"How can I figure out what I want to do in life?"

I look over at James and see him staring at his reflection in the mirror.

"Are you talking to me or the mirror?"

He manages a chuckle out, "Whoever has the answer."

James had a bad night and I can tell, but whenever I bring it up he tries to deny it, though it's obvious to me. His hair is messy and his eyes have even gone red, but he still pretends he's okay.

I walk up to him and grab his hand, "Do you want to go for a walk?"

"I really don't," he sighs, "I just want to go to bed."

"I know you've had a bad day. Why won't you tell me?" I cup his face and he holds onto my hands.

"It's fine, I swear," he takes my hands off his face, "Can we just go to bed?" he says as he's starting to take his clothes off.

"The day will be over in ten minutes," I say.

"Good."

"Let's go for a ride. Let's be somewhere nice on a new day."

"We'll just spend an hour in traffic. We won't get anywhere away from this hotel before midnight," he argues. He unbuttons his pants and I get the hint. I stop bothering him about it, but I've never felt so far away.

I try to cup his face again but he just kisses my hand. "Baby, it'll be fine," he says and heads towards the bed.

"Are you coming?"

"In a second. I need to get something," I tell him and he nods.

I leave the room and head towards the bar downstairs. I ride the elevator with two girls where one of them has her hand in the back pocket of the other.

"I hope Wendy's is still open," one girl says.

"It's midnight, what are you on about," the second laughs.

"I'm- wait."

"You're drunk, baby," she laughs.

The elevator dings and I give them a smile before walking in the direction of the dining hall where a sweet waitress asks if she can get me anything and I ask her if I can buy a bottle of wine and take it back up to my room.

I ride the elevator again but this time on my own. I clutch the bottle and stare at my reflection in the mirror for a while and think about James, and how he's in bed right now, probably just staring at the ceiling. James never falls asleep in a place that isn't his, and I know he's going to spend the whole night tossing and turning, get up in the morning with a headache, and just do it all over again. I can always tell that nights spent away from home are always the worse for him; I can tell when I'm with him and I can tell when we're on FaceTime. I always tell him he does a shitty job at hiding his emotions, but I wish this would warrant him talking to me some more, telling me what's really bothering him.

But he'll usually laugh, sometimes he denies it, which makes me feel even worse, because not only is he not going to let me know what's wrong, but I can't even form a solid guess.

The elevator dings. I walk back to our room and let myself in.

"James, baby, are you awake?" I ask even though I know he is.

"Ava? Where did you go?"

"Come on, get up for a second. Let's check the balcony out."

"Baby, I'm so tired, can't we just-"

But I already have the door opened, and a breeze makes its way into our room.

"Come on, it's a minute to midnight."

I sit outside on one of the chairs the hotel already has set up. The bartender was nice enough to open up the bottle so I take a sip of it and wait for James.

In a second he's out. He's still in his boxers but I can tell he got cold because he put his jumper back on.

"You got wine," he remarks and sits across me.

"Here," I hand him it, "and look, it's midnight. Isn't today starting off nicely?"

"Yeah, with a nice morning hangover."

"You're so grumpy. Take a swing, you'll be nicer drunk."

He obliges, and though it's dark I can tell from his silhouette that he's looking at the stars.

"You know if I was a little more drunk, and a little more dressed, then this would be like the night we met. You remember? Sitting on the porch while the party was going on inside."

"Of course I do. I remember you talking about your book pitch."

"Oh, of course you do," he laughs.

"What happened today?"

"Oh, Ava, just drop it. I just had a bad day."

"I wish I could drop it."

"Fine," he sighs, "but don't say anything about it."

"Why not?"

"Promise or I won't tell you."

"Okay," I say, "I promise."

He clears his throat, "After the show tonight, a man came up to me and told me to quit this music thing while I'm ahead."

"Ahead of what?"

"Ava, you said you weren't going to say anything, so shut up," he says and takes another sip.

"Okay," I clear my throat, "what was your favorite subject at school?"

"Are you drunk already? Why is this your response?"

"Well, you asked me how to figure out what to do in life, didn't you?"

"You know what, let's go to bed."

"James-"

"I thought I was ready to talk about it but I'm obviously not," he says, "I'm going back in."

I follow him inside and put the bottle on our dresser.

"It's freezing, could you close the door?" He says while taking his jumper off and his shirt underneath it rises up and I catch a glimpse of golden skin.

It's my turn to take my clothes off and try to make do with whatever James has lying around as pyjamas. He apologises for making me come last minute again and I have to remind him again that he never has to apologise for these things.

I lay next to him and bring my hand up to his patch of golden skin, right above his boxer shorts. He puts his hand atop mine and it's still freezing, but I don't mind.

"Also, thanks for coming. You didn't have to," he whispered.

"You don't have to thank me, idiot," I try to turn toward him but he's staring at the ceiling too intently.

