Part One
On this Thursday in April, I get off from my job as a legal assistant at a high-end law firm in Charleston, South Carolina. Upon exiting the building and pulling my phone out of my purse, I notice a notification from my long-distance friend Stephan.
“Breathe, Phoebe. You are Phoebe Johnson, you can handle this,” I say to myself.
Opening the notification, I notice that he liked my newest selfie on Facebook. A like, not a heart react, but he seems to have done it within minutes of my posting it. I thought I looked great, wearing a burnt orange autumnal dress with a black cardigan and grey boots. I even had a sterling necklace I received as a Christmas gift from my mother a few years back. “Why a like and not a heart?” I think to myself.
Driving home, I was still mentally rolling my eyes from a conversation I had had with Owen, one of the interns in my office. He’s a 20-year-old whothinks he is better than everyone with his unrealistic sense of superiority. He essentially cosplays as a student, mentioning that he had dropped out of 7 separate schools and is technically enrolled in another, yet hadn’t taken any classes in two years. “I’m just too smart for school, you know? I’m self-taught, and my grandparents taught me about life. I’m very mature for 20, so you should go out with me sometime, and I can prove it to you,” he said one day.
During that conversation, and in every other one I have with him, I picture him holding up a monocle and acting in a community theater play set in the 1800s. Many times that I speak to him, it seems like he wants me to pity him. Owen just wants the credit of being a student without doing any of the work.
Meanwhile, I am almost finished preparing for my Bar Exam and will be a full-fledged lawyer soon, perhaps even partner someday. Once I get home from work, I choose to stop wasting my time dwelling on my coworker. My thoughts drift back to my friend Stephan. “I read way too far into every word you say,” I say aloud to myself, while twirling my chest-length, wavy blonde hair in front of the entryway mirror.
You once said to me, “I wish that my family hadn’t moved away when we were kids. I still wonder what could have happened.”
Who says things like that to their opposite sex friend? You like my stories on Instagram and my TikToks, but is it just surface level? Auto pilot? Am I overthinking things?
The next morning, after drinking a cup of coffee, I pull up your TikTok again to look at the few videosyou’ve posted of yourself. You uploaded ones of you just talking, some of you painting or drawing, and other random ones that happen to show more of your face. Your smile is so cute in such a dorky way, yet you don’t know how I feel about you. I often find my thoughts drifting off to your so-dark-brown-it’s-almost-black hair and your sharp, ice blue eyes. I normally only fall for brown, green, and hazel, but there is just something about your eyes. If only we had gone to the same high school, I would’ve voted for you in the “nicest eyes” category. Mara Johnson had to win, though, with her yellow-green, catlike eyes. So unique. Meanwhile, mine are merely an iridescent brown.
For a moment, I find myself grateful that you’ve never posted a picture or video with another woman. Within a few seconds, I notice you viewed my profile too. “Is this a sign?” I think to myself, while continuing to twirl my hair. “I really care about you, and I hope you’re doing well,” I message him with no context. “I care about you, too,” he responds. He then likes a few stories on my Instagram. Whenever this happens, I become so ecstatic that I nearly lose touch with reality.
We have some back-and-forth conversations from time to time, but never enough to convince me that he likes me. He never compliments me, but he talks about random things he is up to and expresses care and interest in the things I do. All potential signs of interest.
Later that day, I go to work and research the legalities of mold in a just-purchased home, as well as the timeframe allotted for backing out of a contract in South Carolina. One of the partners at my firm has astrong case and needs to ensure the legal precedent is accurate and airtight.
I do a grueling day of work, preparing a large document with all of my notes and research, and while I love it, I am greatly looking forward to dealing with actual lawsuits and litigation, rather than notetaking, researching, or tagging along “for experience.” I just need to pass my Bar Exam. It’s also difficult to focus on work when I daydream about a man who probably doesn’t like me or even know that I like him. There are so many songs and other media about unrequited love for a reason!
5 pm, clock out time. I close my laptop and zip it up within its case before putting it in my shoulder bag. I shrug on my green cardigan, the one I bought on that trip to Brooklyn a few years back.
I have a date tonight with a local accountant that I met on a dating app the other day. I’m not terribly excited, but I can’t hold out hope that the guy I have starry eyes for will ever feel the same, or that I’ll ever see him again. His family had moved to West Texas during the summer after kindergarten, and while we had reconnected on social media later in life, Texas had felt like a world away from South Carolina when I was younger.
My date, Bryan, and I have dinner plans at a local Basque restaurant, and I have my eyes on a cod dish with chunks of garlic on top. I meet up with him, and on paper he would be a great match, but I don’t live on paper. He’s tall but not too tall, with brown hair, browneyes, and a bit of nicely presentable facial hair. We have a good conversation, and he is clearly well educated and intelligent, given that he has a CPA. But again, I don’t live on paper.
He compliments my eyebrow piercing, which I appreciate as it’s a bit of an unusual adornment in my profession. 14k solid white gold, custom fitted to my face.
I tell him that his eyes are some of the nicest I have ever seen, truly sparkly. I just didn’t feel a spark with our conversation like I noticed in his eyes, and I don’t feel the potential of any love with him. After our family style dinner, where I hogged the fries, he proposes a walk on the beach. I acquiesce, as sometimes you don’t feel something until later during a date or even until the second date, but despite our conversation about having been to some of the same concerts and both preferring blondies to brownies, I just can’t see myself marrying this guy. At the end of the date, he leans in to kiss me, and I turn away. He ends up kissing me on the cheek, and I try to suppress a gag. I had gone out with, dated, and been involved with other men and a few women over the years, but ever since reconnecting with Stephan on social media, it has felt like a waste of time and breath. I can’t tell him I feel that way, though.
That night, I sent Stephan a long message that I would prefer not to remember. I am grateful that I didn’t have alcohol clouding my judgment, but despite not telling him I liked him specifically, I still felt embarrassed at being more vulnerable than I would care to be during daylight hours. After he heart reacted themessage but didn’t respond, I noticed that he had posted a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with potato chips inside on his story. That was my sandwich idea. I had taught him how to make that when we were in kindergarten, and I still eat them weekly, preferably with strawberry or cherry jam or jelly.
Two weeks later, my coworker Katarina is giving a presentation on a new law that was just passed in our jurisdiction and how it could affect some of the local cases we are working on, when my phone buzzes three times in quick succession. Stephan said he just booked an art showing in North Charleston for the following month, and he was wondering if he could stay with me as he lived the starving artist life, followed up by a “haha jk” in true internet fashion.
“Just kidding, to which part?”
“I’m not a starving artist, but I would love to stay with you if you’d have me.”
I respond immediately with confirmation but have to suppress the urge to show anything other than friendly excitement. Then I choose to put my phone away, needing to stay professional in the workplace if I have any hope of getting made partner.
After I walk out of the steel and glass building at 5 pm, I start typing and deleting and typing and deleting the words “I like you…” hoping he would ask me what I kept trying to say or say something like “I can see you typing,” but after realizing I wasn’t ready to admit my feelings, I stopped doing this little ritual.
One month: the countdown starts now. I still remember that when we were little kids, his older sister Clara had hugged me and said that she felt I was a sister of hers as well. Looking back at that moment, I had always wanted to marry into her family. I just felt that Stephan and I had never had the chance.
After dinner, I call my mother and ask, “Do you remember Stephan Hale?”
“Of course, I remember Stephan! He was your first crush. Why? Is he getting married or something? Oh, honey…I know what that feels like.”
“What? No! He’s coming to visit Charleston, and I’m anxious.”
“Of what, honey? Oh, you’re in love with him…aren’t you?”
