Chapter Eleven
Jake
I had been a complete dick to Kristen, and I knew it. To make matters worse, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that cinnamon coffee she had brought me earlier. I knew I should have gone out there and said something to her. I should have apologized for the way I’d been treating her, but my pride prevented me from doing that.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair, wondering if at the heart of it, I wasn’t the great guy I had always thought I was. Was that why things with Daphne and derailed so fast towards the end? I wondered. Maybe it had nothing to do with Noah and his birth. Maybe it had everything to do with me. I had spent the weeks and months following Daphne’s funeral thinking about those last few weeks before she had been deployed. They had been the most stressful and disheartening weeks of my life.
Daphne and I had spent those last two weeks tiptoeing around one another. We barely stayed in the same room together because we both knew that if we did, then we would talk to one another, and it would inevitably end up in a fight. So we had lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, and eaten at the same table, but our lives were already separate. There were moments when it felt like she had already gone. She would be sitting across from me at the dinner table, and it felt like she was a thousand miles away.
I used to watch her with Noah sometimes. She would kiss his head and his cheeks and say sweet words to him and hug him close to her—and it never made sense to me. Nothing she ever said in those months made sense to me. And maybe that was the real reason she wanted to leave again. She certainly couldn’t lean on me, and stubborn as I was, I’d never let her feel like she could in the first place.
Sighing, I tried to concentrate on my work, but nothing seemed to hold my attention for long. I decided to open up my mail and check for new messages. I had a few emails that didn’t seem so important, and one from my aunt in Colorado. She checked in with me every now and again, and I made sure to stay in touch because she was the only real family I had left.
Of course Isabelle was family too, but ever since Daphne’s death she had started travelling. It was a way to escape and I understood that, but it also meant that we didn’t see her as often as we used to. She and I kept in contact only sporadically and when we did, it was all about Noah and not much else.
I noticed an email from Kristen that had been sent about an hour ago. There was no subject, which was off because she usually told me exactly why she was emailing in the subject line. I opened it up and started reading. The first line had my eyebrows up, and it soon became clear what the email was. It was a personal letter that she had penned in frustration and anger, and it was chewing me out for the way I had been treating her over the last few weeks.
At first, I was slightly annoyed by her tone and her bluntly direct insults. But as I read more and more of it, I realized that she had every right to write to me and every right to be outraged by my treatment of her. Somehow, I didn’t think she had it in her, but I was impressed that she had sent me the letter, at all. I read the letter once and then re-read it a second time. The second reading had me smiling a little, and I realized it was actually quite amusing. I didn’t take it lightly, nor was I brushing off her hurt; I just happened to like the spirit she showed.
The third time I read through the email, I started thinking about Daphne. She’d had the same fire in her. She was straightforward and forthright, and she was not afraid to say what she had to or call me out when she thought I was being a dick. That was what I had missed most about her after Noah’s birth. She had transformed into someone I didn’t recognize. I kept waiting for her to call me out half the time, and she never did. That should have tipped me off right there. She needed me, she was so far gone that she wasn’t really herself anymore, and I should have seen that.
There was something about Kristen’s letter that reminded me of Daphne. And instead of depressing me, it actually made me feel…better somehow. I liked the fact that she had referred to me as Jake in the email, completely ignoring the way she usually addressed me. I felt like something between us had shifted now, and I would always be just Jake to her. I realized I liked the informality.
I was about to go talk to Kristen, but then I decided to send her an email in return. I clicked reply and started typing.
“Kristen,” I wrote. “I received your email. I have to admit I was surprised to get it, but on the third reading, I realized that you are completely right. Now that I’ve officially gotten off my high horse, I would like to apologize for my behavior. I had no right to treat you as I have for the last few weeks. I would like to offer you a legitimate excuse for my behavior, but unfortunately, I have none. Sincerely, Jake.”
I pressed send and watched my email transfer. I sat back and smiled at the screen, wondering what Kristen’s reaction to my apology would be. I was still lost in thought when I saw my inbox blink as a new email came in from her.
All it said was, “I never meant to send that email.”
I almost laughed out loud. It was only one concise sentence, and yet I could sense how mortified she was.
“Really?” I replied. “What happened?”
“Um… I was venting, and I wrote the letter, and I accidentally pressed send instead of delete when you walked out here an hour ago.”
“I see. You were venting…by email?”
“It’s a cathartic tool that any good therapist will recommend.”
“You see a therapist?” I replied back.
“No, I don’t see a therapist. I can’t afford a therapist… My point is that it’s a legitimate practice—venting by writing down your feelings. You don’t actually have to send it; it just makes you feel better.”
