June 11:
Tina had her baby today. Two weeks past her due date. I’m an aunt now. I really don’t feel like writing anything right now.
June 13:
I just got home from seeing my new nephew. His name is Alex. He’s adorable. I kind of feel like jumping out the window.
My sister lives about an hour away, so today I drove out myself to see her at the hospital. She’s staying a few extra days, because she had a C-section. That baby just didn’t want to come out, and also, he was huge. I have to admit, Tina looked really wiped. She was pale and wincing every time she moved. Apparently, she had a really rough labor. Alex weighed almost nine pounds, which is a lot considering how tiny my sister is.
When I got to the hospital, Tina was sitting in bed and nursing her baby. He was so impossibly tiny and cute, wearing a little hat and wrapped up tightly in a receiving blanket. I wanted to grab him and make a run for it. My mother was also in the hospital room, tidying up. Yes, she was CLEANING the hospital room. She’s unbelievable.
“Thanks, Tessie,” Tina said as I handed her the balloons I had purchased in the lobby.
“He’s really cute,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“My nipples hurt,” Tina said. “My milk hasn’t come in and he wants to nurse nonstop.”
“But he’s not going to get a bottle,” my mother said firmly. “Alexander is going to get nothing but fresh breast milk. Right, Tina?”
Tina rolled her eyes in a way to indicate this wouldn’t necessarily be the case. “So where’s Jim?” she asked me. “You could have brought him.”
I swallowed. “We’re, um… having some problems.”
Tina looked alarmed but my mother smiled. “I knew it,” my mother said smugly.
“Tessie, what happened?” Tina asked. “Jim is so great.”
“He’s not great,” my mother snapped. “Tessie could do a lot better.”
Tina looked like she was going to start arguing with her, but I couldn’t deal with this right now. “Please,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Okay?”
Thank god, they both let it drop. Tina asked me if I wanted to hold the baby and I said yes. She handed him over to me and I held the little bundle in my arms. I looked his tiny face and felt him wriggling in my arms. He was so unbelievably cute. I was never going to have a baby like this. I had screwed everything up for good. All of a sudden, I felt tears rise in my eyes and I was crying.
At first it was just a few tears, but then I started crying really hard. I felt my mother pulling the baby out of my arms and I started crying almost hysterically. I was sobbing and hiccupping and I couldn’t stop. I think it was the hardest I ever cried in my entire life. I couldn’t look at my mother or Tina as I ran out of the room.
I stood in the hallway outside Tina’s room, still sobbing hysterically. People were giving me weird looks, but I didn’t know where to go. I figured I should try to find a bathroom and get cleaned up, but I didn’t see any signs for the bathroom. I was still crying hard when my mother came out of Tina’s room, looking concerned.
“Tessie,” she said. “Honey, why are you crying?”
I wiped my eyes. “I miss him.”
My mother looked like she didn’t know what to say. I was glad that she didn’t say anything at all. I kept crying and she held me, stroking my hair.
June 14:
It’s kind of awkward for me to be staying at Sandra’s house. I can tell that her husband Mike isn’t terribly thrilled about it, but Sandra says he can go to hell. I didn’t realize how much they were squabbling since she’s been knocked up. Maybe part of it is that I’m around, but it seems like every exchange they have involves an argument. I don’t remember them being like that before.
Tonight before bed, I ran into Mike in the kitchen. He was grabbing a beer from the fridge. He has a beer every night before bed, as far as I could tell. I thought about telling him that I’ve heard that drinking alcohol before bed makes you sleep worse, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate that.
“I’m sorry I’m in the way,” I said to him as I poured myself a glass of water.
Mike grunted.
“I’m going back to my apartment tomorrow night,” I offered.
He looked up at me. “You and Jim make up?”
“No,” I said. “But Jim’s going to be gone on a business trip.”
Mike grunted again. “What the hell are you fighting about this time anyway?”
I flushed a little bit at the question, but I figured that Mike deserved an answer considering I was imposing on his house. “Well, there’s this guy at work—”
“Never mind,” Mike said quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
I stood there awkwardly with my glass of water. I thought about taking it to my room (i.e. the baby’s room) to drink, but then I’d just have to come back out when I finished it.
“Why don’t you just tell him you’re sorry or something?” Mike said, breaking the silence.
“I did,” I said. “He’s still angry.”
Mike shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
“I’m not so sure.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Tessie. Of course he’ll forgive you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, who else is he going to get?”
Mike met Jim once when the four of us double-dated. The two of them got along pretty well, actually. They both have kind of laid back personalities, something that I like in Jim but that sometimes irks Sandra about Mike. Anyway, I was guessing Mike was referring to the fact that Jim was in a wheelchair and therefore couldn’t possibly replace me.
