I stand up and start pacing, my dreamy state now replaced by some form of adrenaline and panic. I need to get the facts straight in my mind to try and make sense of everything: No one works on the column except Celia and J. I know Celia’s boss gives the okay to everything once it’s done, but she doesn’t edit, and I guess the layout people handle it once it’s ready to go online and in the paper. But it’s not looked over and commented on by anyone else. If Celia is asking Eli about it, what else could that mean? Maybe he’s on an editorial board of some kind? After all, his name is Eli. His name doesn’t start with a J, so he can’t bemyJ.
Except.
Except . . .
Eli is my middle name.
Jarvis Eli.
Holy fuck.
Moving on autopilot, I go to grab my phone from where it was tossed onto the counter last night. With shaking hands I pick it up. I open WhatsApp and type a message to J.
Nora: How was your weekend?
I hit Send and watch with horror as Eli’s phone lights up.
Eleonora: How was your weekend?
No.
This doesn’t make any sense.
J lives in London. J isn’t brash. J isn’t likeEli. He’s sensitive and open. He’s accessible; he’s the very opposite, with all the walls Eli puts up.
How can Eli be J? Iknowhim. I knowboth of them. They aren’t the same.
And then ... if J is Eli ... why didn’t J tell me he’d moved to New York?
That thought causes everything to go cold.
I’d spent so much time wondering if J felt the same way as I did, as if we had some unmatched ability to speak honestly with each other. But if that were true, how could he just conveniently leave out that he’d moved to the city where I live?
I think I told you about my one friend who I can tell everything to,he said.You make me feel that way too.
Is that me? But then hedidn’ttell me everything.
One open version and one closed. One standing in front of me and one obscuring where he was.
The freedom to be ourselves is a conundrum. The roles we play define how we present ourselves, and the pieces we can obfuscate either make us more or less likely to give a full picture in any particular context.
Whatisthe full picture? Wouldanyoneget the full picture?
I know I said to Ari a couple months ago, when I admitted my feelings for J to her, that it was ridiculous to imagine loving someone based on only correspondence, but I hadn’t actually considered how right I was—how much could beleft out.
How muchhasbeen left out.
My head is pounding. It’s too much to process. I’m confused and unable to get a mental grip, and I need to get out of here.
I scribble out a note on the counter:Had to go walk George.
I pause, not knowing how to sign off. Should I say,I’ll come back? Should I say,I’ll text you later? Say,Hey, funny story, did you know we’veactually been writing to each other for years and now we just had sex and I was feeling sort of guilty because I thought I was in love with this other guy but that other guy was you and so ...
Wait. No.
I’m in love with Eli?
Is that the conclusion I have to draw from this?
