I met him at the office orientation party, along with all the other new hires. I met a lot of people that night, but no one made an impression on me like he did. He was dashing and funny, and I felt an instant attraction to him. I remember listening intently to him when it was his turn to introduce himself. He mentioned having a wife, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. He smirked when he mentioned it, and my intuition told me that he thought of her more as an irritating friend than a real partner.
After orientation I had to put a little effort into seeing him since he was in a different department than I was. I had a lot of flexibility in my schedule, though, and after a week of trial and error I figured out when he took lunch and adjusted my break to match his. He smiled when I “accidentally” ran into him in the cafeteria. He was reading a book and sitting alone, and I asked if I could join him, throwing in a line about how us new hires need to stick together and all. He probably would have preferred to read his book alone, but he was polite enough. After work that day I found a copy of the same novel and skimmed through it so I’d have something to talk to him about the next day.
When he started reading a new book, some young adult fiction I had never heard of before, I was able to just start reading it at the same time and didn’t have to fake anything. The next few weeks I really enjoyed those lunches. We only talked a little about work. He opened a new world for me – many new worlds, I guess – reading those dumb novels instead of focusing on spreadsheets and manuals.
When the opportunity to go on a trip with him came up, I jumped at it. The idea of almost a full work week travelling with him, just the two of us, was perfect. He had never mentioned his wife while we were together, and I never asked, clearly, she wasn’t that important to him. I fantasized about him, about us as high school students in a haunted school, or as young heroes about to go on a big adventure together.
It was only going to be about a four-day trip, but I knew this would be my big chance! We were alone, together, and I waited as long as I could, but by the end of the first day I tried to kiss him.
He pushed me away, gently. He wasn’t rude, and he asked if I was okay. I played it off – said it was the excitement of the trip, about the mission. Said I was tired from all the excitement. He laughed, said he understood, and mentioned that his wife was jealous he had been accepted into the program and she hadn’t.
I smiled back, but inside I felt I was dying. I was a professional though. I didn’t say anything, but I knew this hurt was going to take time to heal, and the next day when he left the capsule for his spacewalk, I locked the airlock. I needed my space. He broke my heart, and I was not going to forgive him that easily.
If he had been a real gentleman, he would have understood that and respected my wishes to be alone. But here he was, just banging on the hatch, demanding I let him back in, crying about needing air and reentry. I turned the radio off. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need him! I just needed some space.
#story
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