Love Letter

Ian:

I had a day full of Lynne. Five months ago, even a month ago, I would have never imagined having another full day with her. Yet, I saw her all day and had her read my work all night along with her corresponding with me about it. My goal had been to have her thinking about me at least half of the day, which I was succeeding in.

"You take me out to dinner for the first time since you have been back, and you haven't been off of your phone the whole time," Amanda says, sipping her wine in front of her.

"I know I just have a lot of things going on with the new novel," I say, rechecking my phone to see if she had responded.

"You have it bad. I knew after New Year's you did, but I didn't think it was this bad," she says, staring at me with a smile on.

"She hasn't forgiven me; she is just editing it. She says it has to do with the fact that the book is about her, and she wants it portrayed correctly." I say, not like the response she had given me today before we had broken for lunch.

"Trust me, brother – if Keith lied to me like you had done to her, I wouldn't give him a second chance, let alone work with him like she is with you," she says.

"Why didn't you tell this to me before I started seeing her?" I ask, annoyed.

"Did you know you would want more from her after the holidays?" Amanda asks seriously.

"Not at first, but I think deep down I knew she was different," I say, looking down at my phone that had beeped, letting me know I had received an email.

Ian

One major flaw, I think... Shouldn't this be the chapter that revealed you took my journal from my room? Or was it later on? You did say you would tell the truth. Or do you want America to swoon at your feet thinking that you fell for a girl without knowing her thoughts from the worse year of her life? I will never understand why you feel you are falling for me or fell for me. But I think it needs to be added to make the story whole.

Don't be happy with me calling you Ian. I guess I can call my enemies in life by their respectable name.

Lynne

That was not the response I was hoping for, but I knew that it would be coming up at some time or another.

Lynne

I believe you are right and we will have to write this tomorrow at our meeting. I have decided that we should do daily meetings instead of weekly meetings for a novel like this.

Ian

I do not respond to why I knew I had fallen for her or the part where I am her enemy. She knew it, and I knew it at some point she would come around. I hope. I silence my phone the rest of the night and listen to the details of Amanda's life. She had gone back to being a personal shopper but was trying to expand into an art buyer. She thought it would be more riveting to pick out pieces for people's art collections. I didn't object and say that most people try to find somebody with an art degree but knowing how outgoing my sister was, I believed she could make it work. When I got in the cab to go home after dinner, I checked my phone and had no new emails from Lynne.

I was waiting in my office at nine am when I was expecting Lynne, who had not shown up.

I page Patricia, "Patricia, where is Lynne today? Can you find out for me? Thanks" a minute later, she pages back and lets me know she had called in sick to Marge.

Of course, I react instead of thinking and head over to Manhattan for the second time this week. I knock on the door when one of the twins answers it.

"Ian, right?" the twin says, looking at me.

"Right," I say, trying to look around them, and I see a blonde standing in the middle of the living room talking to the other twin. "Is Lynne home?" I ask.

"Yea... She is a little sick," he says, edging the door shut, but I walk through before he can close it. I head into the bedroom she had kept disappearing into the other night and find it empty. Walking out to the living room, I ask the other twin where she is at.

"In the bathroom," he says wearily.

"She is throwing up," the blonde, who I don't know, says to me. I can hear her vomiting from outside the door and push it open.

"Lynne..." I say, letting her know that I am there. She starts heaving into the toilet again, and I kneel down next to her holding her hair up out of her face. After a few more rounds of dry heaving, she sits against the back of the tub wall, looking exhausted. "Are you okay?" I ask lamely, not knowing what else to ask.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says sarcastically before leaning over the toilet again. I call out to the blonde to bring me a cup of water.

"Why she will just throw it up," the blonde says back.

"Just get me a cup of water and a pack of crackers," I say, annoyed at the blonde's attitude. Lynne is resting back against the bathtub when I speak to her, "Is it the stomach flu?" I ask.

"Drinking," she says, looking extremely exhausted. She thinks she is done vomiting for the moment, so I help her get to her room. I grab a bowl from the kitchen in case she is wrong about the vomiting.

The blonde brings in crackers and water after what seems like an eternity. "How much alcohol did she have last night?" I ask her.

"I don't know. I was just here with Zach when she got back. The bartender brought her home." She says, stepping out of the room looking at Lynne one last time before she shuts the door.

"I don't want to hear anything," Lynne says, closing her eyes.

"Sit up and eat some of these and drink some water," I puff out. Unbelievable... Drinking the water and having a handful of crackers seemed to help. When Lynne falls asleep, I step out to the kitchen to find some Advil for her but end up finding it in the bathroom cupboard. I sit the Advil and refill her water cup while she doses in her room. I take the seat in her desk chair and wait for her to wake. A copy of the chapters is on her desk with her notes sprawled out next to them. She had chapters three and four done already, and I wondered why she hadn't emailed me them.

"Ian," I heard coming from an angel's voice and awake to Lynne standing in front of me now in sweat pants and a sweatshirt instead of her skin-tight jeans and red tank top from the night before. Her black knee-high boots are rested against her closet door. "You didn't need to stay. I am fine," she says with her hands on her hips, and I know this is her way of pouting.

"From what I saw, you were far from okay... How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Fine," she says, annoyed. "I'll see you tomorrow at work? Okay?" she says.

"No drinking tonight?" I ask, hoping I can stay for just a little bit longer.

"I won't be doing that for a long time," she puffs out, blowing some of her hair out of her face, and I can tell now that it is wet. Meaning she took a shower before kicking me out instead of doing it right away.

"You don't want to go over the notes?" I asked, picking up my chapters from her desk.

"Tomorrow at work – I have company coming over..." she says, eyeing the door.

"Dressed like that?" I ask suspiciously. She shakes her head, opening her bedroom door for me to get up and leave. We get to the living room before a knock on the door, and I now know that Lynne was not lying about having someone come over. I pray that it is her annoying blonde friend. Lynne opens the door revealing Luke standing behind the door with a suitcase in his hand. This was not just a brief visit, but it would be a stayover. Perfect, like I didn't have enough things fighting against me already.

"Lynne," he says, dropping his bag and taking her in for a hug, a long hug. I was dead wrong – Lynne was capable of making a man jealous. I just never expected that she would do it to me.