Neanderthal Seeks Human(26)

“Oh geeze, I totally forgot!”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, “You need to get a cell phone. I’m blocking his number from mine.”

“I am so sorry, Elizabeth. I’m sorry he bothered you at work.”

“Don’t worry about it, I was more worried about you.” She laughed lightly, pulling off her work clogs, “But you might want to send him an email or call him on Skype. He said something about calling in a missing persons report.” She stopped to give me a brief hug before walking to her room, “I’m glad you’re ok.”

I nodded and turned to my laptop. It was already ten. I knew he would be up but didn’t particularly want to speak with him so I opted to send him an email instead. When I opened my account I saw that he’d already emailed me five times, each message progressing in level of anxiety, the last was sent less than a half hour ago and read:

Would you please call me and let me know you are ok? I am going crazy with worry. I love you, Janie, and just want to know you are ok. I get that I hurt you and that you are mad, but please don’t punish me like this. This isn’t like you. If you’re trying to make me upset then, you’ve succeeded. If you don’t want to see me then you can just say so. I’m scared to death that you are somewhere hurt. If you get this and you are ok then we really need to talk about getting you a cell phone. Please call me. –Jon

I sighed and gritted my teeth, annoyed both by his presumption that ‘we’ would talk about cell phones as well as at the pinch of guilt that I felt, as I typed my email:

Jon- I’m ok. Honestly, I forgot about meeting you today. I’m sorry I didn’t call, there is no reason to worry. Elizabeth just came home and said that you were calling her at work. Please don’t do that again. You know that I usually check my email at least once a day and you also know how I feel about cell phones. I have no problem meeting you, I don’t want to upset you, and I’m not punishing you. I really do want us to be friends. Let me know if you want to try to meet up next week sometime. Talk to you soon, Janie

I stared at my cursor and re-read my email. I decided to delete “Talk to you soon” then I sent it. I didn’t want him to think I was promising to speak with him soon. I took a moment to read through my email and noted, with a great degree of frustration, that my inbox did not contain any responses to the hundreds of employment queries I’d sent.

My thoughts drifted back to Quinn and I remembered the card he gave me at breakfast. I reached to the coffee table in front of me and pulled out the card, letting my thumb caress his name before flipping it over to the Director of Operations’ contact information on the back. My mouth curved into a wistful smile when my eyes met with the image of Quinn’s handwriting. I really was ridiculous.

I clicked the ‘compose’ button and attached my resume, typing a quick letter of introduction in the body of the message. As an afterthought I decided to cc-Quinn on the email. I wanted him to see that I was actually very interested in the position and thankful for his recommendation.

Just as I hit send on the email my account chimed with a new message from Jon. I stared at the subject line:

“I’m sorry, I love you.”

I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. Shaking my head I closed my laptop without opening his message. I was tired. I huffed again. I wanted to brush my teeth and go to bed. I didn’t like how uncomfortable, and guilty, Jon made me feel when I was certain- well, mostly certain- that he was the reason we were no longer together.

“You keep sighing- I can hear you in my room.” Elizabeth came around the couch and flopped down next to me, stretching her arms over her head as she did so; “What happened with Jon?”

I shrugged and unthinkingly expelled another loud breath; “I emailed him. I don’t really want to talk to him right now.”

“You need a cell phone-”

“No. If I had a cell phone then I’d have to talk to him. Since I don’t have one I get to put that conversation off until I’m ready to have it.”

“Fair enough.” Elizabeth lifted her hands as though she surrendered, “I don’t want to talk about old soggy pants anyway.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes; Elizabeth started calling Jon soggy pants when he sat in a wet seat at a movie theater once, accidentally, and spent the whole movie with wet pants after confirming the liquid was soda.

“So...” Elizabeth wagged her eyebrows at me, “I have something for you.” She pulled a card out of seemingly thin air and squealed as she forced it into my hand, “Look! It’s Quinn’s card! He gave it to me last night before we left the club.”