Nerd Girl(113)

“I love you so much, Julia,” he said quietly. His voice had cracked. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw sadness reflected in his eyes, or maybe it was just the intensity of the moment.

“I love you, too, Ryan,” I whispered back.

Normally, whenever he told me he loved me; I melted into him and felt warm tingles go through my body. Tonight, there was something in the intensity of his lovemaking and the rawness of his emotions that left me disquieted. In fact, it scared the shit out of me. My chest tightened with unease. Even though I believed Ryan loved me, we had only been together for a month. Was our relationship strong enough to endure the ups and downs of this unknown journey? Was it ready to be tested?





It was a little after ten in the morning on Monday. The reason the time was significant was because Ryan was sitting with Catherine right now at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, waiting for the news that might change all of our lives. I knew I was a minor character in this unfolding drama, but a character regardless—I was Ryan’s girlfriend. If Catherine was sick, it would affect him and, in turn, it would affect me. I just didn’t know yet to what extent.

I worked from home again today because frankly, it didn’t matter if I went into the office or not. No one was paying any attention and it wasn’t like it mattered anymore. I hadn’t heard back from the OEM team, which wasn’t too much of a surprise. Who wanted to hire an HR issue? I saw an email come in from Beth Howe this morning. Beth led the IT team that I had my second informational meeting with last week. I had worked with her previously in a different capacity, so despite the odd circumstances of my position change, from a professional perspective, she knew what I was capable of and trusted that I would be fine in her group. She wanted to pursue next steps and set me up for a formal loop. The reality of it, though, was that I wasn’t all that excited. I had left IT for bigger and better things, and the idea of returning to it was sort of depressing. I replied with an excuse for more time, deciding to hold her off and hedge my bets a bit longer.

I glanced at the clock; only ten minutes had gone by since the last time I checked. I was going to go nuts. To quell my anxiety, I decided to go for a run. I drove down to the waterfront and parked my car just off of the Magnolia Bridge. It was nearly eleven o’clock by now. I checked my phone, but there was still no text or email from Ryan. I huffed out a breath in my own impatience and tossed the phone onto the passenger side front seat. After doing my pre-run stretches, I headed out along Myrtle Bay running path towards downtown.

I’ve always loved running for more than just its physical health benefits. For me, running was a stress reliever. I didn’t have to think about anything at all; I could just be in the zone and let it numb me for a while. After all of the adrenaline was used up, my body was fatigued in a satiated way and the endorphins released from the run always made me feel a bit better about the world. If I wasn’t zoning out, I did the opposite. Running allowed me time to think uninterrupted. I logged a lot of miles planning my next career move, solving difficult problems at work, and thinking about my relationships.

Today, as much as I wanted to zone out, I used my running time to think about what would happen if Catherine really were sick. I had a really bad feeling about this. Ryan sort of freaked me out last night. After our intense lovemaking session, he held me close all night. It was almost as if he were saying goodbye to me. I slept restlessly last night, and the tighter he held me, the more concerned I became.

I tried to shake the negative thoughts from my head. I was jumping to conclusions. If Catherine’s sick, then I couldn’t help wondering how hard this would be on him, on us. I wondered if this would hurt our relationship. What was the worst that could happen?

I halted my steps. God, I was so damn selfish. I already knew what the worst case scenario was. It wasn’t that our relationship would end; the worst case scenario was that Catherine could be really sick and die. I was focusing on entirely the wrong thing. The real test was how I would stand up to this challenge. That’s what would define whether or not our relationship would survive.

I wouldn’t lose Ryan–he loved me and I had no reason to believe otherwise. Knowing that, I resolved that we would make it through this together. He would be there for Catherine and I would be there for him–no matter what. Catherine needed the people she loved by her side. I would support Catherine, even if it meant I needed to wait to have all of Ryan.

I knew I couldn’t expect Ryan to call me immediately after Catherine’s appointment. I rationalized to myself that if the news was good, and the lump ended up being just a cyst or a benign calcification, and Ryan would call me or leave me a text telling me that everything was okay. In fact, he might be doing that right now—my phone could have a text or voicemail message waiting for me.