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Chris and I had something else in common: we both tended to work too hard. But while the general sentiment was shared, the details varied drastically. I didn’t work on anything tangible. It was more like ‘work myself up.’ But Chris worked himself too hard in the classic sense.
Even with the promise of overtime pay, Happy Flour continued to be understaffed. No magic wand was going to fix that, but the arrival of the university students might. The gradual migration back had only just started with the students who lived off campus and had to pay for the full month of August regardless of their move in date. Consequently, it was the more frugal who were leading the pack: the finance, business, and accounting majors who saw off campus food service jobs as beneath them. Many of the students did, but that group was more committed to that belief than most of their peers. A few would bite the bullet, but with so many other open positions in other restaurants around Dustford, it wouldn’t be enough to unload Chris’s burden. The rest of that reluctant calvary was still a couple weeks away, leaving Chris to do his best to juggle the many skirmishes that were happening around him all while still pursuing me.
He still loved me. He showed and said as much whenever he could get a word out to me. And I appreciated every stolen second he gave me, but it seemed like each one had to be paid to the restaurant a dozen times over. In return, he would offer me a dozen apologies, and I would give him a thousand assurances that I understood and nothing between us was wrong.
Those weren’t empty platitudes, either. It genuinely didn’t bother me that we couldn’t see each other that often. In fact, I was actually relieved. Not that I could say as much to him. That was the sort of comment that was ripe for misinterpretation. But as I saw it, this distance was a blessing because it was a sort of protection to shield us from my dysfunction. I couldn’t accidentally ghost Chris if we weren’t expected to regularly speak. I couldn’t come up with a fake-sounding almost offensive excuse if I accidentally forgot to text him or let myself drop a conversation when I was unable to think of something clever or worthwhile to say. As a general rule, I didn’t do well under pressure, so it was nice to find myself in a situation where the pressure was assumed in its entirety by someone who handled it a lot better than I did.
Despite all the demands on Chris’s attention, he made sure to know that his feelings for me were being as carefully tended to as his pizzeria. He texted me good morning and good night every day. If I had a particularly difficult call with Erika about some revisions on my schedule, I usually let it slip to him only out of frustration, but he would be sure to send me well wishes, a joke or something of the like. He tried flowers once, but the university office system is convoluted and I ended up having to track them down. That forced him to change his approach a bit. He started focusing on more direct ways of caring for me. If I texted him that I didn’t feel like cooking, he would ask what I wanted to eat and–while I thought I was going to get a restaurant recommendation–I would get that food delivered to me instead. I would get loving notes and voicemails. Occasionally, he would swing by my office after making another deliver on campus. He could never give me much more than a quick kiss on the cheek during those visits, but I cherished every single one.
And so, when he did manage to come over, only to fall asleep on my couch out of exhaustion, I didn’t spiral or fall into my panic. I didn’t worry that I was boring him or that this was just his attempt at making my presence bearable. The truth spoke for itself. He was tired, exhausted even, but had come over out of some desperation to see me. Because he did care about me and didn’t want to lose me in the chaos of his life.
During one of these visits, he fell asleep particularly quickly, napping as soundly as a cat in the afternoon sun. There was just a warmth in that sunlight that he simply couldn’t resist. But I had thought that given how early it was in the day, I would have a few minutes with him before his nap. But I had hardly gotten a word out before his eyes drifted shut and his mind drifted to some peaceful palace deep within the recesses of his mind.
Just like the other times, that was fine with me. In fact, I was happy to see he was getting his rest. He needed it so desperately, and I didn't know what to say to him anyway.
I draped a blanket over him despite the early August weather being more than enough to keep someone warm. In fact, the humidity had picked at him outside, drawing beads of sweat from his brow. When he came in, I tried to wipe them away. I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first. It was instinctual, and I was left wondering why we were already at the point where my body automatically went to comfort his. Not that I was upset about the development. Really, I was just confused. That was what I thought I’d have with George: this sort of inevitable domesticity or the interweaving of our lives without cutting into each other or swallowing the other up. But it never happened with George, only with Chris, despite the fact that I nearly married the former and the latter was a spark that was only now catching. It went beyond that, though, I supposed. Chris and I were two complimentary colors, paired together in the outfit of someone who didn't know fashion but knew what they liked and what worked for their body. We were meant to exist together no matter what others might expect.
