What I Miss About You

Purgatory - Ben & Natalie

                                                                                Ben

After returning from Texas with Shane, I threw myself into my work. It wasn't hard, especially once I had ascertained where Natalie was with one phone call. When we had talked the other night I'd heard the riverboat, a strange noise I never heard before coming from her end. Didn't take me long to figure out what it was though. A few phone calls ascertained she was at the River Inn in Memphis. So, she was in her hometown in Tennessee. Although the thought made me uneasy, I did feel a little better at least knowing where she was and if she didn't return on Monday, I would book a flight and go see her myself, whether she wanted it or not. Smug and self-satisfied at figuring out her location, I was once again able to concentrate on the job at hand. The one complication that still remained was what to do about Shane.

She was still extremely vulnerable and in shock over her father's death. I was completely sympathetic because of the rocky yet close relationship I shared with my own father. I couldn't imagine life without him. In the days following the funeral, Shane was extremely needy, clingy, and cried a lot. Obviously, she did not return to work but took a prolonged bereavement leave. She spent that leave with me at my apartment, so that every night when I went home she was there, needing me, and filling me with such extreme guilt that I thought it would eventually eat me alive from within. Those nights when I held Shane close to me, my body was aching for Natalie. I had inexplicably put myself in a hell of my own making.

Christmas was almost near us, and the December issue of Disculture was to feature mine and Natalie's story about Dr. Heinrich. Our fellow journalists would come by my office to offer their congratulations or pat me on the back at the water cooler, congratulating me on the upcoming story. But every time they did, I would find myself looking over at Natalie's empty desk and thinking she should be here to receive her half of this and praying I would see her again soon.

There was a protest on Wall Street that Addison wanted me to cover and even though I hated things like this, it was the perfect excuse to get out of the office for a few hours. If one more person stuck their head in my office and congratulated me on the story as if Natalie had taken no part in it, I was going to explode.

I stepped out onto the busy sidewalk, my cameraman and sound guy in tow, and I gestured them to follow me down the street with a tilt of my head. Burying my hands in the pockets of my overcoat as I walked, I thought again of Natalie. I turned over scenarios in my head, scenarios where Shane made it easy on me by breaking things off herself, telling me she's taking a job at another newspaper or magazine, or even better that she was moving back to Texas. I felt like such a shit for thinking such things, but it would be so much easier if it could be her idea instead of mine.

"What a goddamn clusterfuck!" I murmured under my breath, surveying the crowd on Wall Street, but not referring to it.

Calvin, my cameraman, looked at me oddly. "Say what, Collins?"

I shook my head in irritation. "Nothing," I signed. "Just nothing."

I was rude, acidic, and pushy with my questions and style of interviewing that day. I'm sure every person at that protest thought I was a complete asshole, and maybe I was. I just didn't fucking care. I was a pining idiot and I knew it. And I just didn't care about that either.

I wanted Natalie. I needed her. It was the one fact of which I was completely sure during those long, cold gray November days without her.

                                                                             Natalie

I unlocked the door to my apartment, Minuet in one hand, and my overnight bag slung over my opposite shoulder. As I stood in the open doorway, I noted how cold and lonely the place seemed. I had learned when I first moved to New York that November was the most disagreeable month in the calendar. And it seemed even more so now with everything that had happened.