“Jim actually is really good at getting women,” I said.
Mike shook his head. “Yeah, but no one that would marry him.”
“That’s not true.”
He sighed. “Whatever you say, Tessie. Honestly, sometimes I think I have a better understanding of women than you and Sandra do. Clearly, the guy wants to get married and he knows there’s nobody else out there who’d be interested. Women are picky. If he’s been out with a lot of other women, that’s all the more reason that he realizes that I’m right.”
“That’s really…” I searched for the right word. “Small minded.”
Mike shrugged. “Believe whatever you want. I don’t care.”
I put my glass in the sink and went back to my mattress. Even though he was sort of a jerk, I wondered if Mike had a point. Jim really wanted to settle down and had wanted to for a long time and the fact that he was still unmarried was proof that this wasn’t the easiest thing for him.
June 15:
I went back to our apartment today. I guess I’ll stay here while Jim is gone.
As soon as I got into the apartment, I was hit with the familiar smells. The cleaning fluid that his cleaning woman uses and the vanilla air freshener she spritzes around the apartment. And then there was the faint lingering smell of Jim’s cologne.
I confess that I went straight to Jim’s closet and looked at the rows of his clothing, then ran my hand along his shirts. The cologne smell was stronger there and I inhaled deeply. Someone watching me probably would have thought I was nuts or something.
It was nice to be back in my own apartment, even if my place in the apartment was somewhat threatened. I lay down on the bed and curled up with a book, trying to forget everything that was going on. I pretended to myself that Jim was just coming home late from work and not across the country, trying to forget me.
I was reading for close to an hour when I heard a loud sound. It sounded like someone at the front door. I was immediately terrified. Jim lived in a good neighborhood, but it wasn’t like he had a doorman to keep out murderers. I looked around the bedroom for a weapon. I found a pair of my tweezers. I could either stab the intruder or give him really well-shaped eyebrows.
I crept toward the front door, the tweezers thrust forward in my hand. I peeked my head out and my shoulders sagged when I saw Jim’s brother Eric at the door. I put the tweezers in my pocket. “Hi, Eric,” I said.
He jumped about a foot in the air. “Oh, hi, Tessie,” he said. I like Eric’s voice, mostly because he sounds a lot like Jim. His voice is maybe a hair deeper. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Well, I am,” I said.
We stared at each other awkwardly. Eric was holding his laptop. “Um, my internet isn’t set up yet, so Jim said I could…” He trailed off. “But, um, maybe I’ll just go to Starbucks.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly. “Stay.”
Eric looked really uncomfortable, but he took his laptop to the living room and got it set up, glancing up at me every few seconds. I really wanted to ask him about Jim, but I couldn’t get up the nerve. I was sure that Jim had confided in his brother though. The two of them are incredibly close.
“I wouldn’t have come here,” Eric said, blushing. “Jim said you’d be staying with some guy…”
I blinked. “Some guy?”
“Yeah…” Eric blushed deeper.
Oh god, did Jim actually think that I was staying with Vincent? He couldn’t possibly. “Listen,” I said. “Nothing happened with me and that guy. Jim just… misunderstood the whole thing.”
“Uh huh,” Eric said politely.
“It’s true!”
Eric sighed. “Tessie, you know what he’s been through in the past. I know you feel guilty, but you should just be honest. He can take it. He handled it all the other times.”
Been through in the past? “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you know you’re not the first girl who’s cheated on him,” he said. “They all did. His last ex Molly was living with another guy a few weeks after they broke up. I know he felt differently about you than the other girls, but he probably knew in his heart it was going to end this way.”
“Molly moved in with another guy after they broke up?” Poor Jim…
“Yeah, she did,” Eric said. “So like I said, he can take it. Just don’t string him along. Be straight with him.”
“Eric,” I said desperately. “I’m not like the other girls. I still love him and want to be with him.”
“Sure,” he said.
“I do,” I swore.
Eric picked up his laptop from the dining table. “Look, I should go.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Honestly?” he said. “No.”
I could tell Eric wasn’t intentionally being mean. Much like Jim, he’s a nice person. He wasn’t a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. I guess he’d been hurt by his wife cheating on him, so he didn’t trust me. He’d probably told Jim as much.
Honestly, it still surprises me that Eric let himself get walked all over by Alicia. Much like his brother, he’s really good looking, he’s got a good career as a lawyer, he’s funny, and he’s friendly. And he’s not in a wheelchair. He’s the kind of guy you’d think would get anything he wanted in life. Then again, maybe he’s just too nice. Maybe being a nice guy is an invitation to get pushed around.
