back at work

After mutual vacations. He is still next to me. Standing right there. Responding when I turn toward him in the slightest. Turning toward me. He left me a duck made of Lego’s. He left me, specifically, a duck I had made of legos. At our mozilla all hands in Whistler. He’d gone and found it on the tray, amidst 100 other such ducks that were passed to the front after the exercise. I’d not used all my Lego parts. I don’t know if we were supposed to or not.

So I return to my desk after two weeks away and see a little origami box, wrapped in ribbon. It has an “in case of emergency” note on the top. I tug on the little satin ribbon and open the carefully folded lid. And inside is a little handwritten sign that says quack!” The duck floats on a miniature sea of carefully balled up orange and yellow postits. My duck. Which he somehow found, identified as mine from having seen it for two seconds while sitting together in our conference room chairs. Seriousky, he’s one of the most thoughtful and silliest people I know. I love him.

And of course, this doesn’t make me love him less. It doesn’t make me want him less. And so I stand here at work, next to him. The two of us turning toward each other occasionally, though I know we really shouldn’t. E very time he doesn’t choose me, which is all the time, every time, I die a little tiny death. I feel my heart strain inside, my body run a little bit cold. I feel a panic that I will never again feel swept away.

I thought that was how I was supposed to feel: swept away. Like I couldn’t breathe, like every thought consumed me. I know I’m not supposed to feel that way forever. But I thought that The One was supposed to start that way at least. And that you always have that together. But I think now that’s a myth. I think real attractions start that way, that they are chemically heady and take on a life and force of their own. As evidenced by all my better judgement abandoning me for a period of time. But then that heady attraction isn’t necessarily supposed to and doesn’t usually turn into anything else. Once again, I am the person breaking it off, actually articulating the words because He is not articulating the feelings that are shared. “I want to jump off a cliff” I say, “but I need to know you’re with me”. So far, these two times, they have not been.

This time, I am determined to be his friend. Am determined not to turn him into a demon. He’s just a man. And a young one at that, even young for his age, which is 12 years my junior.

And so today. I will meet with him and talk for an hour. I will acknowledge that the fantasy in which he joins me in the back stairwell, shoves me up on top of the railing, pushes up my skirt and fucks me suddenly, his body holding me in place, his face next to mine, his breath in mine, his tongue, I always need his tongue, is just a fantasy. A heartbreaking, disastrous, lonely fantasy that will never come true. Cause we are friends. He is not my guy. He has chosen someone else.

We are friends and he is the kind of guy who makes me little origami boxes with quacking ducks in them to make me laugh when I am stressed out, and he is away and cannot turn toward me.