Rosie didn’t call in the morning. I arrived into the office on Friday morning already aching, foul-tempered, and tired. Alexandra had brought in baked goods again—bagels this time—and I snagged one, grunted my thanks and immediately headed to my office to fume. She laughed at my scowl.

“Good morning to you too,” came Alexandra’s sarcastic voice as I retreated.

“Cancel my meetings this morning,” I replied. Alexandra didn’t care if I snapped at her, but that didn’t give me any right to do so. She’d certainly done nothing to deserve my shitty mood. “Please,” I added.

“Sure,” she replied around a mouthful of bagel. “Even the one that starts in five minutes?”

“Especially that one.”

I was in absolutely no mood to talk to anyone but Rosie. Until we made up, I was going to be a mess. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before.

I knew that Rosie wasn’t my dead girlfriend. She was my live one. Was it really so horrible that I wanted to keep it that way? Frustration welled up inside me again.

I gobbled down my bagel without tasting it and then felt additional frustration that I hadn’t tasted or enjoyed it. I didn’t even know what flavor it was. It could have been cinnamon or onion for all I knew. The second bagel I grabbed met the same dark fate as the first. I couldn’t seem to win for losing today.

“Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?” Alexandra chirped when I emerged for my third bagel. I frowned at her.

“I didn’t sleep well,” I told her. It was true, but I just didn’t want to talk and she could tell. “I’m in no mood to chat.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me and let it drop. She wasn’t intimidated, she just didn’t care. Alexandra had seen me in bad moods before. She knew better than to try and engage me in meaningful conversation. It would just be painful for us both.

“I cancelled your meetings,” she said instead. “You’re probably going to get some very nasty emails from some very nasty people.”

“Ugh. Thank you.” I sighed. “I’ll deal with the emails.”

I tried to get out of the room as quickly as I could, but Alexandra rolled her chair in my path. She was determined to work. All I wanted to do was waste time alone in my office until Rosie called.

“Rebecca called and said that she’d be flying in tonight,” Alexandra told me. “She wants to meet you for dinner.”

“Ok.”

“She wants a call back ASAP.”

“I’ll email her.”

“She wants a call.”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want. She’s getting an email.” Ordinarily I’d call Rebecca, she was an old friend and a mentor. But today? Today all I could do was fume and worry.

“Calvin Ross called, too.”

“Good for him.”

“He said something about coming into town and seeing you and Rosie.”

Alexandra’s tone was neutral, but I could see the questions in her eyes. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t have the answers at the moment. I nodded and tried not to give anything personal away. I’m not sure it worked. Alexandra shook her head and looked back down to her computer.

“Ok. I’ll call him,” I replied. I went back to my desk and didn’t call him. I assiduously ignored his texts and didn’t open his emails. There was only room for one Ross in my life today.

Every ten minutes I checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed a call or a text from Rosie. I was worse than a lovesick teenager. After an hour or so of that, I almost called her but managed to summon the will to resist. I wouldn’t be the one to break this silence. Not only was I too stubborn, but it wouldn’t be right.

Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she was hungover and didn’t want to talk. Maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me, at all. Ever.

I read and re-read over our text conversation and winced over every word. I should have cut the conversation off and not continued to engage in a pointless fight with a drunk woman. I should have known better. It was childish and stupid. Although I thought the blame was shared among us, I’d been the sober one in the conversation.

I paced around my office, more distracted than I could recall being in a long, long time. Had I acted stupidly? Yes. Definitely. But so had she.

As I paced, I considered her points. She might have been drunk, but it was true what she said. There were few countries that took as puritanical an approach to the drinking age as the United States. Just like I’d once argued about pot, it was a political decision and not a public health decision that prevented legal adults from acting like legal adults in bars. Shaming her was never going to fix the situation last night.

If I considered Rosie to be old enough to make decisions about her life (and of course I did), then I really shouldn’t have said anything about her getting drunk. She wasn’t wrong that she didn’t need another person in her life trying to dictate what she did. My head was starting to hurt.

I had been hungry, tired, and not at my best at midnight when we argued. Now that I was removed from the situation, I regretted everything I said. Every single word of that conversation had been a mistake. My head was pounding, but my heart was hurting more. I feared that I’d pushed Rosie too far. I’d pushed her away from me.

Late that afternoon, I received a call from Rebecca, who of course I never emailed. I'd been too busy obsessing over Rosie.

“I’m in town,” Rebecca said by way of a greeting. “Come pick me up?”

I blinked in confusion. “You’re still at the airport?”

“No. I’m not that helpless and needy. I’m at my hotel. Come pick me up and we’ll go to Rosie Ross’ show together. You were right, of course. I am interested in her. She’s really something.”

Yes, she was. I looked over at the clock and realized Rosie’s show started in an hour. Adrenaline shot through me, and I stood straight up. Alexandra must have gone home without saying anything. The whole day had gone by and Rosie had never called.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I told Rebecca.

Part of me wanted to call Rosie, but we were barely starting our relationship; it was still delicate. If I was going to be true to everything that I’d told myself was true about respecting Rosie, I had to let her call. I couldn’t call her. If she never called, then she never called. That would be it.

But if she never called, then she’d never know that I was in love with her.