A Selfish Moment

12 - Everett - 5:00 PM

Time flies when you are in the thick of writing code. I spent the entire day completing an update to an application I had slated for later this week. I couldn't sleep until four in the morning last night, and woke up at ten and felt completely refreshed. The solution was in my head and I had to bang it out. No interruptions, no distractions, just whipping together hundreds of lines of code on my laptop, in my living room, with the view of the East River spanning my windows. It's been therapeutic. I've almost completely forgotten about Jubilee.

Jubilee Sun Ray.

I laugh at my weakness and shake my head in defeat. I shut down my editors and all my command windows and open up a browser. No reply on my Facebook friend request. Maybe I'll send her another friend request tomorrow, maybe an email, just to nudge her a little. And if she doesn't reply then...I guess I'll have to let her go. The possibility saddens me and I rub my forehead to release the tension.

I need to get out.

Forty five minutes later I'm jogging aimlessly around the winding paths of Central Park. The air is cool and the sun has started to set behind the western skyline, leaving the atmosphere perfect for running a few miles. My heart rates picks up, my feet pound the pavement, and the sound of my breath drowns out all thoughts in my head. Breath in, step step, breath out, step step. My dad taught me about breathing and sports long ago. "If you lose control of your breath, you're done. Everything you do should be done in coordination with your breathing pattern," my dad would say on the few times I ran with him in high school. My dad ran at least five miles almost every morning before work. I remember waking up to get ready to go to school and my dad would come home as sweaty as if it had been raining buckets outside.

My phone vibrates in my left pocket. I slow down to a walk, pull out my phone and see an unread text message.

Isaac: Forget about dinner, I got a date with Sophie.

He's meeting Sophie? I thought that was a done deal. He didn't seem too excited about her yesterday. I wonder if she mentioned Jubilee. "Jesus Christ", I mutter to myself. I put my phone back in my pocket and burst into a sprint to the top of Heartbreak Hill.

The sun is just below the horizon and the park is almost completely dark, except for a police car about to pass me in the opposite direction. Once the patrol car passes with its bright blinding headlights, the park turns pitch black. I head towards the street lights along Fifth Avenue. Maybe a long walk home will erase Jubilee's sweet scent from my head.

My plan didn't work. The instant I walk into my apartment I toss my keys into the bowl on my sofa table. The bowl no longer exists - Jubilee knocked it down Saturday morning. The sexy image of Jubilee's naked body under that black jacket, with her hair in disarray, irritates me. I need to buy another bowl as soon as possible.

I pull out a cold beer from my fridge and wonder what Friday night would have been like if Jubilee didn't have anything to drink. Would she have been as open, honest, and daring as she was while inebriated? Would she still have gone home with me if she were sober? Would she have told me about Luke, and Aryana, and everything else?

"No." I whisper to myself, answering my own questions.

She probably would've been guarded and distant as she was last night, having solid reasons for constantly being on the defense. Would I be this obsessed with her if I hadn't spent the evening with drunken Jubilee, with all of her inhibitions out of the way? Although I hate that she woke up not remembering anything, part of me is glad that she got trashed on Friday. She wouldn't have opened up to me otherwise.

I sprawl out on my couch and flip through the cable channels, not really watching television, more so to just keep busy. My phone buzzes in the center table. It seems I missed a call from Isaac at eight thirty. I sit back on my couch, take a sip from my bottle, and play the voicemail message.