On that note, on this day in question, which was August 4th still in the same year as earlier, Chris had come over to support me while I put together some sort of game plan for looking at my father’s history. I knew nothing of game plans or–the writer’s equivalent–outlines beyond the acknowledgement that there was wisdom in having them. But I never managed to successfully use one. It just wasn’t in my nature. Instead, when I had a story idea, my brain would take it upon itself to somehow make it happen. Without my input, it just spun threads of thoughts and dreams into large tapestries hung up beyond my reach. My brain forged creations that could tower over me, and it could do so without my realizing, out of sight and behind my back. By the time I turned my back to see it, I would be facing a mountain that I then needed to climb. And I wouldn’t know how to climb it. There would be no clearly demarcated starting point besides the bottom. Never mind a route to follow, leaving me all on my own to struggle.
But this was different. This wasn’t some story my brain had pulled together while I was still searching for my pencil. This was a familiar structure, a mountain that had existed long before me with something like grips or stepping points left in the rocks. And from that, I found the will to try an outline instead of just jumping in. And while it seemed like the easier of the two options, that didn’t mean it was, in and of itself, easy in an objective sense.
It was emotionally charged on one hand, but on the other, there was simply so much to do. This whole process started with sorting through the many files I had pulled from Dad’s old computer, so I could set aside or delete anything that was sensitive or irrelevant (or porn). Only then could I look at or actually read the files that did matter, assuming I even knew what they were. It seemed like such a simple task before I looked at the contents of his laptop or at the many files he had been hoarding across the years. The sheer endlessness of that list of file names was a sucker punch all its own.
And from that, I had a new appreciation for what I put Erika through a few weeks ago. I had a sense of the rush of dread that could only come from staring down so many files.
Her list of edits was also competing for my attention, as were Cecelia’s. There was a third person, in fact, someone who wanted the romance books and for me to use a new pen name for them. I had agreed to those demands without much thought and without committing any of those interactions to memory. I just made those edits, turning over all of their requests as quickly as I could.
It seemed like the list was never ending. There always seemed to be something else to do. And even when I managed to finish a task or tow. It never felt like enough. Or when it did, I would point to the blocks of unaccounted for time, of moments I spent scrolling through social media feeds or streaming television shows that I only half-paid attention to. I’d also been going to the store two or three times a week because I found it oddly enjoyable, though I wasn’t great at meal planning. Then there were Chris’s visits to my phone or to my couch. All of that was time I could have spent working, but I wasn’t.
Cue a very familiar downward spiral. Cue the sort of panic that I knew all too well in Chicago. Because, really, nothing changed when my location did. It was never the scenery’s fault that I was broken and couldn’t do the thing that I had always but especially now needed to be doing: i.e., writing. And now, I didn’t have that extra job to support myself with and now I had gotten Erika to invest a bunch of time into me and I needed to back up that necessary up with new content on top of the edits for existing stories that needed to be sold off. Never mind the fellowship. Never mind Professor Evory and anyone else who had stuck their neck out to get me this position in the first place.
I could feel my stress and anxiety simmering as I sat in the loveseat across from the sleeping Chris with my computer on my lap. For a while, I told myself that this discomfort was really just me having a hard time sitting comfortably. My leg insisted it needed to be under me or on the chair in some way, but that cut off its circulation. Then I would lower it, and to which, it would protest this attempt at care, bouncing almost angrily until it was put back. And though I knew better, I would eventually cave, entering into a cycle that I knew wouldn’t be productive and would get in the way of my writing. But it couldn’t be helped in some way. It felt as if there was some sort of tether between my leg and the chair cushion that would send a small buzz into my muscles if the tie was taut.
But no matter how often I shifted in my seat, Chris didn’t stir. He had never mentioned being a heavy sleeper, but that was the only explanation for how little I disturbed him as I went about my work. It wasn’t even just the movement or the noise of the keyboard clicks or cracking joints but the stress that had to be radiating off of me or the weight of my stare as I watched him sleep. None of it seemed to disturb him. Even the couch’s stiffness that had bothered me so did not seem to affect him in any way. He didn’t move or grumble even. His chest rose and fell gently and to a consistent rhythm no matter what I did.
Halfway through his nap and without prompting, his brow knitted, and he rolled over onto his side. When he did so, the cushion his head had been resting on was pushed to the edge of the couch, hanging precariously off the edge. I couldn’t imagine that resting on the smallest corner of a cushion was all that comfortable, so I thought about adjusting it, about lifting his head and tucking the cushion underneath. It would have been hardly any different than a parent trying to ease their child into a restful sleep, but regardless of how I framed it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too worried about waking him up or being a nuisance in one way or another.
