I sent an email. I spent myself. By the same time, the next day, I found my emotions and thoughts rolled into a neat, perfectly packed ball of fear, anxiety, and nervousness.

How could she know, after all, that the thought of running into her gives me panic attacks, that I avoid the Red line as if it were contaminated, except on Wednesdays when I have to travel to the edge of Cambridge for my therapy appointments after work. I hold my breath on those days, and I hear words over and over in my mind. Words alternatively praying that she wouldn't be leaving work at the same time I was, that I wouldn't find myself staring at her across the tracks, that I wouldn't, if I did, blush and look away, or worse, start crying.

And then, there's the wishing that she would be there. That I could catch a glimpse of her. That I could be invisible to her but still a voyeur to her existence. And the desire to participate in a dialogue. To exchange ideas and days and experiences as easily and naturally as we once had.

Sitting in my kitchen after midnight, I tried to examine my feelings about the email I had sent. I tried to examine my feelings about where I was finding myself--I tried to think about my desire/lack there of to live--I tried to think about my weekend with Emi--tried to think about my feelings for Emi. But there was nothing I could focus on longer than to acknowledge its haunting.

Mary Beth, working on her photography, wanted to know about Emi. You two are getting pretty serious, arn't you? I had forgotten that I hadn't really explained anything about Emi to my roommates. She did, from their perspectives, just appear one day.

I was too distracted to have such a conversation with Mary Beth. I shrugged, smiled, She's beautiful, isn't she? I barely heard Mary Beth's response, I was lost, already within myself again.

But then, Mary Beth was sitting at the table with me, her face in her hands, looking at me intently. What do you two talk about when you're not having sex? I blushed, recalling just how much we had had sex that weekend, and how everyone in the apartment must have heard, at some point.

Waking to the conversation, recalling conversations. We talk about so much. We're always talking. It's really easy. I feel so comfortable with her. We share the everyday of life. That's what we have in common, mostly--the everyday of things.

That's really amazing.

Then, she returned to her film, and I returned to my reverie, blushing a little at Mary Beth's appreciation of two people coming together easily.

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