She used to find ways to tell me that in high school. Text messages, or post-it notes, or just saying the words. It was at the end of every study session, every movie on her bedroom floor, every late night when we'd talked too long about nothing and everything. It was the exclamation mark on my day. The last good thing before sleep.
The fact that she sent it now, ten years later, without knowing what it meant to me — whether by memory or instinct or pure coincidence — was fucking with my head in ways I didn't have the bandwidth to process.
So again, I didn't respond.
Wednesday
Blaire: Well done at the Blue Moons Charity event yesterday. I liked your speech. The Instagram post with the cat was also well executed. Did you adopt it?
I was mid-workout when her text came through. The fact that she's in the same building has been its own misery, and the treadmill has become my primary outlet. How poignant — running on a treadmill to run away from my problems. Someone should write that down.
I slowed to a walk, wiped my sweat and the machine, stepped off and took a seat on the bench.
Bennet: Thanks. I have a good speechwriter. Gerald is my neighbor Jenn's cat. I just used him for optics. He was well compensated.
Blaire: How does one compensate a cat?
Bennet: Butt pats. Obviously.
Blaire: Obviously. Why are you responding so early? Don't you sleep?
I looked at the time. Just after five AM.
Bennet: I could ask you the same thing. I'm at the gym.
Blaire: I haven't actually gone to sleep. I had coffee and tiramisu at ten last night, and I've been wired ever since.
Bennet: I question your life choices, Blaire.
Blaire: Not all of us have your discipline. Who goes to the gym at five in the morning? Considering I'm halfway through the tiramisu, I may need to join you.
I typed it before I thought about it and hit send before I could stop myself.
Bennet: Fuck that, your body is goddamn amazing just as it is.
The dots appeared immediately. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. Then disappeared again. The specific pattern of someone typing and deleting and retyping, and I sat on that bench watching it with a level of anxiety that is genuinely embarrassing for a grown man.
Is this a childbearing age situation all over again?
Blaire: Ditto.
I stared at that word for a long time.
Fuck.
Thursday
Bennet: Did you see me doing the dougie?
Blaire: I wouldn't call what you did the dougie, exactly. But it's working in your favor. Have you not seen the headlines?
Bennet: What do you mean? I did an EXCELLENT dougie.
I spoke at a high school career day this morning, and the principal asked me to stick around for a few events afterward. One of which included their annual dance off between teachers and students, which I was voluntold to participate in, and which I participated in with what I can only describe as considerable enthusiasm and genuine conviction.
I leave the text thread and Google myself.
Bennet Sullivan School Dance.
