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Maybe that’s why I have yet to have a lasting relationship ever since. I haven’t found anyone who can replace him.
I walk into the locker room with my duffel bag over my shoulder, ready for my morning skate, and look for a place to sit.
I drop my duffel bag to the ground and find a bench near the showers. My hands are almost shaking with anticipation, and I can barely keep the phone still.
A small pang of hesitation about my excitement rises in me as I remember what he did. He up and left with zero notice and no explanation of why we could no longer correspond via email. I mean, where could you go where you haven’t had internet for the last four years?
He could have gotten an internship as a polar bear habitat researcher in Antarctica. However, satellite internet has come a long way.
Or maybe he became a fisherman like you see on those Bering Sea tv shows. But even they come to town during the off-season.
The option I hate to think about, but the place my mind can’t help but go to, is that maybe he had a serious girlfriend the entire time, and they were getting married and starting a life. Maybe he could sense that I was getting attached and didn’t know how to let me down easily, so he made up an excuse to sever the correspondence.
Nothing about our conversations could be construed as inappropriate if one of us had been dating someone else. And it’s not as if he led me on. It was the emotional intimacy that drew me closer.
It was the fact that anytime my phone pinged with the sound of a new email coming in, I’d practically drive to my cell to see if it was from him.
I was starting to develop real feelings for him, and I had just gotten up the courage to ask him to meet up when I received his ‘Dear John’ letter.
If I ever want my answer to everything that happened and if I had made up the closeness between us in my head, now is the time to find out.
Once and for all.
The moment the email opens, my eyes dart to the sender to double-check and ensure I’m not hallucinating.
From: WinTheDay067
To: SkatrGirlPen
Pen,
I hope this is still your email address and that this letter finds you well. I know I disappeared on you after my last email and I’m sorry for that. I want you to know that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day I left and have thought about emailing every day since. But trust me when I say it was better this way.
The reason for my email is to tell you that I’m back in Seattle. And I guess… I just want you to know.
He hopes this email finds me well?
He’s thought about me every day since he left but didn’t email me?
Does that mean that he did have internet but chose not to reach out to me on purpose?
He wants me to trust that no communication was all for the better?
And what the hell do you mean that you’re back in Seattle and you just want me to know?
I want to be excited about this email but how can I be with everything he just said? It doesn’t answer a single question that I’ve had for all these years.
I suppose I was expecting an actual explanation of where the hell he went and why.
Telling me that he witnessed a murder and was in the witness protection program. Or that he’s a special forces operative in the military and has been entangled in a deep undercover mission for the last four years with strict guidelines to never correspond with the outside world would have been better than:
Hey Pen, I’ve thought about you and wanted to get in touch with you… but decided against it and I’m not going to tell you why. Also, I’m back in the same town as you… surprise!
I can’t pretend that I’m not happy to hear from him. It gives me some kind of small inkling that he’s reaching back out after all these years because I’m not the only one who felt something between us. But on the other hand, if he thinks I can just pretend that he didn’t hurt me by leaving like we shared nothing over the short months that I tutored him, he’s got another thing coming.
I debate what I’m going to email back to him for a second. The bulleted list of questions I’d like to send would probably be too aggressive right out of the gate. And though I’m not pleased with his lack of explanation, his timing with Slade coming back in the picture means I have someone to talk to who truly understands the situation. I hate to admit this, but I could really use his advice and support right now.
Neither Tessa, Autumn, or Isla were in my life at that time. And it’s not as if I wanted to have a heart to heart with my father over the situation either. I think he felt some guilt that it was one of his players that ruined my Olympic dreams and caused me to drop out of college.
