Yesterday I sat at my desk and for the first time in two weeks I was alone. I turned on my e-mails and switched on my messenger. I waited. At 10:30 I stopped drafting an e-mail telling my opposite number at BigButNotAsBigAsUsLawFirm telling him that if he didn't start engaging with us in relation to disclosure we we going to slap him with so many applications for specific disclosure his head would spin. I enjoy that kind of e-mail; it so rare that things are clean cut and you are in the right. Grey lines are my business. But I stopped and watched the clock click over from 10:30 to 10:31.
Sometimes she gets up early to work before yoga classes especially on a Monday with a hangover - but not today.
I stared at her icon for twenty minutes praying for the little button to turn green, but it stayed red. Girl is not available for chat.
The meeting running up to lunch was a write off. Every sixty seconds or so I realised I really couldn't give a damn about the post-application process. Like some coin-operated boy, I flicked the screen of my 'phone, refreshing my e-mails hoping for even a word, an acknowledgement of my existence. Rhythmic hope, automated despair.
"Sitting on the shelf, I am just a toy,
But she turns me on and I come to life."
The only available e-mail was her last. "Please give me some time." I wanted her to know that every second was costing me dearly, that all I had done since I woke was waited for her text, or her e-mail, or her call. Time was all I had to give, but at such a price. I couldn't understand the sudden cut off., I couldn't deal with it. A mere 48 hours ago we had spent a entire day with each other, one of those perfect golden days to be reminisced about in years to come, but only with ones self. A day unshared with anyone else, because you simply wouldn't understand; couldn't. I hadn't prepared myself mentally for the withdrawal - I thought it would be fine, but the sudden introduction of a vacuum distorts the reality around it, sucking and clawing at all the fragile pieces held together by will.
"All the other real ones that you destroy,
Cannot hold a candle...."
By 2:30 I was driven to distraction. I knew she was at work now - no excuse of yoga, or writing classes, or even sex with her husband. No excuse now, only reasons. I don't know if one can register refreshes in the same way as one does unique hits to a web-site but I suspect I may have broken a new record yesterday. It sounds immature and childish - and it was - but I was filled with such hope that I pushed on into the ridiculous, desiring beyond reason.
"I will never leave my bedroom,
I will never cry at night again;
Wrap my arms around her and pretend."
And then, this morning, I received an e-mail, sent in the night. Quoted for truth:
"And I know that I need to not be refreshing my gmail every 30 seconds, and not checking your blog in case you have written something new to break my heart all over again, but I can't stop myself. I have no
will power."
This is the reason for my obsession - the similarity of reaction; the need for attention; the self-deprecation, the self-loathing, even. The want, the need, the obsession. She had sung the break-up songs at kareoke, she had deleted the entire inbox and then restored from trash; she had longed for me. Tick. Tick. Tick.
"This post was written to make you feel smittener,
With my sad picture of boy getting bitterer."
Call me.
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