Author's Note: This was written for my Literature class, we were asked to write an additional, short (350 word) chapter for 'The Great Gatsby'which could take place at any place in the story; the "chapter" that I wrote is set as the last chapter directly following Fitzgerald's ending, and is still from Nick's point of view.
Disclaimer: You know the drill, not mine.
Boats against the Current
Chapter X of 'The Great Gatsby'
It was five years before I was game enough to return to New York with its streets full of memories. I thought that I should go back, if only to try and tie up some of the emotional loose ends that I felt I still had left over from my abrupt departure. One of the main things that needed to be resolved was between Jordan and I, it was only after I left that I began to realise what she actually meant to me. So it was that I returned to that haunted place on the eve of my fortieth birthday, which made it almost exactly five years since our lives all fell apart.
I sought out Jordan and invited her to lunch; I was not so much startled by the way she was, she was much the same, what really caught me off balance was the intensity of the feelings I felt for her. It was in that moment that I realised that leaving her was one of the stupidest things that I have ever done, and by the time we reached the end of our meeting I told her so. It felt like an age before she finally replied, and to my great relief she told me she felt the same way, and for once I was sure she was telling the truth.
And so it was that I moved back to New York, bought an apartment, and got into the stock market. I continued to date Jordan, although this time round it seemed more real with the absence of poor Gatsby's glittering parties, the scandalous affairs of men and women, and the inevitable conflict of love and lust. A year later Jordan and I married, it was a beautiful day in autumn, marred only by the fact that Gatsby could not be my best man. We saw Daisy and Tom that day; they came to wish us well, and then disappeared as quickly as they arrived.
This is where I will end my account, on a lighter note than most of my tale, for I am aware that this has not been the happiest story. Although the truth rarely is happy for some people, people like Gatsby, who as well as Myrtle, can be seen as the true victims of this story, victims of unrequited love.
The End
