Colleague

The vibration of a phone notification was muffled by my pillow as I stood in front of my open closet. I leaped towards my bed half-dressed because I knew who it was, I knew it was you. 

You wanted to know what time I was planning on coming to you.

I assessed the weather with a slight glance. It was a wintry, frigid February in Boston, as most Boston Februaries were. There was rarely relief here: the wind would painfully cut your face and the precipitation was always some haphazard mix of rain and snow and sleet. God - because science had no personality to blame - was not very creative in that respect, unleashing winter’s wrath ferociously on New England each year. 

Within half an hour, I texted you back.

I returned to my post in front of the closet, quickly rummaging through crumpled cotton stacks to find the matching cobalt blue sweatshirt to my sweatpants, the cozy matching set you liked. I debated stabbing a brush through my curly hair, but you enjoyed it tangled and large, so I left it as it was, adding two thin braids on either side in case you noticed something different. I kept my freckles on display while adding a small dab of terracotta blush to my cheeks and a sweep of brown mascara to my sunken eyes, something to make me look awake.

I was ready to see you now. 

My door refused to open, standing in the face of the direction of the wind. Grumpily, I shoved it with my shoulder and catapulted outside, drunkenly wobbling to stay on my feet. The sidewalk was covered in icy sludge. All logic told me that I needed to go back inside, make myself a warm beverage and tell you that I wouldn’t be making it to our weekly co-working session at your apartment. But how could I? 

Forgive me, really, if I seem dramatic, but I would do anything to get to you.

My heart thumped low and hard against my chest as I approached your apartment five minutes later. You came to retrieve me and there could’ve very well been a tornado ripping through Commonwealth Avenue and I wouldn’t have known.

“Hey!” you greeted me with the same enthusiasm you always did, your grin forming little crinkles on the outside of your eyes. People spent a lifetime attempting to erase such lines, yet the way you wore them could start a revolution. “The weather is awful, you didn’t have to come.” 

I shrugged. “Ice skating practice.” 

You laughed at my worthless joke, the sound akin to music. I was unfortunately letting myself become enamored by your unintentional captivations once again and frankly, I couldn't today. After all, I had some very serious business to discuss with you.

You led me down into the brownstone in which you rented a small studio apartment. Over the last year that we’d begun our Friday co-working sessions, I grew more comfortable in it. I admired how homey it felt to me, the sentimental knick knacks above a defunct fireplace, the kitchen you could barely stand in, a bed that creaked with the slightest pressure.

I settled onto your tattered, blue - or was it gray? - secondhand couch with the quilted mustard yellow blanket that you often draped over my body when I fell asleep around early in the afternoon. I rested my work laptop against my knees, the fan of the machine whirring vigorously to keep up with all of my open windows. We sat in companionable silence for much of the morning, only speaking to collaborate. At around noon, you had begun preparing lunch - something from frozen, in lieu of walking to get food in the pending storm. You told me about your plans for that weekend to capitalize on the weather, a ski trip with a large group of your closest friends from Boston. 

“Who?” I asked, too quickly. I knew all of your friends.

You rattled off some of their names and mentioned there were some more people whom you didn’t know that would be coming.

"I don't understand how you're able to make friends with people so easily," I remarked.

You shrugged. “It’s not that hard.

Not when you look like that, I thought.

“Part of the issue is that I feel more connected to people than they feel to me, so I set myself up for disappointment,” I confessed. “I feel like I miss everyone who I’ve ever met.” And it was true: however insignificantly, however perfunctorily, people sat in my psyche like anchors, some weighing heavier than others. 

You continued to sort through items in the fridge for lunch, pulling out some ancillary items like jarred tomato sauce and butter. Ever so casually, you said, “I think there’s a certain beauty in letting people go after you’ve had your collective time.” 

My breathing hitched, your words an unwelcome foreshadow. I was moving to New York for a new job in a week and that we’d likely never have this same interaction, in this same manner, ever again. This scene, wherein I come to your apartment on a Friday mid-morning for us to work in the same space on a day where we don't have to go into the office, a protected, peaceful joy of mine, was never going to happen again.

Despite the thrashing protests in my brain - no! I won’t. I don’t want to let you go. I want to stay here and watch you cook for a lifetime. You’re special to me, you've been the only special thing to me! – I nodded in agreement, as if we were actually just work colleagues, who shared similar views on the fleeting nature of human connection, almost like a home that sheltered you for a period of time in a city while you lived there. 

Thoughts adrift, I returned to my computer. You then called me over for lunch, cheekily, as if it was a parent beckoning her children from their play times for a bite to eat. I took my seat across from you, a big bowl of ravioli in between. We didn’t get plates, just used two plastic forks to pick at the pieces of pasta, repeatedly covering them with dusts of shelf-stable Parmesan. 

“Less dishes this way,” you said. 

I knew it in my bones that you were being truthful, that I would’ve done the same if I were you, but my mind was already set. It felt more intimate than functional. I relished in the way your words caused tingles in my scalp and down my spine as the snow began to descend outside, creating gentle ripples in the Charles. 