June 16:
Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I called Jim today. I called him in the evening, when I knew he wouldn’t be busy in meetings or something. Of course, his phone went to voicemail. I heard his message saying: “Hey, it’s Jim. Leave a message.” I almost burst into tears at the sound of his voice. I love Jim’s voice. It’s so cute and sexy. I felt like we hadn’t spoken in forever.
I composed myself then called again. I had been planning to leave a message saying I missed him, then was taken aback when he picked up. “Hi, Tessie,” he said in a monotone that was a lot different from his friendly voicemail message.
“Hi,” I said.
“What is it?” he said.
“Huh?” I said.
He sighed. “You called me twice. Is something wrong?”
Was he worried? I felt like I had to say something important because I had called. “Um,” I said brilliantly. “My sister had her baby.”
“Oh,” he said. He sounded relieved that this was all I had to say. “Well, tell her congratulations.” There wasn’t a trace of warmth in his voice. He still sounded really angry. No, not angry exactly. More like detached. Like he didn’t have any interest in me anymore.
There was a long pause. Finally, he said, “Is there anything else?”
“Are you coming back soon?” I asked in a small voice.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was thinking about staying here a little bit and taking some vacation time.”
I wondered what he’d been doing out there. He hadn’t mentioned any friends he had out in New York. I wondered if he’d met any women. Despite his disability, Jim met women pretty easily.
“Okay,” I said.
“All right,” he said back.
Another long pause. There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say how much I missed him and I loved him and I still wanted to marry him. But somehow I couldn’t get the words out. I was afraid of what he might say back. If I told him I loved him and he didn’t say it back, or worse, said he didn’t think he loved me anymore… well, I think I’d be destroyed. It was better to say nothing.
“I’m going to go now,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, my voice barely a squeak.
He hung up before I could say another word. I sat there, alone in the apartment we shared, wondering if I made a mistake not telling him that I loved him.
June 17:
I was standing in line at the deli downstairs with Sandra when I noticed Vincent’s secretary Cheryl standing in line ahead of us. Cheryl was the one who told Jim that I was cheating on him with Vincent, so she wasn’t exactly my favorite person right now. I muttered as much to Sandra.
“You should say something to her,” Sandra said.
I stared. “No, I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because. I’m not a confrontational kind of person.”
Sandra went on a rant about how that was bullshit and there was no such thing as a confrontational kind of person. She insisted that if a person deserved to be confronted, they were going to keep pulling the same kind of crap until someone was brave enough to speak up for themselves. “Just do it, Tessie,” she concluded.
She kind of had a point. I’d been furious at Cheryl and I wanted so badly to say something to her. “Okay, I will,” I said.
I walked up to Cheryl on line and cleared my throat. She didn’t turn. Finally, I tapped her on the shoulder and she finally looked at me.
If I got to have some kind of completely plastic surgery makeover, I would want to look exactly like Cheryl. She’s a few years younger than me and just has this really pretty, fresh-faced look. She’s so effortlessly beautiful. Like Jim, she looks like she spends very little time on her appearance, yet still manages to look amazing.
Cheryl looked me up and down and seemed kind of irritated. “What?” she said.
“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for telling my boyfriend that I was cheating on him.”
Cheryl raised her eyebrows at me. “What the fuck, Tess? Are you trying to turn ME into the bad guy? You’re the one who cheated.”
“I didn’t cheat on him.”
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know Vincent. And I saw the look on your face when you came out of his office.”
“I was in there for less than twenty minutes,” I pointed out.
“That’s all it takes him,” Cheryl said with a shrug.
“I guess you should know,” I shot back.
“Yeah,” Cheryl said. “I do know. Unfortunately.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I just stood there awkwardly, wishing Sandra hadn’t pushed me into this. I knew I wasn’t the confrontational type.
“Look,” Cheryl said. “Jim is a really great guy. He doesn’t deserve to have you messing around behind his back with a douchebag like Vincent. I had to tell him.”
I looked at Cheryl for a moment and then something suddenly occurred to me. “You have a thing for Jim, don’t you?”
Cheryl snorted. “Please, Tessie. I’ve never seen a guy so dedicated to his girlfriend. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with him where he didn’t mention you. It was bordering on annoying, mostly because it made me realize I’ve never had a guy who liked me half as much as he liked you. And you didn’t even fucking appreciate it.”
Cheryl had succeeded in making me feel even worse than I already did. The truth was, she was right: I was the one who had done something wrong. She had just been a good friend to Jim and told him the truth. I had an amazing relationship and for reasons I didn’t understand, I had allowed myself to jeopardize it. And it was becoming more and more worried that we would never get back what we used to have.
