2:19pm:
The other ladies around here are giving me evil stares. Especially the other Christine’s who didn’t get anything this time around.
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2:20pm:
They SHOULD be hating you : )
2:21pm:
So... apology accepted?
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2:23pm:
Apology?
2:24pm:
Oh, right.
2:24pm:
That has been long-forgotten.
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2:25pm:
And did you hear from Lawson?
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2:25pm:
No, not yet.
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2:26pm:
Okay, let me know once you do.
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2:26pm:
I will.
2:27pm:
Thank you, thank you, *thank* you!
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2:27pm:
Have to head out to meet with one of our larger investors.
2:28pm:
Could be a late night, so please don’t wait up for me.
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2:30pm:
OK, good luck with your meeting.
2:30pm:
Chat as soon as you can.
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2:31pm:
Of course.
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4:28pm:
Just an FYI. John Lawson just texted me and we’ll have a conference call tomorrow with someone by the name of Rick who could be my next boss.
4:29pm:
Thank you for connecting me with John. I hope I get the job so we can be together at last!
4:29pm:
Love you and miss you already.
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Wednesday January 30, 2013
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4:35am:
I’m happy to hear that John finally got off his fat ass and did something. I know you’ll get this job, Christine. You’re skilled, experienced and, well, gorgeous (that goes a long way in New York, trust me!).
4:39am:
Anyway, last night while I was sitting at dinner with one of our largest investors - the guy’s got more money than God and regularly injects billions into our investment products when we see major net redemptions or in other circumstances, such as when we launch a new pool - I replayed my conversation with Melissa in my mind.
4:41am:
I’m not dwelling on it or anything, but I felt like you kept something from me by not telling me about this Peter guy, who is obviously a supreme cocksucker. I felt betrayed, hurt, maybe even a little threatened that I could lose you.
4:43am:
And while I DO have faith that we were brought together by Fate, faith is intangible. It can be rattled and seem illusionary, like a cloud that looks like love one second but then evaporates the next, once the wind rolls in.
4:45am:
Anyway, the reality is that I didn’t tell you the whole story about Rachel and me. And I would hate for it to surface the same way your Peter the Peckerhead story did - with you finding out from someone else instead of hearing it directly from me or asking me yourself.
4:46am:
So here goes.
4:49am:
After Rachel and I went our separate ways, there was a good chunk of time when all I did was work (I know, big surprise, but I was way worse than I am now). I came home and slept, hit the gym six hours later, and then it was back to the office and losing time in the numbers and reports and statements and projects. Work lasted sixteen hours straight, at minimum.
4:52am:
One night, it was after 11, I left the office. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a Friday night - entire weeks would disappear at the office and if it wasn’t for our network shutting down on the third Sunday of the month for routine maintenance, I would have probably logged sixteen hours those days as well.
4:54am:
Anyway, that Friday night as I walked to the subway, a black car pulled up beside me. The back window opened and there she was. She looked happy, all dressed up in a fancy outfit and freshened up for a night in the city.
4:56am:
Rachel asked me what I was up to and I said I was on my way home. I complimented her on how nice she looked and tried to keep walking, but she told me that I didn’t look too good. Her remark pissed me off a little because the exact words she used were “you look like you have social cancer.”
4:58am:
She was right, but I still felt offended and betrayed by how her life had moved on while mine stagnated, or regressed if you believe the social cancer comment.
5:00am:
All I wanted that night was to go home, get to sleep so I could make it back into the office early the next day, but Rachel insisted that we have dinner. Her treat. I had every excuse imaginable, but she ignored them all and refused to leave me alone.
5:02am:
We ended up going to dinner - me in a suit that I had been wearing for the past 16 or more hours and Rachel in a fresh dress that was better suited to a classy martini bar than the restaurant we ended up going to.
5:04am:
Long story short, she had moved on with her life. She was engaged and in love again - I could not bring myself to tell her that she was the last woman I had been with, that I couldn’t explain to ANYONE including myself why I ended our engagement.
5:06am:
We chatted, laughed over a bottle (or three) of wine and I think that helped us forget the slow depreciation of our relationship in the year leading up to our breakup.
5:08am:
That midnight dinner extended to breakfast at my place the next morning. I was the first one to wake up and like the last time we slept together, I sat at the edge of the bed and watched her. This time, I had no anxiety at all. In fact, I discovered the greatest inner-peace I have ever experienced (until I met you) - just watching her sleep and envisioning a future together.
5:11am:
The bitterness that I let build up over the years disappeared over the course of that one night, and I convinced myself that we could pick up where we left off and make a go at it. I believed we could actually live the life we both wanted, the one that we spent a whole year planning, the one I called off at the last minute.
5:14am:
Satisfied that I could DO IT this time, I rolled out of bed and let her sleep - something I could not manage to do the morning I called everything off - and made breakfast. She still wasn’t up when I finished in the kitchen, so I headed back into the bedroom to nudge her awake.
5:15am:
Except she was gone.
5:18am:
It didn’t take much for me to wonder if I imagined the entire evening. Except that her pillow still smelled like her and the messy sheets contradicted my IT WAS JUST A DREAM argument. I sat at the edge of the mattress like I had earlier and after some time I heard my apartment door open. I didn’t get up to see who it was - I knew it was her and when I looked up, she was standing at the bedroom door.
5:21am:
She told me that she will always love me, but that very day she was expected to make an appearance at an alter wearing a white dress and to say her vows. She refused to back away from her commitment like I had backed away from ours a few years prior. If I wanted to see her again, she said I could text her and we could figure something out.