We talked, just like we always did. That was the thing with you and I: no matter how many hours we’d clocked in each other’s presence alone, we never ran out of things to talk about. We talked about how you loathed the cold weather but you would never let it stop you from seeing your friends, about how you thrive on social circumstance. You smile to the right when something intrigues you and with full teeth on display when something baffles you. You asked me so many questions, too many questions, more questions than I had answers for. But I tried, and you prodded, and poked, and it was all very safe. Somewhere in between, I sneaked in a compliment on your hair that hadn't been cut in ages. You asked me to feel it to prove how unruly it was, so I gently grazed my finger tips through the thick wavy strands, setting my face ablaze.

When we finished eating, you tossed the empty bowl into the sink and I nestled into my original position on the sofa while you returned to your desk. After some time, you joined me. I sat upright, clearing my throat, and you’d motioned for me to lay back down again. I shook my head. It was time.

“No, I have to tell you something,” I said softly. You raised your eyebrows, three deep waves forming on your forehead. You were always impatient. “I’m moving to New York in the next week.” 

You smiled. You smiled so big for me. “Did you get another job?” 

“Yeah. It's hybrid in office and remote but they’re paying for relocation, and so…” I trailed off, words failing me, my voice crackling through a simple statement. My contacts scratched my corneas. 

“I knew it!” you exclaimed, jumping out of your seat. “I knew it was coming.” 

You paid more attention to me than I thought and it fed my ego in all the wrong ways.

“I can just tell," you continued triumphantly. "When did you find out?"

“Last month. With all of the layoffs, it's just not my place anymore. And my grandpa lives down that way, you know, and he's getting old.” It felt like I was rambling, but you listened like I was the only person in the world.

You went on and on about how excited you were for me. In typical you fashion, you asked me at least three hundred questions on what the opportunity was, where exactly I was going, while also consistently emphasizing how much you hated New York but knew that I was obsessed with New York so it was worth it.

“It is, after all, the greatest city on Earth,” you said dryly, mocking my own statement. 

And as you were talking about how happy you were for me, I came to a reinforced conclusion on how you would never fit into my future life. You, with all of your social wealth here, in Boston, this man-made city of horrors, come to see me, in a city you hate? Yet, even the slightest hint at reciprocation from you and I would’ve given it all up. I didn't like knowing you had that power over me, my level of unrequited devotion. Was I psychotic? Yes, I think I was. For you, I was. It was exactly why I had to go. 

“Thank you,” was all I could muster after some time. Sweat beads began to fall down my back. “I’m going to miss everyone here. That’ll probably be the hardest part.” 

“Oh, but New York isn’t that far,” you said, waving your hand at my concern. “We’ll be right here.” 

And you? What about you? Would I find you here, in this studio apartment, in this city that never quite felt like home to me anywhere besides this sofa?

“Selfishly, I am sad of course,” you added, the cliche erroneously tugging at my heart strings. "You've helped me out so much with work and you also kind of made me way more thoughtful and intentional. I couldn’t ever repay you.”

We exchange smiles: yours gratuitous, mine wistful. There were about a thousand things I wanted to shout at you: Don't you see the way I look at you? You feel like ten AM on a summer morning right before going to college. Whatever it was that we had, it was real, right? Please let it be true that I didn’t imagine it. My brain does that sometimes. I don't want to forget 3 AM in a pool hall, jumping fences at concerts, getting high before the Bruins game, crying tears of joy at each other's successes, you saying we’d get married if we hadn't found by the time we were both thirty, waking up facing each other after falling asleep watching television. Come to think of it actually, let’s not try too hard to keep in touch. It’ll hurt less that way. This chapter, it’s over, isn’t it? It’s time, my friend, it’s time to let go. Goodbye, farewell. 

Instead, the cowardice overtook. “You’ll still be my friend, right?” 

And here we were, in our late twenties, talking about the possible continuation of our friendship as if we were schoolchildren whose parents had just made the decision to move. We were uncertain of our future, but to cope, we made empty promises, because we didn't know any better.

“Yes, of course,” you said, without missing a beat. Your hazel eyes glimmered happily. 

The workday was drawing to a close and you began to pack for your ski trip. I couldn’t resist. I had to bring it to your attention. 

“This is the last time we’re doing this, you know.” 

You stopped arranging things in a suitcase and cocked your head to the side, confused. “What do you mean?” 

I swallowed. “Like me, here, in this apartment, on a Friday, working with you.” 

You smiled gently. “There’s more to us than just this, you know.” 

My brain betrayed me and allowed my heart to swell. Could it be possible that you secretly felt the same way I did?

“You don’t think the lack of convenience of work will naturally cause us to drift apart?”

You came closer and wrapped me in a hug. I sunk into your chest, into the stable, strong, steady heartbeat drumming through your shirt, squeezing your waist tightly.

“It doesn't matter if we don't see each other ever again or everyday, because we'll always have had this, right here,” you breathed into my ear.

I began to drown in heaving sobs, first upright, then with knees buckled, collapsing, through the hardwood, into the earth's core.

Suddenly, I am awake.

I tear my phone from off of the nightstand and its charger to look at the date and time. The pulsations begin to die out from where they are lodged within my throat. 

5:30 AM. March 3rd, 2025. 

Five years. I am no longer in Boston or anywhere close to Boston, anywhere close to you.

“What is going on?” someone croaks next to me, agitated, a male voice. I’ve disrupted him with my abrupt movement. A baby coos in the corner.

As I fully come to and comprehend my surroundings, including recognizing the voice next to me, I’m unable to hide my disappointment.

It’s not you.