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Which means, if everything goes as planned, I won’t see him again for two months.
That feels like an eternity.
And worse, I worry those eight weeks will morph into even more.
Last night, we finally managed to talk on the phone. It was the first time since he left Vail. With New Zealand being 17 hours ahead, it’s been hard to find times we’re both available. He’ll call and I’ll be in a meeting with Elise, or I’ll call and he’ll be asleep. Yesterday, he texted me that he’d be off work a little earlier than usual, so I stayed up to talk to him. Close to midnight, my phone rang, and I blinked away sleep and sat up to answer it.
“Aiden?”
“Maddie.”
I pressed my eyes closed as relief swelled in my chest.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, probably worried the call had dropped.
I smiled. “Yes. I can. Can you hear me?”
He laughed. “Yes. God, I’m so glad I caught you. Were you sleeping?”
“Not really. Just nodding off a little. Elise has had me coming into the office extra early this week to tackle some of the work that got pushed off during the holidays. It’s starting to take a toll.”
“I feel bad keeping you up.”
“No, no. I want to talk to you. It’s fine. I can drink an extra cup of coffee in the morning. Tell me what you’re doing. How’s New Zealand?”
We talked for over an hour, only hanging up because my incessant yawning started to get harder and harder to ignore.
Elise and I have back-to-back meetings today and a late work dinner with one of our clients. When I leave the restaurant and check my phone, I see a few text messages from Aiden. He wants to know if I can chat after I get off work, so I give him a call to see if he’s available, but it goes straight to voicemail. It’s work hours where he is; he’s probably busy.
The next day, Dan and I meet early to go over a proposal Elise wants on her desk by the end of the day. We’re at Brooklyn Bagels by the office, which is always packed, but we manage to find a spot at the bar set up near the front windows. We’re squashed together on stools when my phone starts to ring. My heart leaps into my throat when I see who it is.
“Do you mind if I take this really quick?” I ask Dan, holding up my phone so he can see Aiden’s name.
He motions for me to answer. “Not at all.”
Once the call connects, Aiden’s hard to hear on the other end because of all the background noise.
I cup my hand over my ear. “Hey, sorry. I’m at a restaurant so it’s kind of loud.”
He laughs. “Yeah, me too. Late lunch break. Thought you could chat with me while I eat.”
My heart drops. “I wish I could. I’m actually at a work breakfast.”
Dan leans in closer. “Hey Aiden.”
I laugh, but Aiden doesn’t.
“Who was that?”
“Dan. You remember? From the agency?”
“Right.”
“He and I work on campaigns together sometimes. We’re getting a presentation together for Elise.”
The noise in the bagel shop picks up tenfold as a mom of five walks in with her children in tow.
“You never mentioned it.”
I force out a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of ground to cover after everything, and it’s not as if we’ve been able to talk much.”
He sighs on the other end of the line, sounding tired. “Yeah. Listen, I’ll let you go. We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I hang up and stare down at my phone as a knot of anxiety settles in my gut. I knew it would be like this. We’re a world apart, and the lack of communication makes every little thing that much harder. Aiden never had a soft spot for Dan to begin with, but now, I can only imagine how he feels.
I want to shoot him a quick text, but what is there to say? I wish you were here? He already knows that.Two weeks go by like this, a constant battle of trying to sync up our schedules. I end up catching him for five minutes while I’m eating dinner or for a few seconds as I’m dashing off to SoulCycle or yoga with Elise. We’re both extremely busy, and the novelty of our situation wanes with each passing day. It’s getting annoying, and that annoyance hits a peak when I called Aiden to find him out with a group of reporters. No big deal. It’s just that I could hear a girl in the background, trying to get his attention. The way she said his name, the way I pictured them sitting together at the bar…it felt so deflating. I didn’t want to feel the tight pinch of jealousy in my stomach, the wave of worry about whether or not he and I can actually do this long-distance thing. It’s not that I don’t trust Aiden. I do, wholeheartedly. It’s that I was jealous of the girl for just being near him. I miss the ability to sit across from him at a bar and talk and not get cut off by opposite time zones.