With the thought, my other leg started shaking. There was a lingering jitter in my body while some voice in my head kept telling me–reminding me–that I needed to be writing and not disturbing someone who really needed his rest. Chris worked too hard. He put so much pressure on himself to keep the restaurant running, and if I didn’t let him sleep, he was going to burn himself out. I didn’t want him to burn out, but I did want or even need him to talk to me. I needed the sort of comfort that would have come from his voice.
Actually any voice would have worked. I just needed something to chase away the pressure building up inside me. It had started off as a mild inconvenience, but it was growing rapidly. I could almost feel it pushing at my insides, crushing my organs and trying to burst out. I was going to be crushed and explode simultaneously, which created the sort of dissonance that multiplied my discontent tenfold. Screaming felt like the answer to that, but I knew it wasn’t going to help in no small part because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t scream. I never screamed. I never let myself do something like that, even if it would have helped.
Though it wasn’t as effective, I tried to take a deep breath. But the rattling in my lungs had returned. It felt louder this time and stronger. I assumed it was something that someone near me could hear. From that assumption came another reason to not wake Chris up: I didn’t want to have a conversation with him about my lungs. They weren’t doing well, but I understood why, so it wasn’t worth discussing. That wasn’t a widely held opinion, however. Hence the need to keep it to myself.
But I still needed that breath. In an attempt to open up my lungs, I stood up. I couldn’t tell if it helped, though. Breathing felt no different than I remembered, and the rattle came and went, sometimes in the same breath. As a final test, I pressed the heel of my hand to my chest and inhaled again. That time, I felt nothing.
Briefly, I wondered if this was the sort of thing one could keep from a partner or did I just not understand how relationships work. I’d never tell George about it, but at the same time, I never told George anything. He never complained about the secrecy, and there was nothing I could gain from telling him. There was nothing he could offer me in the way of comfort.
But regardless, George wasn’t Chris. The two relationships would never be the same. And whatever dysfunctions my relationship with Chris developed would be entirely their own.
So I should tell Chris, I briefly thought. Part of the hesitation around getting my lungs checked out was anxiety, which Chris did well with. And was his job, right? If he really was my boyfriend, it would be, and we hadn’t formally declared that we were dating. It felt both too soon and too late given our history together, but we had also moved past caring about that. And yet, I still didn’t know what any of that meant.
I walked over to the kitchen under the unspoken guise of getting some water, but I wasn’t actually thirsty. My mind was still racing, and it only felt right to have my body move in some capacity to match it. Physically walking might accidentally lead me to my conclusion, I hoped. But if that was the right sort of idea, I would never find out. I was too contained. The house was too small. And the road felt unwelcoming. I was confined in the small shack that I had frequented in what felt like another life, and my mind mimicked the boundaries my body was experiencing. All it could think about was how I didn’t know what should have been so obvious. I should have just known what Chris and I were and what I could ask of him, what he could provide, and what I brought to the table. But all of that was a mystery to me. More generally, I didn’t know what it was to be in a good relationship. I didn’t know if I had ever seen one.
Ellie was the closest example, but as supportive as she was, I never told her about my lungs and their tendency to fail or act up. And I had my reasons for it. I didn’t want to worry her, for one, and two, I didn’t want to explain the incident that effectively broke my lungs in the first place.
But the sudden thought of her pulled me out of my trace. It hit me with a pang of inexplicable guilt that demanded all of my attention, which solved one problem but left me with another. It felt wrong to think of her in Chris’s presence, but I couldn’t say who I was wronging. Ellie was just a friend, always a friend. I would never ask anything more of her. And Chris seemed destined to be something more. I wanted him to be something more, and he seemed to want it too. On the other hand, I couldn’t say if Ellie even still wanted to be my friend.
I could feel us drifting apart. I had felt it faintly since the coffee pods arrived at her apartment, and the taste of hope opened my eyes to how I had not–in fact–fully burned the bridge between us when I left our workplace. But rather than being comforting, it almost seemed cruel. I had her back only for us to be ripped apart again but more gradually this time. And the slow tear was a far more painful one not just because it was more drawn out, validating the old adage that it’s better to just rip a bandage off rather than peeling it. But while I could have blamed the potential quick rip on myself and my actions on that last day in the office, the slower drift just seemed like an inevitability created by my nature. In the latter model, I was powerless on top of being useless and undesirable. The former spared me those feelings.
