11.
eleven
Noel
I feel like a top that’s been given a good spin by the time Jamie collects his car and is pulling out of my driveway.
After breakfast, we took the long way back to my car, walking Commercial Street where the fancy restaurants and the hustle of the working waterfront all mix together in a uniquely New England cocktail.
Colin said science and magic used to be one in the same, and I found myself studying Jamie like a specimen, comparing his dimples and lazy grin to my own sweaty palms and general awkwardness.
The way he seemed completely at ease with this supernatural chess game while I had to stop my brain from spinning out on multiple occasions. A mismatch if I’ve ever seen one.
But as I kick off my shoes and wade back into the silence of Nana’s cottage, I have to admit that in between the studying and the spinning, I had enjoyed myself. Just like he promised. I’m a good friend. You’ll see .
I’m not ready to claim friendship, definitely not more, but it would be a lie to say I didn’t like the new little bits of Jamie I spent the morning collecting, once I decided to stop being so afraid of him.
Like the way he sometimes trails off mid-sentence, an ellipses hanging in the air while his brain catches some other drift.
Or the extra pinch in his right eyelid that I’d noticed the night on the roof.
I could see it again, now that the swelling around his eye has gone down, and I find it just as charming.
Rationally, though, I know it’s possible I’ve convinced myself that I’m supposed to like these things.
Our magical history is like a weight added to Jamie’s already abundant charm.
I’ve seen myself knowing Jamie intimately, liking something about him enough to wake up naked in his bed and make out with him on Nana’s porch.
Not to mention Kate and Colin have filled my head with thoughts of soulmates and love stories.
The jury has been unequivocally tampered with if not completely tainted.
To keep my head on, I’m sorting my current life into boxes, and for the rest of Saturday, I put Jamie in his, fit the lid on top, and shove it away for something more pressing and concrete—my future ability to pay my mortgage.
I unpack my laptop and settle in at the dining room table to work.
This sabbatical was meant to help me convince Vi she should give me Ned’s job, but I’ve been here three days and this is the first time I’ve even checked my email.
Before I left Connecticut, I delivered drafts on the two remaining designs that Vi gave me an advance on, and she sent them back with only minor edits.
Of course, I’d immediately panicked that I was already in the middle of the interview, that the sparse feedback was a test to see if I’d find a way to evoke the emotion she wants without her having to hold my hand.
Now, I find myself fretting over the smallest of decisions until I can’t seem to look at my screen without seeing my uncertain future in every blink of the cursor.
Usually when I feel like this, I’ll give myself a brain break.
Light a candle, put in my earbuds, and set a timer.
I sketch until it dings, and nearly always come out of it centered and inspired.
But I’m not really into playing with candles right now, and my whole life feels like a big blank piece of paper, so it seems unlikely I’ll find the solution in another one.
Being blocked professionally is one thing—scary, stressful. Sure. But being unable to do the thing I love, to tap into what’s always made me me , is a lot harder to stomach, and I’m afraid that’s exactly what I’ll find if I swap my mouse for a pencil.
Maybe , I think, practicing that grace Kate told me to give myself, I just need the weekend to rest .
Or maybe you’re blocked for good and this thing that allows you to feed yourself will never come back.
The thing about searching for emotion, is you can’t choose which ones will pop up out of their hiding place first. Sunday morning when I roll out of bed, the floor of the loft is ice on my feet, and I’m hit with the sullen reminder that, just like Nana, the summer is also missing from this year’s trip.
Seasons change. It happens every year, and yet, the difference rubs at me for the rest of the morning, like an uncomfortable piece of clothing.
If that wasn’t bad enough, on my way to the bathroom, I stub a toe on one of those silly gingham-lined baskets from the property management company, set by the door to collect shoes and beach towels, and it’s a sucker punch straight to my soul.
I asked for it, the staging service. I paid them to make the cottage into a place people would want to stay the week so that their vacations would keep me from having to sell it.
But understanding the practical reasons for something unsavory isn’t the same as literally tripping over the consequences of it.
The urge to escape sets in again, that tingling in my limbs and shoulders like my muscles want to burst into a sprint, but I can’t seem to find a destination.
