But I need to say it. I have to keep reminding myself to take action over this one piece of my life, even if it’s scary.
I quickly shut my laptop and make myself step away from it, knowing that if I’m close enough to erase my response, I probably will. I practically haul myself into the shower so I don’t change my mind. I take my time, as though if I stay away, then maybe it’s not real. I finish my morning routine without looking at my laptop—clothes on (a secondhand marigold shirt with shoulder pads that IthinkI can pull off), toast eaten, hair brushed, my minimal daily makeup on.
It’s only when I’m ready to go that I stare at it. Idousually take a look before I leave, since often J will have responded to me as quickly as he gets the notice that there’s been a change to the document.
I open the laptop again, gingerly, as though it might explode. And there, staring back at me, is a phone number. And another note:
I’d really like that actually. This is my number—shoot me a text on WhatsApp, and then we can coordinate without having to use a technology that feels like waiting for a carrier pigeon.
I’m a little shocked it was that easy. I save his number on autopilot, only getting briefly stuck at trying to remember how to type the plus sign for the +44 to indicate his British number. After, I stand there for a moment, waiting for something to change or perhaps for a monster to jump out of the closet and sayJust kidding!But I shove that notion aside and go to work.
My phone is burning a hole in my pocket the entire day. I’m listening to my patients, but I’m also wondering what on earth to say to J. Can I simply text him now? Say hello and talk about a trip to London that’s almost two months away? Will we run out of things to say? Was he just being polite?
At around three, I decide that this obsession is insane, and I need to stop letting myself spiral. I convince myself to dive in before I can change my mind, so I type something out quickly and hit Send.
Hey, it’s Eleonora. Now you have my number too.
I look at the green bubble, with its unread check mark. I read and reread it and immediately regret it. First of all, ugh,Eleonora. I couldn’t just have said,Hey, it’s Nora from the column? Second ... my first text wasNow you have my number too? As though he needs it? And when he said to shoot him a text to coordinate, did he actually mean, like,monthsfrom now, when I’m actually in London? And not expecting a random text from a person who he has a professional relationship with and isn’t even potentially seeing for quite some time? Why did I send that? If I unsent it, would he see it?
My next client walks in, and in a fit of panic, I just ... turn off my phone. Almost like if I can’t see it, then it isn’t there.
I’m reminded of the first time I ever told a boy I liked him. I can still picture it with crystal clear mortification to this day. I was walking out of the library with my friend Ian, and out of the blue I said, “I think I sort of like you.” He stood there for all of one second, obviously taking that minuscule time to consider what I’d said. But before he could react, I bolted. I fully bolted from the entire situation and then basically avoided him for months. It was the most fourteen-year-old-with-a-crush move I could’ve possibly made. But in the moment, I just had to get out of there.
I hate that I have the same feeling today. I said the words out loud, and now I have to run away from them.
I’d tell a patient that it’s okay, understandable even, to feel nervous around emotions so delicate. Romantic interest isn’t always reciprocated, and it would be foolish not to worry on some level that by starting a conversation, you might eventually be rejected in the future. Especially in a situation as unusual as this one, where I’ve never even laid eyes on him.
But I’m harsher on myself than I am on any patient. I should know better. I should be able to handle myself better.
But I’m only human. So my phone stays off all day.
“You just texted him and thenturned your phone off?” Dane shakes her head at me and leans over the pool table to shoot her shot. She sinks the first ball into the pocket without even looking away from me. Show-off. “That’s the wimpiest thing I’ve ever heard and not a good reason atallfor you not responding tomytexts all day,” she says. “Give me your phone.”
“What? No?”
“It’s late anyway in London. You can write him back, and he won’t even see it until the morning,” she suggests.
But I smugly take the out. “Yeah, but that means it’stoolate over there. It would be rude at this point to text and potentially wake him up.”
Dane gives me a look that only a best friend could get away with. Disbelief mixed with pity.
“What?” I say, hand on my hip, like that’ll give me more stature.
“I’ve spent years hearing you wax on about the interesting perspectives of your copyeditor. Your therapist finally gets you to admit you’ve got a raging hard-on for an invisible man, but now you’re spooked?”
“I’m not ‘spooked,’” I counter.
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” she flicks back. “I said ‘invisible man,’ not ‘a ghost.’” She ignores my groan and takes another shot. “Actually,scratch that, becauseyou’rethe ghost. You basically made the man give you his number, you texted, and now you’re ghostinghim!”
She laughs and goes back to focusing on pool. I don’t have any quick retort, so I stay silent; I just sit back and drink my beer while I watch her practice.
Even when she’s lightly teasing me, I’m at ease in her presence. Dane makes me feel comfortable because she never requires anything of me. Like tonight, while she’s practicing at Amsterdam Billiards before her rec league starts for the evening, I can simply hang out, say nothing if I want, and we can both be exactly who we are, but together. I’m always the quiet, even-keeled sidekick with everyone in my life, but with Dane that role feels like a privilege.
She lives, inexplicably, in black combat boots and cardigans, and she’s always topped with an Indiana Pacers baseball cap. She’s from New York but started wearing the hat when she was a kid, because her dad was a huge Knicks fan and she loved trolling him with their most bitter rival at the time. The rivalry is functionally irrelevant now, but it’s become so much of a staple for her that I can barely remember a moment when she wasn’t wearing it.
I think she wears all the exterior armor so she can claim to be antisocial. But then again, maybe it’s actually less that and more just decisiveness—after all, she sure wormed her way into my life and stayed put. Even though from the outside we seem different, our personalities were instantly simpatico. I take my reserve and use it to listen, keep out of the fray. Dane’s version of being reserved is not giving a shit what anyone thinks and just living her life without talking to too many people (she prefers plants, anyway, which is why she chose to channel her talents into urban gardening as a profession).
Neither of us are the life of any party, but we’d always choose being alone together anyway. We both have steel spines, but I use mine to keep order and she uses hers as a warning. She wears her combat boots, and I wear my obsessive retro finds—like tonight’s white tank top witha billowing seventies bowling shirt that I changed into post-work that I keep waiting for Dane to notice.
