In The End

I write sins not tragedies

"Liv, can you pop in please?" Jackson called to me from his office, bringing me immediately to my feet as I followed his request.

"Everything ok?" I nervously smiled as I peered around the door to assess his mood before fully entering. Things had been fraught lately and I think the pressures of Maddison's pregnancy was getting to him. She'd been in and out of hospital with severe morning sickness and as much as I'd tried to hold the fort in his absence I was way out of my depth, and inevitably could only do so much with unintentionally causing more work for him to do and clean up my mess.

"Yeah, I just wanted to go through these numbers with you and make sure everything is in order before we send them off to finance." He didn't look up from his screen as I approached the seat on the opposite side of his desk and pull the chair slightly to a gap just big enough for me to squeeze in front of it. "Pull that round here so it's easier to look at this with me." He gestured to the space next to him but kept his eyes glued to the screen as I carried out his request and dragged the chair around to his side of the desk, trying desperately to not show the excessive force I was needing to use in order to move the dam thing. Noticing the subtle arch to his brow, I could tell I hadn't masked it well enough and finally flopped into the space next to him.

The morning quickly morphed into late afternoon as we spent the next few hours going through everything with a fine tooth comb, until the constant rumble of our empty stomachs finally reminded us to eat.

"We haven't really talked about the tour and what you want to do." Jackson mumbled through a mouthful of noodles.

"What do you mean?" I asked whilst fighting with my chopsticks, which apparently were standard tools in LA.

"Well do you wanna go, for a start?"

"I wasn't aware I had a choice." I nervously laughed, scooping a stray slippery strand back into the box.

"Of course you do. It's a big ask and a huge commitment to be away from home for that length of time. It's completely up to you how you wanna work it." He threw a wooden spork at me which he'd dug out of the bottom of the delivery bag and I thankfully shovelled in mouthful after mouthful as I thought about what he said.

"To be honest Jackson, I don't really know enough to be able to make an informed decision about it. Like- well, what are the options, what are the pro's and con's to both?" I peaked over the rim of my takeout box as I awaited his response.

"Well, the options are you can go or you can stay." He chuckled to himself. "Look, its 24/7 if your on the road, absolutely relentless, very little down time and extremely stressful. If you stay you get to maintain that work life balance and there are no expectations to be working outside of hours."

"You're not really selling this." I cut in before slurping from my coke can.

"Some might say that because your away from it and looking in, your more effective because you see the bigger picture and are not working in a reactive state, but if your on the road, well- that's an experience in its self." He paused and took a long sip of his soda. "I'm really not gonna sugar coat this, it's difficult out on the road and it's in no way glamorous or comfortable and you'll see more of the tour bus than anything else. It's cramped, it's annoying, you can't get a minute to yourself and you will want to kill everyone at some point- but it's fuckin awesome. You'll never experience anything like it in your life, and the bonds you make are like nothing else."

"You're still not making this any easier for me." I joked with a nervous laugh.

"It's a hard sell, honestly. The cons completely outweigh the pro's so I don't want to under play just how shitty it will be at times, so it really just boils down to how much you want to experience it and have that opportunity. Look, being out there on the road is not for everyone, it takes a certain mindset, and it takes its fuckin toll."