June 18:
I ran into Vincent in the elevator this morning. He was dressed in an expensive suit and he had way too much gel in his hair. “Hi, Tessie,” he said to me with a suggestive grin.
I could barely look at him. “Hi,” I said.
“So,” Vincent said. “I heard Jim put in for a transfer to the New York office.”
My jaw fell open. “What?”
Vincent shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”
I barely even noticed Vincent had been edging closer to me until I felt his fingers tracing a line along the fabric of my blouse sleeve. I swapped at him. “Don’t do that.”
He grinned at me. “Oh, come on, Tessie. Quit the games. Jim’s gone and he’s probably not coming back. You’re free.”
I took a deep breath and faced Vincent. “Fuck you,” I said.
Vincent looked me in utter shock. At that moment, the elevator doors opened and I marched out. I held things together almost till I got to my desk, at which point my eyes started welling up with tears. It didn’t matter if I told Vincent off. I had completely screwed everything up with Jim and he wasn’t even giving me a chance to make things right again. I blew it.
Unless…
I went over to Sandra’s cubicle and poked her in the arm. She looked up at me in surprise. “Tessie, oh my god, are you okay?”
“I will be,” I said. “I’m going to New York.”
Her eyes widened. “What? Are you serious?”
“Look,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to Jim. I’ve got to tell him that I still love him.”
Sandra shook her head at me. “You’re crazy. This is a crazy and stupid idea.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, do you even know where Jim is staying?”
“No…”
“And he won’t answer your calls, so how are you going to find out?”
“Um…”
“New York is a big city, Tessie,” Sandra said. “You can’t just go to the nearest hotel and find him. This isn’t a movie. Things don’t work that way in real life.”
But they had to. This was my only chance.
“I think you should sit tight,” she said. “Jim will be back eventually and you can talk to him then.”
“I heard he put in for a transfer to New York,” I said miserably. “He might not come back, Sandra.”
Sandra considered this for a minute. Finally, she said, “If it’s meant to be, it will happen. If it isn’t, you’ll move on.”
I really didn’t like that answer. I wanted to fly off to New York and find him like they did in the movies. Then again, I usually couldn’t even find him in the building. She was right—how the hell was I going to find him in a gigantic city? But what was I supposed to do? Just SIT here, while he completely wrote me off?
I spent tonight looking at plane tickets to New York. I had almost decided to go ahead and buy one, but then I called Jim on his cell phone and he didn’t answer. That’s when I decided not to go. If he didn’t want to even talk to me, there was no point in chasing him across the country.
June 19:
My mother came to the apartment for the first time today. She’s been in the area because she’s been helping Tina, but she decided today that she wanted to come see me. I told her Jim was out of town and she said she was curious to see where I was living now. Not that I expected to be living here much longer.
When she came into the apartment, it felt a little surreal. She looked around and I was sure she was going to say something critical, but instead she said, “This is a nice place. He keeps it very clean.”
I don’t know why, but her approval, especially since Jim and I were broken up, made me burst into tears.
“Tessie,” she said gently. “Tessie, honey, what is it?”
“I don’t think we’re going to get back together,” I hiccupped between sobs. “He’s moving to New York.”
She put her arms around me like she did when I was a little girl. “Tessie, don’t cry. It will be okay. There will be other men.”
“I don’t want other men,” I almost yelled. “I want Jim. I love him. I don’t want to live my life without him.”
My mother was quiet for a while, letting me cry. Finally, she said, “He cared about you a lot, I can see. He was good to you.” She stroked my hair. “What happened? Why did you break up?”
I lowered my eyes. “I kissed another guy.”
“Oh, Tessie,” she murmured. “No wonder he’s angry.”
“I really blew it,” I said. “That’s it. I will never fall in love with anyone again.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s true,” I insisted. “No guy will ever match up to him.”
My mother sat with me for another few hours. I spent almost the whole time crying. She was pretty sympathetic, considering how much she disliked Jim and she’s probably doing cartwheels inside that we’re broken up. She did seem to genuinely like the apartment though.
June 20:
I miss Jim.
I miss the way his face lights up every time he sees me walk into a room.
I miss his blue eyes.
I miss the way he gets all red whenever I tease him about being a Star Trek fan.
I miss how horny he gets in the morning and the way he won’t let me out of bed because he wants to cuddle with me and kiss me for like an hour.
I miss him going down on me. God, I miss sex.
I miss how he can always fix my computer.
I miss the way he bites the tip of his thumb when he’s deep in thought.
I miss the scars on his chest. I miss his chest.
I miss him so goddamn much.