Longing For Him

CHAPTER 4: The Wait

Jennie

It’s Monday late in the afternoon and back in my room in my parents’ house. The interview is over. Finally. I close the door behind me and stand there for a moment, letting the silence settle around me.

My heels come off first. I drop them beside the bed and sit down, rubbing the ache from the backs of my feet. Only then do I notice the half-packed suitcase sitting in the corner.

I stare at it.

Right.

My new apartment. I paid for it weeks ago. The lease is signed, the deposit transferred and the keys are waiting for me. All that is left is for me to move in.

I plan to move in over the weekend. This should give me Just enough time to get settled, unpack my things and buy whatever I need.

My eyes travel around my childhood bedroom. The familiar curtains, the bookshelf I’ve had since I was a teenager and the framed photographs on my dresser.

I glance at the suitcase again. It feels almost absurd that my entire future is sitting in an apartment across the city, waiting for me while I’m here staring at the same walls I grew up with. I smile faintly.

Then my mind drifts back to the interview. I replay the interview in my head.

.

Did I sound too confident? Not confident enough? Was that answer actually good, or did I only think it was good because I had spent the last hour trying not to panic?

And then there was him. Of course there was him. I try not to think about what it would mean if I actually get the job. I fail spectacularly.

They said they would reach out by the end of business. So I wait.

I check my email.

Then check it again.

End of business.

I glance at my phone.

Nothing.

The sky softens into amber and rose, the day loosening its grip as shadows stretch long and thin. Light turns gold, then violet, then fades to a hush. The air cools as the sun dips below the world’s edge. Still no news.

I tell myself that no news is probably just no news. That's the lie I keep feeding myself, over and over, until it almost tastes true. But underneath it, I know. If they wanted me, I'd have heard by now.

I go to bed feeling the weight of it settle into my chest, heavy and dull like something I swallowed and can't digest. I keep replaying the interview, picking apart every answer, wondering which word gave me away and which pause cost me everything.

It’s now Tuesday morning. My eyes are barely open before my thumb finds the email app on its own. It’s 6:52 a.m. Nothing there. Of course there’s nothing there. It’s not even seven.

My head is pounding, a dull ache pressing behind my eyes. Getting out of bed feels like negotiating with gravity itself and every limb feels heavier than it should, my body refusing to cooperate with whatever plan I thought I had. I sit on the edge of the bed for a full minute just staring at nothing, willing myself into motion.

The walk to the bathroom is somehow an ordeal. My legs feel disconnected from the rest of me, like I’m operating them from a delay. I catch my reflection in the mirror and barely recognize the person looking back. My eyes are red-rimmed and my skin is pale.

I check my phone again before I even turn the shower on. Still nothing. The water is too hot and I don’t fix it. I just stand there and let the water run over me, my mind looping the same fragments it’s been looping since last night. I don’t know how long I’m in there. Long enough that my fingers start to prune. Long enough that the steam fogs the mirror completely.

I check again the second I’m out, towel still dripping onto the bathmat. Nothing.

I brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair and pull on whatever clothes are closest. I don’t remember deciding to do any of it. Somewhere between the shower and getting dressed, my morning routine just happens without me fully present for it. I just look up at some point and I’m dressed, standing in my room, phone in hand, staring at an inbox that refuses to give me anything.

I drag myself downstairs sometime after 9, each step feeling heavier than it should. My eyes are scratchy and swollen from a night of half-sleep, the kind where you drift off just enough to dream in fragments: an inbox, a phone screen, a voice reciting my own answers back to me, before jolting awake again. I never actually slept. I just lay there, negotiating with the ceiling.

The kitchen downstairs is empty. My parents have already left for work. Dad had an early call with the Singapore office and Mom’s at some board thing she mentioned twice last night like I’d forget otherwise. Marisol must have come and gone already. There’s a plate under a warmer on the island, eggs, toast and fruit arranged with more care than I have energy to appreciate right now, a note in her looping handwriting telling me to actually eat instead of just staring at it.

I sit at the island and prop my phone against the fruit bowl where I can see it without even having to lift my head. The kitchen is too quiet, all marble and morning light.

I poke at the eggs pushing them around the plate in slow, distracted circles. Every bite tastes like nothing. Marisol’s cooking is good, the best actually. But today it barely registers. The fruit goes untouched. The toast goes cold.

