I dove in, managing to get an interview with Malcolm Saint to discuss Interface (his incredible new Facebook-killer) and its immediate rise to popularity. As obsessed as the city has been with his persona for years, I considered myself lucky to be in this position.

I was so focused on revealing Malcolm Saint that I let my guard down, unaware that every time he opened up, he was actually revealing me to me. Things I had never wanted were suddenly all I wanted. I was determined to find out more about this man. This mystery. Why was he so closed off? Why was nothing ever enough for him? I soon discovered he was not a man of many words, but rather a man of the right words. A man of action. I told myself that every inch of information I hunted was for this article, but the knowledge I craved was actually about myself.

I wanted to know everything. I wanted to breathe him. Live him.

But most unexpectedly of all, Saint began to pursue me. Genuinely. Wholeheartedly. And relentlessly. I could not believe that he would be truly interested in me. I had never been pursued like this, intrigued like this. I had never felt so connected to something—someone.

I never expected my story to change, but it did. Stories tend to do that; you go out searching for something and come back with something different. I wasn’t looking to fall in love, I wasn’t looking to lose my mind and common sense over the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen, I wasn’t looking to drive myself crazy with lust. But I ended up finding a little piece of my soul, a little piece that isn’t really that small at all: it’s over six feet tall, with shoulders about a yard wide, hands more than twice the size of mine, green eyes, dark hair, and it is smart, ambitious, kind, generous, powerful, sexy, and has consumed me completely.

I regret lying, both to myself and to him; I regret not having the experience to recognize what I was feeling the moment I felt it. I regret not savoring each second I had with him more, because I value those seconds more than anything.

However, I don’t regret this story. His story. My story. Our story.

I’d do it all again for another moment with him. I’d do it all again with him. I’d leap blindly into the air if only there were even a 0.01 percent chance that he’d still be there, waiting to catch me.

31

FOUR

Saturday.

The fourth one since.

There are still dozens of messages in my drafts folder that I won’t ever send to him.

I’ve still, more than ever, been living in the land of “what could’ve been” and trust me, this is a very sad place to live in. In the zip code of the lost, you breathe in regret with every breath, sadness permeating every space in which your body stands.

Of all the things that drive people to change, it is despair and sorrow that cause it most of all.

Sadness is so disempowering. Anger, on the other hand, demands action and empowerment. But I can’t get angry when it was me who put myself right where I’m standing.

I’ve spent weekends at the window of my apartment, trying to make myself want to go outside and not really feeling like it.

Never let anyone tell you that your life will return to normal after a hurricane.

I’ve got folders and folders with pics I can’t open.

A number I can’t dial.

A shirt I can’t wear.

A name I can’t say out loud.

The memory of a pair of eyes that will haunt me forever.

I live in fear of never seeing those eyes again. And in even more fear of what I’ll see in them if I do . . .

Helen had complained it was not what she had wanted.

She’d said it was “a love letter to Saint.”

But we all know stories are like that. Stories change. Just like people change. We change when we suffer, when we take, when we give, when we love. When you lose the object of your love, your normal will be perennially changed; there’s no returning to the old anymore. You have to rebuild stronger walls, change your expectations, and wait for the sunlight.

There’s nothing like a sunrise in Chicago, the orange-gold light shimmering over the buildings’ mirrored windows. I’ve watched the sunrises and the sunsets and I’ve watched it rain from this very window. I’ve watched Gina go out, and I’ve watched the cars drive by, not really focused on what colors they are, only that none of those cars belong to him.

My laptop hums nearby. Gina went out to lunch with Wynn, but I still can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm.

I’m trying to work on a new story. A story with good stuff. Stuff about people. Loss. And hope. And . . . forgiveness. I’m pouring tea for myself when my phone vibrates. The number is unlisted.