"The rockstar life is crazy, innit?"

"Everything with you is."

"Yeah, sorry."

"No," I frown, "not in a bad way."

"Oh," he says, "Ava?"

"Yeah?" I sit up to get closer to him.

"I don't want you to think I'm mad at you, so I'll tell you: my favorite subject at school, after music, was math."

"That's a great choice," I smile.

"Yeah," he laughs, "I was never the best at it, but I did really like algebra."

"Me too, but my favorite has to be trig."

"You're crazy, then."

"I must be."

"Especially since you're with me."

"Stop it," I say, "You're being too mean to yourself."

"Just tonight," he grips my hand, "Just right now."

It's too dark to see but I grip his hand tighter, and I hope he's getting everything I'm not saying.

"I hope you figure out what you need from life."

"Right now," he whispers, "it's just you."

James can be cheesy, and though he can pretend to be cold sometimes, he still believes in true love, and he still believes in love at first sight.

He says it everytime, says that as soon as he saw me it was love at first sight, that as soon as our "eyes locked" at that party he started falling in love. Which I don't think is true, I think he just saw a girl with too much glitter on her face and thought she was interesting. If it really were love at first sight he would've remembered the first time we really met, at Naya's office.

We have the same literary agent, and one time his meeting ran late. When he came out he said to me, "Sorry you had to wait, it's my fault."

"Oh, don't worry about it," I smile.

"Have a good day, then," he smiled back and left.

When I got into Naya's office I asked her why had she never introduced me to her cute British client and his blue eyes. She laughed and admitted that sometimes during meetings she allows herself to swoon over 'James', and how all potential publishers are always quick to note how handsome he is, and I thought that was it.

At dinner parties our friends will ask us how we met, and James will say that he saw me at a party and "just knew". I guess he means "I just knew she was the girl for me", but in my case I just knew he was the guy from Naya's office. People will swoon and believe in true love after listening to him tell the story, but nobody really believes it, right?

I asked him, once. He was in Australia and we were on Facetime at an hour ungodly for the both of us. I asked him, "Do you think that we ever met at Naya's office before Pete's party, and then just forgot?"

"Oh, I doubt it. I would've remembered you for sure."

"You think so?"

"Obviously."

I shut up at that. It's sweet how much he believes I mean to him, and I never want to ruin it.

He'll tell the story at dinner parties. He'll say his friend Dave dragged him to a "dumb" party he would've never wanted to go to anyway, and that he only said yes after Dave made him feel bad about moping around all day because of record label rejections.

He'll tell me, Ava, I remember you in your dress and I remember you singing with your friends, and I remember looking over at my friend Dave and telling him that I thought you were beautiful.

I'll him it was actually a skirt and a top, just to upset him, but he laughs every time.

"Don't you think you would've remembered me?" He asked me over FaceTime that night.

"I would've! I would've asked Naya who the hot British guy was, at the very least."

"Are my looks all I am to you?"

"Obviously."

James doesn't remember me in my pantsuit, doesn't remember me clutching my manuscript with my hair up, but that's okay. He's chosen to immortalise me as the pretty girl in a short skirt at that party he didn't even want to go to, who had too much glitter on her face, but knows a lot about books.

That night James asked me what my favorite book was when we were sitting out on the porch after midnight.

"You said that one day it'll be your own."

One day I'll write my favorite book and James will write his favorite record, but until then I feel like we'll always be these two people sitting on a random person's front porch, talking about which was the best Murakami book, and what year was better for music. And after that I'll be the girl in the blazer and the manuscript and James the hot British guy, and though it feels like we're moving backward, this how I want to feel with him, like I'm reminding the clock while still going forward.

We will both become who we want to be in life, and even if not together, then we'll still be. I'll be the girl in the top and the skirt and he'll be the boyfriend who forgot the first time we met, and we'll buy each other's books and listen to the records.

"And I'll love you forever," James whispers.

I'll love him, too, obviously. No matter how tiring and dramatic some nights may get, he'll always be my forever.

If the universe didn't want us together when I don't think he would've went to that party with Dave. And even if he hadn't seen me then, I feel like we would've met anywhere else, in coffee shops, events, classes, guest lectures, or even on the sidewalk. I would've exhausted all the different versions of myself until the universe would've brought James back to me.

On the flight back from New York James asks me what my favorite subject at school was.

"Physics," I smile.

"Not English?"

"I liked physics way more, actually," I nod, "I just thought it was interesting."

"You're so weird," he laughs, "Physics was awful. What an awful choice."

We laugh and the woman sitting in front of us gives us a glare.

"See, she agrees," James whispers. 

-
i know nobody writes a/n's anymore but this is the first time anyone's read something ive written in about a year (yes even including school since all i take is math and physics at this point anyway :/) so i feel weird, and yes this has no point except to be super cheesy