically out the door. I wanted to be mad at all these people for waiting until the last minute, but I did the same thing. I went made it to the counter twenty minutes later and bought ten red heart shaped balloons and ten white and pink balloons.

I had to speed to the flower shop because I only had three hours left. The restaurant was on the outskirts of town so the drive to it was cutting into the time too. As expected the line was super long here too. I waited nearly half an hour to get two dozens of red roses, but at least they had some left.

I drove home and grabbed all the bags out of the trunk of my car. I had to make two trips just to get the balloons and flowers out also. I set everything up in the foyer of our house so they could see it for themselves. The flowers and bags were set up nicely on the table and the balloons were floating all around it. I did a pretty good job for a guy who did shopping on the actual day.

Neither Jack nor Izzy came to look at what I bought so I had to go get them. I went to Jack first and he was still asleep in bed. It was like I never left at all.

"Jack, Baby wake up." I lightly shook him.

"Hmm?" He hummed.

"It's time to get up and get ready for dinner." I told him.

"What dinner?" He mumbled.

"I made us reservations somewhere."

"Where?"

"It's a surprise! So get up and go get ready. Make sure you wear something fancy."

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. If he wasn't just waking up he would have asked a million times for me to tell him where we were going. He began to get up and went to the bathroom to shower and get changed. I left him and went to see if Izzy was awake.

I went upstairs to her room and saw her still asleep too. I chuckled at how ridiculous her and Jack were and went to get her up.

"Izzy wake up." I shook her awake.

"No Daddy." She whined and rolled over.

"But I have a surprise for you." I sang.

She peeked her head up and looked at me. "What is it?" She asked.

"I'll give it to you, but first I need you to get dressed. Like really dressy." I said and she got up. I knew I could bribe her out of bed.

"How long do I have to get ready?" She asked and I looked at my watch. It was a little after five.
"Uh an hour." I told her.

"I can work with that."

I left her to go get myself ready for dinner too. We were ready at around six-thirty so I decided we had enough time for them to open their gifts before left. I told them to close their eyes and I guided them to the foyer. When I finally let them open their eyes they both gasped. It was probably because I made the room look really nice with the balloons and flowers.

"Aw Alex! This is so beautiful." Jack kissed me on the cheek.

"Yeah Daddy it looks cute." Izzy said as she took pictures for snapchat.

"You're both welcome! Now open them. Our reservation is at seven."

They opened their gifts one by one and praised me for each one. It was worth every penny I spent to see them so happy. Jack went to go put or champagne in the freezer so we could enjoy it later, and Izzy went to switch lipsticks to the one I just got her.

We left the house at six-forty and made it to the restaurant two minutes early, but I was speeding a bit. The waitress had our table ready so we were seated quickly. The restaurant just screamed money from the decorations to the table cloths. I knew I wasn't going to spend less than a hundred for us to eat tonight.

“I can’t believe you actual got a reservation here!” Jack exclaimed.

“Yeah me either.” I chucked.

"I want the biggest burger they have." Izzy exaggerated as we looked at the menus.

"You're not going to get past two bites." Jack laughed.

"This parasite inside of me will help me eat it." She joked and I laughed, making Jack rolled his eyes at us.

"He or she is not a parasite, Izzy." He stated.

"It does feed off of her so it's kind of like a parasite." I said and he glared at me.

"Now I know where she gets that kind of thinking from."

Notes

Yay Jalex is back together, but only if Alex keeps his promise.

I hope you all still enjoy this story and check out my new story called "What's My Age Again?" It's pre-written and I update it every Monday and Friday!