Chapter Eighteen

Then, the waiting game started. I decided to try to convince myself that I wasn’t obsessive by occupying myself with the paperwork I had abandoned in favor of tending to the felled employee, but that really only drove home how incapable I was of focusing in that moment.

So much time had passed since I had last seen Jerry and I sincerely feared that I had somehow offended him. On top of that, what if I had texted back way too late?

It seemed as if an egregious amount of time had passed since I had resolved to look over my paperwork, but whenever I checked it became clear that a single minute had barely passed.

You’re stupid, Ron, I kept telling myself. You’re stupid and you’re delusional. He doesn’t even like you that much. What do you think you’re thinking, you stupid idiot. You’re failing at keeping it together. You’re so dumb, you don’t even know what went wrong with Jerry and now you’re failing even worse by your complete lack of texting etiquette.

Okay. Let’s hold up the story for a minute and elaborate on how my mind works, lest anyone think that I have appallingly low self-esteem and need to be committed to the nearest psychiatric ward right away. Whenever there is a situation that I can’t immediately solve with my own actions, I turn on myself rather than taking any further action. In my experience, I’m more likely to be rewarded if I self-sabotage internally rather than externally.

I’m not saying this isn’t a neurotic trait; it definitely is wholly neurotic. But I have it more under control than anyone else might have you believe. Who knows how I would have handled the tension had I not had the benefit of internalized self-abuse.

By the time my phone jingled again, I practically levitated off my chair. I had been building up a simple text in my head for so long, I was afraid to even look at my phone.

It had been only fifteen minutes since I had texted him back, but it felt so much longer. When I finally gathered up the courage to look at the text, this was the response:

Sure.

“Ooooooh,” I let the air escape from my lungs deflating my body as all the tension I had built up in my body failed to have an appropriate outlet.

I’ve seen my fair share of films and television series that had endings that were unsatisfying, but nothing was so infuriating as that one word response.

Okay, I tried to reassure myself. Keep it cool. That doesn’t mean anything for sure.

But the fact that he had revealed so little was so infuriating! I had to hit him back with an equally unrevealing response. I texted back:

Where and when?

The ball was in Jerry’s court. For anyone else, this would have been the most boring tennis match dialogue in history, but in that moment, it was the most riveting thing I had ever experienced in my life!

I began to wear out the off-white Berber carpet in my company funded apartment by pacing in circles. When that wasn’t enough to sooth my anxieties, I picked up the nervous tick of snapping every five steps. It was times like that when I was glad I lived alone; anyone who saw me would more than likely try to have me committed.

I leaped again upon hearing my phone ding and rushed to where I had left it on the four chair, colonial style, dining room table.

I know this park by the lake, Jerry had texted back. Do you think you’d be able to make it there from work at four o’clock?

Jerry included a mapping app showing the quickest route from the Fresh Face Co-Op to a small, lakeside park. It wasn’t that far and I would be able to make it if I left the co-op by quarter to four.

Sounds good, I texted back.

I briefly considered adding an “I look forward to it” on, but I decided to keep things short and sweet just to save myself embarrassment just in case Jerry was holding a grudge for some reason and was preparing to lay in to me right there in a publicly owned space.

In a matter of minutes, Jerry texted me back.

See you then! It said.

And that was that.

Oh my goodness! I thought to myself. I feel as if I just went through a trial!

And in a way, I had.