Author's Chapter Notes:
There is a gorgeous song by Del Amitri called "Tell Her This" that seems to perfectly describe so much of what was happening at this point in their relationship. I'm not normally a fan of incorporating songs into stories, but this one seemed uncannily appropriate.
http://tinyurl.com/5js72y
This chapter is a little different in that I wanted to give them both a voice.
Many thanks to Vampiric Blood for her excellent suggestions!
Takes place between Casino Night and The Initiation.
http://tinyurl.com/5js72y
This chapter is a little different in that I wanted to give them both a voice.
Many thanks to Vampiric Blood for her excellent suggestions!
Takes place between Casino Night and The Initiation.
Tuesday
I heard this Del Amitri song on the radio the day I found out he was gone. It’s an old song, one I’ve heard a hundred times, but it never spoke to me before as it did now.
Tell her not to go
I ain’t holding on no more
Tell her something in my mind
Freezes up from time to time
I chickened out and called in sick on Monday. The Monday after the casino thing. It wasn’t really a lie; I’d barely been able to get out of bed all weekend, and Sunday night, at the thought of having to face him, I started throwing up. Roy insisted I stay home and I wasn’t in any position to argue.
My mom told me to go with my heart, but my heart was a baffled mixture of uncertain and hopeful and terrified. I knew I needed to set him straight about things—that he hadn’t really misinterpreted things; that I’d said that out of guilt and fear—but I also needed to know what he really meant when he said he was in love with me.
Six weeks ago he told me unequivocally that he was totally over it. Something inside of me that occasionally whispered maybe had splintered with those words, and in the weeks that followed I thought I’d found some kind of peace. So it’s not like that. He just likes flirting with me, or whatever.
Roy was the one who loved me. Roy was the one who knew me, who’d seen me at my worst. Roy was the one who brought me my homework and kept me company every afternoon for a week when I got strep throat. It was Roy who rescued me when my car broke down coming back from my parents’ that weekend, and it was Roy who held my hand when I had to put down Chloe, my cocker spaniel I’d had since I was eight. It was Roy whose blue eyes glinted with tears in the light of the Christmas tree when he asked me to marry him.
Roy loved me. I had a good life. Maybe it wasn’t exciting but it was real. It was dependable and comfortable. Those are good things, right? Isn’t that what I want?
It was all I’d ever thought to want. But every time I closed my eyes I felt Jim’s arms around me, his soft hair in my hands, the warmth and love and longing in his kiss, and I knew he’d lied before. He loves me. He’s always loved me.
I wasn’t sure what to say to him, but we had to talk about it. When I got ready for work on Tuesday I dabbed extra powder under my eyes to hide the bags and put on the pink pinstripe shirt and cardigan Jim once told me he liked. I felt brave and frightened and strangely exhilarated. Things are going to change.
He was gone. His desk was bare, no evidence that he’d ever been there at all.
“Jim transferred to Stamford,” Michael explained dully, pushing a toy race car aimlessly across his desk planner. “He put in for it a few weeks ago, I guess. Didn’t he tell you?”
Transferred.
Weeks ago.
He’s gone.
I bolted out of my chair and ran to the bathroom.
I didn’t really believe it for at least two weeks. Somewhere in the back of my mind I kept thinking he would come walking in the door with his teasing grin firmly in place and Surprise! Gotcha! on his lips.
He didn’t.
On June seventh, I spent probably six hours searching flights to Australia. I started eight emails to Jim that alternated between pleading, accusing, and apologizing, and left them all in my draft folder.
At the end of the day I went home and broke up with Roy.
* * *
I keep listening to this Del Amitri song. I heard it on the radio when I was driving to Stamford to look at apartments, and I can’t get it out of my head.
Tell her not to cry
I just got scared, that’s all
Tell her I’ll be by her side
All she has to do is call
I can’t eat.
I can’t sleep.
I’m a hundred and fifty miles away and still I see her face every time I close my eyes.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t entirely sure I’ve lost my mind. Gone round the bend.
I’ve had a headache every day for so long I can’t remember the last time I woke up without one. I can’t think straight. I can’t remember anybody’s name at the new office. No matter how much coffee I drink, I feel like I’m sleepwalking.
I want to call her so badly I find myself clenching my hands into fists at least ten times a day until the urge passes. It never really does, but so far, I’ve managed to resist. It’s a bitter kind of victory, but it’s the only one I can cling to.
It’s been two weeks since I left, and she hasn’t called. I’m starting to think she won’t.
What have I done?
* * *
Tell her the chips are down
I drank too much and shouted it aloud
Tell her something in my heart
Needs her more than even clowns need
the laughter of the crowd
June seventh.
I’m supposed to be packing for a trip to the other side of the world, but I never bought the ticket. It was an empty threat, a challenge, a plea; not enough, as it turned out. She doesn’t want me. I was wrong.
Misinterpreted.
Right.