5:24am:
But outside of that, she stood firm about her decision to marry this other man. She told me she would follow through with it, regardless of whether she and I were a better match.
5:26am:
I tried arguing with her, charming her, even
promising things I probably couldn’t deliver, but Rachel was determined. I felt like an idle spectator as she walked over, kissed my numb lips and walked out of my life. Just as I had shattered her dreams a few years back, she shattered mine that morning.
5:28am:
I have spent years trying to reconcile my relationship with Rachel, what we mean to each other and why our paths crossed again that Friday night on the eve of her wedding. In some ways, she saved my life - I never work as much as I did back then - and maybe that was the sign, or message, behind our rendezvous.
5:31am:
Regardless of the emotional end, if I hadn’t seen Rachel, I would have worked on New Year’s eve instead of going to that big party where I ran into my sister… the sister I was trying to text when I texted you instead. So it was clearly pre-arranged in some way, or maybe part of a larger plan, that I ran into her that night.
5:32am:
As twisted as it sounds, it was through Rachel that I met you.
5:35am:
Sorry for the long text message - I’m sure I’m killing some kind of text messaging allowance through my carrier, and maybe yours too - but I felt I needed to share this. I didn’t want you to hear the story about what I did with her on the night before her wedding without knowing the whole story.
5:37am:
Coming from someone else, the big details would definitely get left out… because nobody else knows the big details.
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9:18am:
Quite the story, Jake. But I think I understand what you’re saying. My history with Peter was different, but ultimately he held me back from achieving happiness the same way that your dwelling on Rachel has held you back for all of those years.
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9:34am:
Yes, you said it much better than I could have!
9:35am:
And shorter too!
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9:35am:
Not just a pretty face, right?
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9:36am:
No, you’re perfect.
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9:38am:
We’ll chat more about this later, okay? I have to get a report ready for my boss before I make my call to Lawson and Rick.
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9:39am:
OK, good luck and let me know how it goes with Lawson.
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9:39am:
I will.
9:39am:
Love you.
5:36pm:
Sorry, the call with John went a little longer than expected.
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5:39pm:
What do you think?
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5:40pm:
It went well. Very well, actually. They said they need me to fly down in a couple of weeks to meet the team.
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5:41pm:
This really is happening!
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5:42pm:
Finally! Yes!
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5:42pm:
I have to run. Chat later?
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5:43pm:
Yes, of course.
5:44pm:
Thank you, Jake. I love you *so* much.
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Thursday January 31, 2013
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6:23am:
I woke up this morning in a panic, afraid that I might have missed your text last night. But I see that you didn’t write to me.
6:33am:
Is everything okay, Jake?
6:37am:
I have been thinking a lot about your relationship with Rachel and how it came back to life that Friday night after work. I wonder, do you still look for a black car to pull up when you leave the office? Or maybe the gym? Or any time you’re walking outside?
6:43am:
I am not suggesting that I am jealous or worried - what you had with Rachel was special, no question about that, but it seems to me that what *we* have is inexplicable, whole, raw and built on something way more permanent.
6:48am:
The reason I wonder if you still look for that car and for Rachel’s face behind the tinted glass is that I question whether you and I are in love on the same level. It’s okay if we’re not because just as we were brought together through the impossibility of an erroneous text message, we will connect again in the future. I am convinced of that because the world will be out of balance if we are not together.
6:53am:
I know, I know, I’m coming across as a psycho high school girlfriend.
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6:54am:
No, you’re not.
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6:54am:
You just let me ramble like this for the past half hour?!
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6:55am:
Guilty.
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6:56am:
Jake, it’s way more engaging for me when we’re having a dialogue!
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6:57am:
I prefer your monologues : )
6:58am:
I always learn more from them.
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6:59am:
And what did you learn just now?
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7:00am:
That you’re “a psycho high school girlfriend.”
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7:01am:
Mr. Funny Man is back.
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7:02am:
I also learned that you’re not 100% sold on our relationship.
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7:02am:
Oh, I’m definitely *sold* on the relationship. But if you’re not at the same spot as I’m at, I’m willing to wait for you to catch up.
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7:04am:
This is where we have different views. I’m not willing to wait. While you are more than willing to wait while the touchy-feely “universe” aligns the stars for us to get together and move on with our lives, I prefer to take action and do the aligning myself.
7:05am:
Like pulling some strings to get you that job interview. Like a lot of employers, Lawson, Gregor, Postmann and Associates doesn’t post their jobs externally. They work on referrals from qualified professionals only. Usually their internal, top performers.
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7:07am:
I’m grateful for you being able to pull those strings, Jake. But is it worth upsetting the *higher power* that brought us together in the first place? I don’t want our love to be forced to work – it should be natural and self-perpetuating, don’t you think?
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7:08am:
I might be able to shake things up a little, but I can’t upset the “higher power” that you’re talking about. Because our love is a derivative of that power.
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7:09am:
I think I learn more from our dialogues. Like you’re a bit of a control freak.
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7:10am:
I wish I could take better control of things! You’d be laying next to me at this time every morning instead of texting me while I’m on the can.
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7:12am:
Too much information, Jake.
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7:13am:
I was just making that up - I’m at the office, procrastinating a report for this portfolio.
7:16am:
Anyway, I would say I’m more DRIVEN by the things that I WANT. When I want something (you) I don’t give up until I get it (like flying to Toronto twice over the past two weeks). If you were just another girl, I would have lost interest after that first weekend and taken the same position that you’ve taken - the “heh, whether or not this is meant to be, it’ll work itself out” position.
Textual Encounters (The Christine + Jake Affair) Page 10