“And did it?” I wrote. “Make you feel better?”
“It did, until I realized I had sent it and then I started freaking out because I actually like this job.”
“You assumed I would fire you?”
“Umm, yes.”
“Would you mind stepping into my office please?” I wrote finally, tired of the constant emailing back and forth. “I’d like to have a face-to-face chat with you.”
I didn’t get a reply back, so I assumed she was making her way into the office. Except one minute turned into two and then two minutes turned into five, and I wondered what was keeping her. I stood up and walked to the door. When I looked outside, I saw that Kristen was sitting by her desk, staring at her screen as though she didn’t know what to do. When she saw me standing there, she did a double take and clutched her heart.
“Jesus, I didn’t even see you standing there.”
“You were busy staring off into nothing.”
“I wasn’t staring off at nothing,” she replied. “I was staring at your last email.”
I smiled. “And, what about my last email was so confusing?”
“I… I…”
“I’m not going to bite, Kristen,” I said, at last. “I just thought it would be easier to talk in here, rather than out there. But if you prefer…”
I made as if to move towards her desk, but she stood up immediately. “No, you’re right,” she said in a panicked voice. “We’ll talk inside. It’ll be…better.”
I could tell she was nervous, and for a moment, that perplexed me. Was I really so scary that the thought of talking directly to me had her so unraveled? She was fiddling with her fingers as she walked into my office, she bumped into the chair, and she seemed to be biting her lip a lot.
“You seem nervous,” I said bluntly, sitting down in front of her.
“Uh… I suppose I am.”
“Why?”
“Because of the letter,” she replied.
“I told you that you were right, Kristen,” I said. “And, I meant it. I shouldn’t have apologized over email, though. I should have done it face to face, so I’ll do it now. I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you these last few weeks.”
Kristen stared at me for a moment as though she wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not. “You’re serious?” she said at last.
“Of course, I’m serious.”
“So your apology was sincere?”
I frowned. “Did you really think I was pulling your leg?”
“I can’t always read you,” she said honestly. “It makes me nervous sometimes because you’re not predictable. I thought you might be and making fun of me before you fired me.”
I don’t know why that upset me so much, but it did. I felt this deep-seated disappointment in myself and wondered how I had become this kind of guy.
“I hate that you think I would be capable of doing something like that,” I said.
Kristen frowned at me and looked like she wanted to say something, but she was holding her tongue because for all intents and purposes, I was still her boss.
“What is it?” I asked gently. “You can tell me.”
“Well… Given how things went recently, I wasn’t willing to put anything past you,” she explained haltingly.
I deserved that, but it still hurt. “I am sorry—sincerely,” I reiterated. “I know I was a complete jerk—and worse—and everything you said in your first email was absolutely on point.”
“You’re not mad at me?” Kristen asked uncertainly.
“No, I’m not,” I said honestly. “In fact, I’m mad at myself for how I’ve behaved towards you. I was completely out of line and very unprofessional. You did me a favor even though you didn’t have to, and I repaid you by kicking you out in the middle of the night. When I think about it now, I can’t quite believe that was me.”
“You know, you could benefit from writing your feelings down,” Kristen said, and even though her tone was light, I could sense the seriousness underlying it. “It seems like you have a lot of pent-up frustration.”
“You have no idea,” I replied darkly. “In any case, I want to make it up to you.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding immediately nervous. “No, really, that’s not necessary. All I really wanted was an apology, and now that I’ve got it, I’m happy.”
“That’s big of you, but you did suffer through weeks of my uncouth behavior towards you,” I said. “So it’s only fair that I try to make amends by taking you out to dinner.”
Her eyes went wide with surprise. She had clearly not expected that, and I was a little surprised at my own suggestion. I had made a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I realized that I didn’t want to rescind the offer.
“What do you say?” I asked.
“Uh… Well… I don’t know.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I insisted. “I have a meeting today at six. Hopefully, it should finish by seven, seven-thirty the latest. We can go for dinner afterward. I know this great little fusion place a few blocks from here.”
She just sat there silently for a while, considering my offer. “Tonight?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Unless you have plans?”
“I don’t.”
“Great,” I nodded. “Then it’s settled?”
“Um…sure.”
I smiled. “Great, I’ll call my babysitter and tell her she needs to stay a few hours longer.”
Kristen hesitated for a moment. “I guess… I’ll get back to my desk then.”
I nodded and watched her walk out. She definitely had similarities to Daphne, but there was something different about her, too. She was unlike Daphne in that she was a little shyer and a little less confident. But I sensed that Kristen had the same strength that Daphne had—she just didn’t know it yet.