By Proxy(66)
“Thanks! Are you for real?” he yelled at her sharply.
“All’s fair,” she shouted. Then she shrugged sexily.
Edgy. Interesting. Okay, I’ll play.
“Is this love or war?” he asked, licking his lips, letting his eyes trail up and down her body with a deliberate glance.
She moved in closer and yelled back, her warm breath tickling his ear, “Ask me again tomorrow morning.” She leaned back, raised her eyebrows in inquiry, and smirked again. “I’m Monica.”
So, here it is, Sammy. She’s amusing, good-looking, blonde and blue-eyed. Yours for the taking. What’s your move?
All I want for Christmas is you, Baby…
He stared at her, working his jaw. The answer was quick and clean, like an arrow to the heart:
I don’t want her. I want Jenny.
“Sorry, Monica. I’m taken.”
She frowned and snapped her fingers in regret. “The one that got away.”
He smiled his first genuine grin of the evening and winked at her before she moved on, giving him one last come-hither look over her shoulder. “All I Want for Christmas is You” faded out and another more raucous song started thumping.
His head pounded from the music and the scotch, and if Monica couldn’t persuade him to stay, it was unlikely any other girl could either. He pushed his way out of the club onto the sidewalk, where he filled his lungs with icy cold air and walked home.
***
Without a hangover to deal with, getting up early the next morning to attend church services at St. James near the lake wasn’t physically painful, per se, but comparisons were inevitable, and the cavernous sanctuary and enormous congregation made the service feel impersonal to Sam after the intimate warmth he had found at Grace Church in Gardiner. He knew he was trying to comfort himself by attending church as he had with her, but without Jenny beside him the service felt cold and he felt empty. He left halfway through and walked home in disappointment, lonelier for her than ever.
It wasn’t just at the club or at church either. He was looking for her everywhere. After a week, he realized his search stemmed from the outlandishly ridiculous hope she would suddenly arrive in Chicago to find him, tell him she’d been just as miserable as he, declare her feelings for him, and they would finally be together. His pathetic puppy-dog hopefulness started to disgust him. His heart still leapt in his chest whenever his answering machine blinked with messages, or when he checked his personal e-mail account to find a message waiting, which was ridiculous. He’d never had a chance to give her his contact information, so unless she’d tracked him down through Ingrid it was unlikely he’d hear from her. Even so, he couldn’t seem to stop hoping, couldn’t seem to accept the fact that the feelings he had for her should be truncated. His heart simply wouldn’t move on.
Another problem, though, was Chicago didn’t feel comfortable to him anymore. It didn’t feel like home. It wasn’t Chicago’s fault, but everything about the city he used to love felt different since he got back from Montana. What used to be chic felt fake. What used to be cool felt cold. What used to be fun felt…empty.
Not to mention, he saw everything filtered through Jenny’s eyes now, and it was maddening and funny and heartbreaking to have her constantly in his head and not in his arms. With every passing day, he longed for the wholesome Christmas fun of familiar carols, homemade gingerbread and watching Christmas movies in pajamas. He wanted Christmas tree–lightings and a Christmas pageant followed by hot, spicy Glögg. Quite simply, he longed for Christmas Jenny-style.
He wished he could stop looking for her. He wished he could stop missing her. He wished he could forget every moment he had spent with her and—mercifully—let her go.
He thought of her in the courthouse whispering, “This never could have worked out,” and it made him wince with regret, but the refrain in his head was the same:
She didn’t want you, Sam. She didn’t want you enough. Let her go.
***
He got up for a run the next morning, dark and early, even though the wind off the lake would be brutally cold. He put on long underwear and sweatpants, then layered on top with a thermal long-sleeved t-shirt, sweatshirt and his North Face wind jacket. The key was to keep moving at a decent clip and the wind wouldn’t be so bad. He put on some shearling gloves and a black wool skullcap before heading out the door.
From his apartment in posh Streeterville, it was only two short blocks across Lake Shore Drive to the Lakefront Trail, a decent stretch of paved path perfect for joggers, cyclists and walkers who wanted to enjoy the views of the lake as they exercised. Living in Streeterville was a huge status symbol, and when Sam had purchased his apartment he was chuffed to officially be a part of the exclusive area where he could claim celebrities like Oprah Winfrey as neighbors. With views of Navy Pier and the lake beyond, Sam’s Chicago enclave was part of a glamorous world of nightclubs, museums, parks, skyscrapers and some of Chicago’s finest restaurants.