The week is sprinkled with the roots of new beginnings, and I'm given my first assignment — a short feature, which will be included in a section covering cultural events. I reread the assignment over and over, looking for anything I must have missed — someplace that reads "accompany a staff writer" or "assist" — but I find none. The story has been assigned to me, and me only. I, an intern, will be writing for the magazine, and it has not yet even been a week.
I'd be covering an art exhibit at a local breakfast café, and I couldn't have been more honored and excited to be doing so. Still, on the morning of the event, sitting nervously on the edge of my bed, I wrung my hands and cracked my knuckles repeatedly before I left that morning.
i'm so proud of you
3:03 AM
margaret jane, there's no one like you
3:03 AM
The first time Timothée called me by my first and middle name, the way it sounded over FaceTime took me by surprise — hearing something I'd hated for so long being said in his voice. It's what he's been calling me every now and then for some days now.
For someone who has always hated their name, I like it a whole awful lot when it's rolling off his tongue.
Our texts have been short streams of "how are you"s and "I miss you"s and playful selfies from holding our phone out under us to get that flattering angle of three chins. I sent him pictures of the paintings from the exhibit, he sent me pictures of the sword he's been using in training, the horse he's been riding, and a selfie with Robert Pattinson to let me know he says hi.
We haven't spoken over the phone in nearly five days.
I knew this was coming. I knew it very well. I knew he was going to get busy. And I knew that even if he wasn't this busy, I would still be. But if he wasn't this busy, he probably wouldn't be across the ocean in the first place.
I would get off work and find a missed call. On the way home, I'd call back, and it would go straight to voicemail. Some hours later, he'd send a text saying he was wrapped up in pre-production work that day, and was headed to dinner with the cast, asking if he could call later. But then I'd be so deep in answering emails and assignments on top of my freelance work, that I would miss the text completely and not see it until late, when it was the wee early hours of the morning in England, and I wouldn't dare to call and wake him up — I'd tell myself to wait til the next day.
It was some version of that each day. And neither of us was more to blame than the other; it was the both of us, in this peculiar game of long-distance phone tag.
Cannes. The plans are set in stone, and I'm supposed to board a plane to France in just a little over a week. But the thought of it makes my stomach flip upside down. I'm not sure why.
I am a person who thinks too much. Perhaps I've forgotten how to be alone, or perhaps I'm just angry at myself for believing that this long-distance fling would be as easy as Timothée made me feel like it would be.
"We'll make it work, I promise."
I want to believe the smooth little bump on the bridge of his nose, the sharp outline of his jaw on my fingertips, the small dips across his collarbone and chest. The boy who sits on the floor and moves his head back and forth slowly, singing Frank Ocean with his eyes closed. The assuredness in his words and all of the galaxies inside of him. I want to believe the way he says my name and the way he touches me.
"It's okay to feel anxious and absolutely petrified — what you went through last year was not a walk in the park, so it's normal for you to be feeling this way," my therapist had reminded me. "But you also need to remember that you're not there anymore, and you're the one who got yourself out. That takes a whole lot of strength that only you had. And remember that you're being legally protected — there's no reason to be scared of him finding you."
Life, as beautiful as it's becoming each day, still stops me in my tracks. The thing is that some days become worse than others, because that's just how PTSD works, and I'm not sure who or what I'm supposed to continue to believe.