Dear Professor Blue Eyes,
Do you believe in fate? Of course you don’t. You often say you think the universe is made of haphazard events that don’t make any sense, that we are the harbingers of our own destiny and doom.
I used to agree with you, though today I’m not so sure.
Today, I had the world make something very clear to me, something you probably aren’t even aware of.
I was walking in the park today, wanting to have a picnic at Princes Street Gardens, and I saw you there.
You were with Miranda and Hamish.
Goddamn it if you weren’t the most beautiful family.
Now I can understand why you canceled today.
What I don’t understand, though, is why you haven’t canceled every day before that.
Why have you continued to spend time with me, all day long, day after day, for months now when you have something that graceful and good and beautiful at home?
Miranda is every single thing that I’m not.
And I accept that.
But I can’t accept why you bother spending all your time with me.
I’m probably the worst research assistant there ever was.
We laugh more than we work.
You’re still the slowest writer in the world.
And yet every day I’m there.
Until one day I’m not.
Tasha
P.S. I’m drunk
P.P.S. I’m writing this because I’m a catalyst for change.
P.P.P.S. I don’t think I should work for you anymore.
Probably not the most succinct email I’ve ever composed, but I figure I’ll worry about that later when I send it.
Oops.
I already sent it.
I stare at the “sent” icon just as my phone dies.
Then I shrug. Whatever.
I lay back down on the bed and try and train my thoughts to something worth thinking of. I think about the flat back in London that I had sublet for the summer. I think about going to school, getting up every day without the warm heart and the bubbly stomach and the butterflies, and how fucking boring it’s going to be. I think about the pain I’ll feel when I won’t have Brigs’ face to look at every day, the loss of him in my life. The bitterness that will follow. Bitter always follows the sweet, especially when it comes to love. Especially when it comes to forbidden love.
I don’t know how long I sit in the dark, but eventually I get up, unsteady on my feet, and wobble out to the kitchen to raid the fridge for a half-drunk bottle of wine I know is in there.
I’ve just finished pouring myself a glass of the oaky chardonnay when there’s a knock at my door. It’s faint, as if not to disturb, but that just puts the hairs on the back of my neck up.
I glance at the microwave clock. It’s only a quarter to midnight, so not that late, but still. My roommate has never had guests over this late, and I’ve never had anyone over here except Brigs dropping off books a couple times, or the one time he picked me up when we went to a theatre to see a screening outside of town.
Obviously that thought gives me a jolt of hope as I quickly creep toward the door, peeking through the peephole before the person can knock again.
It’s Brigs. Distorted in that fish-eye way, but still him.
Ah shit.
I take a deep breath and undo the chain, slowly opening the door.
“Hi,” I say softly, taking him all in. He’s standing there in what I saw him in earlier, an olive dress shirt and dark jeans.
I think in the deep recesses of my mind I had hoped he would show up. Isn’t that why I wrote the email? A Hail Mary? A last ditch attempt?
He looks pained, his brow furrowed. “Can I come in?” he asks, voice gruff and low. “Sorry it’s so late. I tried calling you but it went straight to your voicemail.”
“You know I never check my voicemail,” I tell him, opening the door wider.
Now he seems larger than life leaning against the frame.
“I know,” he says. “But I’ve never gotten a drunk email from you before.”
He walks in and I know I need to laugh it off.
“Well, consider yourself flattered,” I tell him, closing the door gently. “Drunk emails are the white unicorn of Natasha Trudeau.”
But as he stands in the narrow entryway and turns around to face me, our bodies too close in the dark, he’s not smiling. He’s staring at me instead, like he’s studying a treasure map he knows he’ll lose later, memorizing every detail.
“I want to talk about it,” he says, and his voice is still on the border between hushed and emphatic.
“The email?” I question, even though it’s futile to pretend now.
Every nerve inside me is dancing, waiting, wishing.
He nods and looks around warily. “Is your roommate asleep?” he asks softly.
I nod. “She is, and she can literally sleep through anything.” I almost go off on a tangent about our techno playing neighbor and how she says she’s never even heard his 90s oonce oonce crap blaring through the walls, but I don’t because the look in Brigs’ eyes is so arresting it makes thoughts fall out of my head.