The forecasted scattered showers have turned into a surprise downpour, which means spending the day at the beach is out, so is heading back downtown.
By noon, the cloud cover has darkened the cottage like a shroud, so I flip on every light in the house, pull up Spotify on my laptop for the company, and send another text to Mom—my third since Friday.
I send one to Kate too, even though I know she’s likely driving to her parents’ on the Midcoast where they moved after Kate graduated high school.
She goes there weekly for Sunday dinner, she and her two brothers, and now Colin.
And then I sit, stewing in the silence of the cottage until it feels like fingers pressing on a bruise.
I’ve never considered myself to be lonely.
Introverted, sure, in that way artists tend to be always tuned into the world inside their head instead of the one around them.
And I’ve been a bit of a homebody since I was a kid, not always by choice.
It’s hard to connect with other kids when you’re thinking about rent being due, or what your mom’s situationship meant in his morning-after text.
My closest companion besides Kate was a seventy-year-old woman.
Now I’m starting to wonder if maybe that feeling of losing my color is just loneliness in disguise. Maybe Kate’s empty-nester comparison wasn’t so off after all.
I’m in the middle of making myself a peanut butter sandwich for one when my phone pings with an incoming text. I lunge for it, assuming that Mom is granting me some sign of life. But it’s not her.
Jamie: Did you know they did a study on human isolation and the guy who made it the longest only did eight days?
The grin that jumps to my face catches me off guard in the same way as the sucker punch feeling from this morning, just inverted.
I set the butter knife on the counter and type back, a smile pinned between my teeth.
Noel: Is someone feeling sorry for themselves?
Jamie: You have no idea. What are you doing?
Working , I lie.
Jamie: I remember work.
Jamie: And fun.
Jamie: And not being in pain.
I abandon my lunch completely and drop onto Nana’s couch, tucking my legs underneath me.
Noel: You could use your crutches. That might help.
Jamie: I would, but there’s one problem.
Noel: What?
Jamie: I hate them.
I can so clearly see the look on his face, a seriousness that is entirely feigned, and I giggle out loud alone in this room.
The conversation weaves through the rest of the day, pinging each other back and forth in between my much-later lunch and a bit of laundry, then picking up again after I run into town to grab more cat food and a replacement for the shampoo I forgot to pack.
Jamie tells me more about brewing beer, including sending a picture of him in goggles and rubber boots that I promptly save.
I tell him about Vi, how I’d met her at an alumni event smack in the middle of a post-graduation panic, when I was sure getting an MFA had been the most foolish choice.
She was like a fisherman tossing me a line.
I took graphics in college, and I knew it paid way more than you could ever dream of as a watercolor artist. The relief of that first paycheck outweighed the churning discomfort of abandoning ship.
Around ten past four, Jamie suddenly stops replying. Forty minutes after his last emoji comes through, my heart does a little untied-balloon fizzle, deflating in my chest, and I quickly chastise myself for it.
Until at six, a close-up selfie arrives, his eyes puffy (both, not just the bruised one) and hair insane . An oddly right-angled mark frames his good eye.
Jamie: I wasn’t ignoring you . Fell asleep on my phone. I’m sorry. I’m on a lot of drugs.
I save that one too, obviously. I’m about to type a goodnight message and justify putting my pajamas on before dinner, but my blood is buzzing with an unfamiliar excitement that seems to have expanded ten-fold the moment I got his company back.
I’m not ready to give it up again—this feeling I haven’t named yet.
And it does seem sort of a waste, him caged up by his injury, me practically climbing the walls with my need to escape this place.
Isn’t this what we agreed on? Friendship?
Hanging out when we’re both bored is a friend thing to do. If it were Kate, I’d already be headed to her apartment.
I shove my thumbnail between my teeth and type with one hand.
Noel: Can I come over?
He replies immediately.
Jamie: I can’t imagine the guy who says no to that.
I park in the same gravel lot where I dropped Jamie off days ago after the hospital, and check my phone.
Jamie: My apartment’s through the side door. Top of the stairs.