I try to distract myself by scrolling through nothing in particular, opening apps I don’t even care about, reading the first line of three different articles and absorbing none of them. I nudge my water glass a half-inch to the left for no reason. I count the veins running through the marble countertop.

Who takes this long to send a two-line rejection or nothing at all? A company that prides itself on “moving fast and building bold” apparently can’t move fast enough to hit send on one email. I picture some hiring manager in an overpriced blazer, sipping an oat milk latte, “circling back” on my file sometime between his lunch meeting and his tee time.

By noon, I have refreshed my inbox so many times I half expected sss to send me a cease and desist. I text Riley:

“Still nothing.”

She writes back: “It’s not even been two days. Breathe.”

Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one who’d spent days rehearsing answers about her “greatest weakness” in the shower.

I try working out but that only hurts my legs. I try lying face-down on my bed for exactly six minutes which, needless to say, doesn’t help. Somewhere around 2 p.m., I start composing follow-up emails in my head. I give up.

I open my laptop and start online shopping for throw pillows, shower curtains, a coffee table and whatnot. The whole time, my eyes keep drifting to the corner of the screen. An hour disappears like that.

My computer chimes and I freeze. It’s 4:52 p.m. My heart slams against my ribs. I look at the notification. Sterling Group. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. My finger hovers over the notification.

I swallow, then click.

There it is.

‘Subject: Congratulations – Director of Real Estate Investments’

My eyes scan the first line.

‘Dear Jennie,

We are pleased to formally offer you the position of Director of Real Estate Investments at Sterling Group.’

I stop reading. A sound escapes me and it’s half laugh, half gasp. I read it again. And again. The words don’t change.

‘We are pleased to formally offer you…’

I GOT IT.

I shoot out of bed so fast my computer nearly slides off my lap. I scream, grabbing the nearest pillow and smothering another scream into it before throwing it across the room.

I slap both hands over my mouth, but it does nothing to contain the grin stretching across my face.

My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold my laptop when I pick it up. My whole body feels charged, like I’ve swallowed electricity. My knees are weak, my heart is racing and I can’t seem to stand still.

I laugh again, breathless, and pace across the room before stopping abruptly. I need to write this down. I cross to my dresser and pull open the bottom drawer.

I take it out slowly. I sit on the bed and open it. The pages slip naturally beneath my fingers. I read the words as I turn the pages.

‘I saw someone today wearing your jacket .’

Turn.

‘I miss you. Do you miss me too?’

Another.

‘Do you ever wonder where I am?’

My handwriting changes as I turn the pages; from the neat and careful letters to desperate ones. There are dates I remember without having to read them.

My thumb rests against one page. Another entry.

‘I wonder if you hate me yet.’

I swallow.

‘I love you.’

My smile fades.

For a moment, the excitement drains away, leaving something quieter in its place.

I turn to the first blank page. The sadness doesn’t disappear exactly, but it makes room. I pick up my pen and for a few seconds, I simply stare at the empty page.

Then I write.

‘September 10.’

I smile.

‘I got the job.’

My hand trembles as I write the next sentence. My chest tightens.

‘And back to him.’

I stare at the words for a long moment before smiling again. For the first time in four years, I don’t feel like I’m writing about something I’ve lost. I’m writing about something I might finally get back.

I close the diary and hold it against my chest for a moment before placing it carefully on my nightstand. Then it hits me again. I have a job and my first day is going to be here before I know it.

I sit up and wonder what I’m going to wear. I get up, open my closet and push the hangers aside as I rummage through my clothes.

I groan. Why does dressing for a first day suddenly feel like a matter of national importance? My fingers pause over a black dress. I pull it out, hold it against myself and study myself in the mirror.

My heart gives a nervous flutter. I have absolutely no idea what to expect when we finally see each other.

Will he be angry?

Cold?

Or will I see something in his eyes that tells me these four years weren’t only difficult for me?

The uncertainty makes my stomach twist with a strange mixture of fear and anticipation. I’ve imagined that moment more times than I can count. In some versions, he looks at me with hurt in his eyes. In others, with nothing but love.

Sometimes, he simply walks away.

But whatever version I’ve created in my head, the reality was nothing like I had imagined.