The Real You

The Sound of Music

"Sooo.....Sam, have you decided yet about your tiny little problem?"Jordan's voice came though the speakers loudly as I was driving down the highway.

"What on earth are you talking about Jor?" I asked her, playing innocent. I didn't exactly feel like talking about this right now.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about" my best friend's voice chirped through the sound system. That whole hands-free thingy was starting to get on my nerves, but then again I didn't want to get pulled over for texting and driving or something stupid like that "I'm talking about our trip to Barcelona!"

I sighed.

Dammit.

"We figured all this stuff out before you met Mr. Hottie and got all involved with some hot-shot-celebrity, Sam" Jordan reminded me "And now that things between you and Alan are serious.....what's the dealio?"

Exactly the thing I didn't want to think about. My birthday was coming up the next weekend, and Jordan and I had tickets and reservations for a long weekend off somewhere at a beautiful hotel at seaside Barcelona. The fact that we'd planned this long before I even met Alan didn't exactly ease my worries or the guilt that was gnawing at my inside like ravenous scavengers. Just when things finally calmed down between us, when it looked like finally we'd just be able to enjoy the beginnings of what I hoped was a long and serious relationship, I was bailing on him at my birthday.

It wasn't like I could just cancel the trip. The payments had been made, rental cars secured, hotel reservations booked.....down until the very last detail everything was planned.  And here I was, having some intern moral debate about whether or not I should go on the bloody trip. Asking Alan to come along was also something I wasn't quite sure about. We hadn't really talked about the whole taking-trips-together yet. Besides, he was still busy with rehearsals as the play would start performing the week after my birthday. His agent called quite often, he had scripts to revise, interviews to attend, trips to premieres promoting his movie A Little Chaos and a million of other things that made his schedule just as hectic and chaotic as mine.

My job was also quite demanding, although I delegated many of the tasks to Junior Partners at the firm, who were more than eager to get a notch higher in the company hierarchy. Still my schedule often consisted of back-to-back meetings, talking to sponsors and investors, going over financial reports, sitting in on presentations on some of our major projects and business trips to biotechnology companies  all around the world. Just last week I'd done a retour-trip to California to visit Amgen's headquarters, one of the pioneering independent biotechnology companies in the world. We were negotiating a major contract with them and the company needed it's best people on the job.

And now that my birthday was coming up I couldn't exactly just ask Alan to drop everything and come with me on a weekend I'd planned as a girls-only trip with my best friend. But he was my boyfriend, and I wanted to spend time with him. Not having him come along felt wrong in a way, if that made any sense. 

"I-I guess we're still on for the trip" I said as I mulled over my dark and depressing thoughts.

"You guess?!" Jordan grumbled at the other end of the line "You're making your bestie feel unwanted girl, so I'd consider your next words very carefully if I were you.

"I'm just not sure what Alan's schedule looks like for the week" I muttered "And although I don't even think he has time to come along, I'd still like the chance to talk with him about it"

"Oh please!" Jordan huffed "You sound like some old married couple. Live a little Sam! He's head over heels for you but I'm sure he'd want you to enjoy yourself on your birthday!"