I hated feeling guilty, but I hated myself more. And so, I wore guilt and shame like a tailored dress. My curves would be hugged, and the color would bring out my features. It showed me who I was. And I hated that.
I took my phone out of my back pocket and pulled up the messaging app. The thread with Ellie was somewhat towards the top, having been knocked down from the highest post only by a random spam message and Chris. The last message between me and her was from two days before, and though a silence of that length might have seemed half-way reasonable, I was still unreasonably hurt by it. After all, the message I had sent could be responded to, but it didn’t require it. And Ellie had chosen not to respond. It was the same thing I had done, but I couldn’t handle receiving the same treatment which added another stitch to my form fitting dress.
That sucks, I had said.
Ellie had been telling me about how either Aidan had deleted a bunch of files before security escorted him out and/or those critical files just never existed. She was inclined to think it was the former because those files were critical to a report that Aidan had been able to make last year. She explained the predicament and the parameters therein but never what the report was or should have contained. When I said That sucks, I wanted to acknowledge her frustration while still leaving space for her to go into more detail. But she didn’t go into that detail. And maybe that was my fault. Maybe I should have asked for it.
I probably should have asked for it, but I didn’t know to ask or how. And so I let an opportunity for connection slip between my fingers.
I shut my eyes in a silent chastisement, though I could not be sure what the charge was. But I wanted to talk to Ellie. Chris could steady me, or in theory he could, but Ellie was the release valve for that growing pressure. Even if I didn’t understand how, I knew she could save me from this build up and maybe even from myself.
In the other room, I could hear Chris stir. I glanced into the living room. The cushion he had rested his head upon fell, and the shift had nearly awakened him. He was still half-asleep but alert enough to paw around for something to replace it. Instinctively, I started back into the living room to help him, but before I could get too close, he found another cushion at his back and pulled it underneath his head. With that discomfort resolved, he immediately fell back asleep.
Though it seemed definitive, I stood completely still, waiting for the next thing or for him to say something. I wanted him to say something. His voice was a powerful salve to all that plagued my soul, but even still, I would have been happy just to see his eyes gazing upon me with his usual adoration. But instead, I saw him reposition his upper body and drift away from me again.
In his pseudo-absence I felt the pressure within me build up some more. I was stupid for expecting him to wake up, I told myself. He needed his rest. I had to be more patient with him. I said I could be, after all. I said I was fine being ignored in this way. And yet, I wasn’t.
It was another stitch and a swelling of the worst part of my soul. The pressure was already unbearable, but there was no end in sight. Not unless I made one.
So I texted Ellie. Or I started to. I typed out, Want to hear about my fellowship project idea?
But I didn’t send it. I couldn’t send it. It seemed like such a stupid, leading question. It pressured her to answer in the affirmative regardless of what she actually wanted. And then I would tell her. I would dump this knowledge at her feet, and she would be stuck with it, even and especially if she didn’t want it. Even if she thought the idea was a good one, her stress about the report would turn this into dead weight, pulling her deeper into her darkness.
But I was desperate. And I don’t suppose desperation and selfishness are entirely unrelated.
So I deleted that draft and instead sent, I would love to run an idea past you at some point. It’s a project idea for the fellowship.
In some ways, that was worse, and in others, it was better. Ellie always seemed intrigued by ideas or puzzles, and she appreciated it whenever someone nodded to her brilliance with a small request for help. Or that was the tale I etched into all of our memories.
With that, I set the phone on the counter. Keeping it at my side, keeping some sort of mobile vigil, was pointless when I had no way of knowing when she would answer. If she even would. So it was better to disengage for the time being. Maybe for a bit longer than that.
I went back through the motions of getting water, even if it wasn’t even for my own benefit. It was something to do, something to distract myself with. But as I pulled a glass from the cabinet, I was interrupted by a buzzing on the counter behind me.
My heart stopped at the sound. Immediately, I knew it was my phone. There was no other explanation, but with that acknowledgement came a rush of anxiety and fear. Because it had to be Ellie, right? She must have texted me back.
So I left the glass in the cabinet and went back to my phone, the shaking in my hands was still uncontained. But despite the difficulty that posed, I picked up my phone and saw a text from Ellie on the screen.
:) YES! Tonight? she said.
Of course tonight, I thought but did not dare to say. I would take anything.