24. Free Panties

Now not only did I miss Cayden, but I was also sexually frustrated. Not a good combination. I'd find myself thinking about him when I'd fall asleep at night, knowing he'd be waking up within the hour to start his day. I'd close my eyes and have flashbacks of the night we spent together. They were getting fuzzier and the details were fading, so I wrote it all down (which you read earlier). I still checked my phone all the time, and I'd get all excited to see I had an inbox message waiting for me. Then my heart would sink when I'd see it's just another Victoria's Secret free panty offer. Why the fuck do I need sexy panties? Not like anyone was going to see them! I wanted to e-mail VS and tell them to stop with the torture.

Things were going great at work. I was loving my job and making friends with my coworkers easily. We'd drink beer at our cubicles on Fridays and go out to lunch as a group on Mondays. There were so many things I wanted to tell Cayden about. I commuted an hour and a half to work and an hour and a half back. It was too much thinking time. I needed to get an apartment closer to work, stat. First I needed to buy my own car, not that I didn't fully enjoy driving dad's Honda CRV for free. It was like driving a toy Tonka truck. Turn too fast and you'll end up on two wheels. But it got great gas mileage. I had no idea what kind of car I wanted. The only car I'd ever wanted was a Mitsubishi 3000GT, and I'd already bought two of those. They were beautiful, but unreliable. It was time for a big-kid car. So I bought an Infinity G35 Coupe. I snapped a picture of it and almost sent it to Cayden, but stopped myself. He wouldn't care I bought a car. He didn't want me. Wonderful--Cayden didn't want me and Brady didn't want to have sex with me. But everything else in my life was perfect. I guess sometimes you just can't have it all. But at least I got my free panties.

One night on my way home from work, mom called.

"Do you want tilapia or chicken for dinner?"
"Hmm, tilapia. I should be home in about an hour or so."
"Traffic's that bad?"
"Yeah. Mom?"
"Yes?"
"I miss Cayden."
"So why don't you email him?"
"What? No! I can't just be his glorified pen pal. No, thanks! If he doesn't want me, I just have to deal with it."
"Whitney, you know it's not that he doesn't want you, he just can't be with you right now. That doesn't mean you can't have a friend in London who's excited for you when you tell him how your day was."

She had a very valid point. I hadn't thought of it that way. Looking back, all of our emails had been strictly friendly anyway aside from the occasional "I can't wait to be back in bed with you," or "I just want to kiss you again," comments leading up to the trip he was planning to Texas. So, was it possible for us to go back to that? Talk like we used to, just with the understanding that we probably won't see each other again? Just the thought of being able to wake up to his emails again sent a jolt through my body. I had to do it. I had to email him right then. I almost pulled over on the side of the road to email him from the car, but decided against it. I'd go home, enjoy dinner, talk to mom more about it, maybe call one of my sisters, and then sleep on it.

October 20, 2009
It had been a month since we'd last talked. I caved.

(Just a heads up to my readers: You'll probably find this email VERY boring, so feel free to skim it. Reading over it now I almost fell asleep.)

"So, after having a lot of time to sit and think about it, I decided I want to try to talk to you as a long-distance friend, rather than not at all. I've gotten over the fact that we're not going to be anything more than that, and I think I can handle that. I've just really missed being able to email you and talk to you about all the big things that have been happening in my life, not in a romantic way, but just in a I-can't-wait-to-tell-you-about-this way. Do you think we can give that a try?

I figure there's really no reason not to keep in touch and to lose the friendship that formed over these past few months just because we probably won't see each other again. It's still fun to have a long-distance pen pal to hear from every now and again. So no, we probably shouldn't talk 3 times a day or anything like that, but I'd love to hear from you every now and then.

Just a few updates from the last time we talked. My going away party was INCREDIBLE. SO many people came and it was absolutely perfect. At the beginning of it, it was really chill, just my really close friends dressed up all fancy enjoying drinks on the roof. By the end of the night, oh man, we were dancing like crazy people until 6 am! Remember that band Akudama I talk about sometimes? (I was in their music video) Well, the singer came to my party and played a few songs privately just for me. It was so beautiful, I almost cried. Then he partied with us until 6. He's so musically talented it's unbelievable.

Then on Sunday morning, I woke up to my phone ringing like crazy. It was my mom calling. She said she was downstairs and to buzz her up! My parents came and surprised me!! I was SO EXCITED! I was pretty sad that I was going to move before they got to see Brooklyn and meet my friends here. They were in Rhode Island for my dad's high school reunion, and it was only 3 hours away, so they decided to drive over to Brooklyn for the day before they flew back to Texas the next day.
So I got to show them the apartment, and then they took me, Lea, Alexa, Christian, and Scott out for brunch, and then I took them to the pier where you can look at Manhattan from the water. I had never been to the pier before, and I regret that, because the view was something else. They loved my friends here, and loved my roof, but thought my apartment was really small. Haha, little did they know that was HUGE for an NYC apartment.

So, anyway, I finished up work on Tuesday and said goodbye to all of my coworkers without crying. Then I packed up my room on Wednesday and said bye to everyone else without crying. I don't know how I managed to do that, because I really thought I'd be an emotional wreck.
So, have you ever heard the saying that "everything's bigger in Texas?" Well, besides the houses and things like that, I realized today that it's the sky that blows my mind. The sky goes on FOREVER. It's so big and vast, like you can see on and on. It feels strange, actually. I mean, it's beautiful, yes, but at the same time, it makes me feel very exposed. I know it sounds crazy, but it's almost a creepy feeling. Even the sun was HUGE! I don't know if I've ever seen the sun that big before. Sure made for a colorful (and HUGE) sunset though.

Well, I'm sure I just bored you with a long, random email, before I even gave you the chance to say if you wanted to keep talking or not. So.... if you'd rather not talk to me, I understand, and just don't respond to this email. But I'd love to hear what's been going on in your life. Hope to hear from you."

Then, I waited.