Page 121 of It Couldn't Be You
“Do you think he’lleveranswer you?” My mom said gravely.
“I assume he will. I’ve been thinking he just needs some time. Do you think he’snevergoing to talk to me again?”
“I don’t know, hon.” Mom yawned into the phone. “He was pretty cold at the engagement party.”
“What, you think I blew it for good with Gabe?” I gathered my purse, put my laptop into it, and started toward the subway. I needed to get out of the sun. The subway was hot and humid, but it would at least take me home.
“You two have been playing this back-and-forth game for years. For all I know, this is just another break in the game.”
“I’m done playing the game, Mom,” I said, making my way through the busy sidewalk.
“That may be true, but I do think it’s time you talk to Katie about all of this.”
Iwas in my head the entire subway ride back home, so much so that I almost missed my stop. Once I arrived in my doorway, I dropped my purse to the ground and let out a weighty exhale. I poured my thirsty self a giant cup of water and then collapsed onto the couch.
My clothes were sticking to me from sweat. My feet always ached after a journey back to the apartment. My brain was fried from writing, and after talking to my mom, my thoughts kept circling around what she’d said.
What if he never answers me?
I had been living with the assumption that eventually Gabe would talk to me. He would, at some point, send me a text or give me a call. Or in some dramatic fantasies, show up at my doorstep here in NYC. But either way, be it the dramatic drop in or a casual message, I had been expecting he would talk to me. Probably sooner rather than later. Leave it to my mother to get my mind stuck on The Worst-Case Scenario. Could Gabe be officially and fully blowing me off?
Had I gotten a handful of chances with Gabriel Hernandez and wasted every one of them?
His eyes when I rejected his olive branch of conversation on the plane kept appearing in my mind. The disappointment, the hurt, all of it left a lump in my throat. I burrowed deeper into the couch.
I closed my eyes, willing a nap to overtake me, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I needed to send an update on my project. I rolled onto the ground and went to the kitchen to find my laptop bag by the door—but the only thing there was my purse.
I halted in my tracks. Hadn’t I dropped it to the floor with my purse when I walked in the door? I replayed the memory in my mind, but I didn’t remember feeling my laptop bag on my shoulder—just my purse.
“No,” I said, panic vibrating in my veins. I had my laptop bag with me when I got onto the Subway. I remembered keeping it close. But I was deep in my thoughts, distracted, and frazzled when I almost missed my exit.
I must’ve left my laptop bag on the Subway. That bag had my laptopandmy external hard drive. It had everything I’d written. Past and present.
Including every word I’d written since arriving in New York.
Forty-Six
Mom
Sweetie, I think you could still find it. Don’t lose hope!
Ifound the Subway schedule online. I called any person I could call tied to the Subway. I asked about Lost and Founds, but my laptop bag was gone. I’d lost it.
I lost my work. I lost my articles, my essays, my random musings, my journal entries, past work I was proud of, works in progress, silly memories, and all the work I had put into my New York project. Every page…lost somewhere in Manhattan.
I cried. I called my mom. I called Katie. My mom told me not to lose hope that maybe it would somehow find its way back to me. Katie told me it sucked but that I would write so much more. She encouraged me that there was all the work still living on in the internet. But I still cried. It still hurt.
I spent the whole night stressing. I didn’t eat. I didn’t really sleep until the wee hours. The reminder on my phone that my project was due tomorrow afternoon woke me the next morning.
I kept looking around my apartment, just in case. I walked back to Washington Square Park and looked everywhere in the morning light—just in case. But it wasn’t anywhere. I was a sniffling mess.
I started to walk back home, each footstep like a tick on a clock as I marched closer and closer to my deadline. What would I do about my project? The question was louder than the city around me. I had to finally admit to myself that I couldn’t get it to them tomorrow afternoon. There was no way that could happen.
It was embarrassing. I had to call and tell them that my work wouldn’t be in on time, couldn’t be in on time, due to my own carelessness. Small town girl goes to NYC and doesn’t even know how to travel on the Subway safely. And this from the writer who was working on a project about visiting New York. I groaned in shame.
When I called and asked for an extended deadline, I explained the loss of my laptop, and they told me I could have a few more days but that the deadline was based on the editorial calendar, so they couldn’t offer any more time than that. The calendar was locked in.
Then I was asked, “Can you still write it?”