She kissed me back and admitted she’d wanted it, too, but I misinterpreted.
I’m sick. My chest hurts. I’m not going to work today. Bad form for the new guy to call off so soon, but I don’t care.
Maybe I’ll get fired.
I don’t care about that either.
* * *
Tell her what was wrong
I sometimes think too much but say nothing at all
Tell her from this high terrain,
I am ready now to fall
June tenth.
I’m supposed to be getting married today. Instead I’m at my parents’ house in Syracuse, Mapquesting the route to Stamford.
I already know I won’t go. Partly because I’m a coward, but mostly because I can’t believe he left without a word. He dropped this on me and I’m sick and terrified and completely alone, and I hate him. I hate him.
I don’t, though. I love him, I miss him, I need him. And he’s gone.
I want, so badly, to call him. He’s my best friend, one of the only friends I have, really, and I need him; I need his advice, and his reassurance, and just to hear his voice. But then I remember he’d arranged to leave weeks ago. What did that mean? What had he expected? What would he have done if I’d given him a different answer?
I honestly don’t know.
He must hate me now. He knows I lied about not feeling it too. He has to know.
* * *
I can’t say why I answered the phone that night. But I think it was because of the mustard.
The refrigerator hadn’t been cleaned out in ages. One quiet Monday afternoon when I went for my yogurt, the stale stench of somebody’s week-old leftover Chinese finally became too much to bear and I began throwing out everything that was freezer-burned or rendered unrecognizable by age. In fifteen minutes the shelves were nearly bare and the kitchen counter was piled with warped and moldy Tupperware containers.
I ran a sinkful of hot soapy water to soak everything and turned my attention to the door, tossing out loose packages of McDonald’s ketchup and near-empty bottles of salad dressing, until I happened upon the bottle of Heinz yellow mustard and stopped cold.
--I’d have pegged you for a Gulden’s Spicy Brown kind of guy, Halpert.
--Nah, not for a ham and cheese. Too overpowering.
There was a capital J written in black Sharpie ink on the lid; Dwight insisted “all items be marked by their respective owners if left in the company refrigerator.” I ran my thumb over it and remembered how he’d smirked—It’s a condiment, Dwight; I really don’t care if anybody else uses it--and tears filled my eyes.
It’s not like I ever stopped thinking about him. But it had gotten to a point where I could almost kind of stand it, where it wasn’t quite so nauseating to see Ryan at his desk, where I didn’t feel his ghost in every corner of the office. It was stupid to get so emotional over a bottle of mustard.
I washed it, careful not to remove his initial, and took it home with me.
So the next night, when the phone rang at twenty past five, the brief, fleeting thought of maybe pulled me back to pick it up.
“Hey.”
It was weird at first, but in the space of a few awkward, halting starts, we were talking. Just like we used to…complete with all the unacknowledged tension and things left unspoken. But we were good at ignoring that.
He laughed and joked with me. He sounded happy to talk to me. Like he missed me, too.
He doesn’t hate me.
I dreamed about him that night, not for the first time, and not even the kind of dream that left me flushed and breathless. It was an office dream, something bizarre about paper not being sold in reams anymore, and it included Dwight and Phyllis, but Jim was there and we were laughing and I felt lighthearted and happy for the first time in so long.
And then I woke, and he was still gone.
* * *
Tell her not to go
I ain’t holding on no more
Tell her nothing if not this,
All I want to do is kiss her
I dreamed about her that night. After we accidentally talked.
I lied to her, of course. I knew Kevin’s extension perfectly well, but I couldn’t very well tell her that. I went through the system so I could hear her voice, however brief and impersonal, on the voicemail message. You’ve reached Dunder-Mifflin paper supplies. Our offices are currently closed. Business hours are Monday through Friday, eight a.m. to five p.m. If you’d like to leave a message, please wait for the tone.
But she answered this time, and I nearly slammed the phone down in shock. Instead I managed a “Hey,” and wondered briefly if she would recognize my voice.
“Oh my God.” She sounded stunned. Like she’d thought she’d never speak to me again.
It was awkward at first. No surprise there. What time is it here? She was right, though. It felt far.
But then we were talking, just talking like we used to. We were always good at that, talking about nothing. We didn’t discuss the reason I had transferred, we didn’t talk about her cancelled wedding. For nearly an hour, it was like nothing had happened, except she had new stories about art classes and a new apartment and movie-rental mishaps. I told her about Josh and Andy, and made stupid small talk about typing just to keep her on the line, and the whole time I kept calling her Beesly because it just felt so good to use that name and know it was still true.
It had almost gotten to a point where I didn’t see her face everywhere, didn’t leap at the phone every time it rang thinking maybe. But that night I dreamed of her, a vivid memory-dream from last year’s company picnic at Nay Aug park, and when I woke up I held my head in my hands and wept in despair.
I’m still here, and nothing has changed.
* * *
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all reviews and comments. So, you know. Leave one! :)
