This is what is going to happen. I am going to be brave. On Monday, I will go into the office first thing in the morning. My hair will be capped with snow, and a mug of coffee will be warm in my hand. I am going to make a bunch of copies, and when I am done, I am going to walk over to his desk and say, "When are you going home for Christmas?"
"Friday," he'll say. "Right after work. You?"
"I don't know," I'll answer. "I live close by, so I'll probably only stay home for a couple of days. Maybe Sunday to Tuesday. How long do you have off?"
"I have to be back on Wednesday."
"That sucks. Not long enough." I'll take a sip of my coffee, and then, like an afterthought, I'll say, "You and me should do something over break. All my roommates are taking off for a while, and people from school will be gone, so there won't be much going on. Do you want to?"
And he will say, "Sure." He might hesitate, and my breath might catch, but then he'll do that little laugh he does every time I talk about something other than work, and his face will have that glow. I'll be looking down at him, standing over his desk, and I'll catch a glimpse of his blue eyes over his glasses.
"Cool," I'll say. "I'll email you. Or you email me, or something. And we can...I don't know. Drink. Or whatever."
He'll laugh again, and I'll know I'm making him nervous. But not bad nervous. Just a happy, shy sort of nervous. 'I think she just asked me out' sort of nervous. Then I'll smile and say, "Have a good holiday!" And I'll leave, without tripping over my feet.
I will be too scared to write him -- I know myself that well - but a few days after Christmas I will run into him at the coffee shop. We will both be shivering, and he'll rub his hands together and blow on them to keep them warm, the way I've seen him do before. We'll talk for a while and then I'll say, "Hey, I was going to email you a couple days ago, but I got caught up in some stuff. We should still hang out, though."
"Yeah," he'll say, and I'll be scared that I hear doubt in his voice, but I'll suck it up and plow on.
"What are you doing tonight?" I'll ask. I'll shrug like it's casual but everything will go still around me, like I just ran off a cliff and am waiting to fall.
"I don't know," he'll say. In this moment I'll see the girl I think he likes instead of me, the girl he made all that eye contact with at the office party, the girl who -- and this is the thing of it -- is kind of like me, except she's skinnier and wittier and just enough older to be cool. The girl who had a boyfriend for the past six years, but is now single again, and is looking for a rebound. The girl who isn't that interested in him -- who will be moving, actually, at the end of the year -- but will let him catch hold of her, for a while. The girl he's been in love with all this time.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
Maybe he just thinks she's cute.
Maybe he knows he has no chance.
Maybe it's nothing.
Maybe.
Because maybe he'll say, "Well, I was going to stay here and work on a story for a while, but -- yeah. We could go."
"Sweet," I'll say. "Want to stay here and work for like an hour, and after that we can go and have a beer at McCarthy's or something?"
"Yeah," he'll say, his voice rasping, and then, "Yeah," again, but with more assurance. We will sit at the same table and I'll read and he'll write, and I'll feel the heat building up around the two of us, enveloping us both in its glow.
That hour will be like the hours you spend lying awake at night before Christmas morning, except that the anticipation will be mixed with a certainty that what I'm dying for will never come, that something will come up, that we'll run into someone we know, that he'll get tired or get a phone call or change his mind. Because when you want something this bad, you never, never get it.
But an hour later, he'll push the screen down on his laptop, and say, "Ok. You want to go?"
And I'll say, "Sure," and my face will be flushing and I'll be worried that I'm sweating and my heart will beat fast and I'll be talking a mile a minute as soon as I open my mouth. I am lovesick. I have known it for months, and I've become familiar with the symptoms. But I've never had it this bad -- the fever is peaking, and I'm going either to get over it or die.
