Return to In the Chat Box: Stories of Digital Love and Disdain
Stage Four: Depression
New year. New Misery. Cue the confetti and streamers.
This marked the second time that Anna broke Alex’s heart. This time, he didn’t pretend to be apathetic about talking to her. Alex wanted to talk to her—he desperately wanted to. But even he knew after the Dillard’s parking lot event that he had to preserve some dignity and refrain from talking to her. How long would it last? He wasn’t sure. He did everything he could to avoid his phone and Messenger as he settled back into his routine.
Alex did not talk to Anna for an entire year. They stayed “friends” on social media but did nothing to interact with one another. There were no “likes.” There were no comments. He just initiated a cold war between himself and his phone screen, which showed him everything she did with her family. He saw everything she did without him.
What about Alex? He had his job, a little weekend beer, and some weed when he felt spicy. But that was about it. Life went on. Alex did his best to move on in the ensuing weeks and months. Without a girlfriend or any potential prospects on the horizon, Alex did everything he could to avoid sitting in the filth of missed chances and awkwardness.
There were times when he wanted to message her. He wanted to do it out of the blue at first. One time, on the Fourth of July, he drunkenly wrote out a giant block of text to her. He asked her what the hell happened. He asked her if it meant something; she wouldn’t have abruptly lost contact with him. If anything, she could at least let him know her reasoning. He felt like she owed him that. He knew things were highly complicated. He had no idea how she felt. She had a family to think of. After all, it all happened so fast. Literally and figuratively.
Alex became methodical with his process over time. He had a whole plan of action to message her back. The first drafts always came with the conviction and intent to win her over. He wanted to be back in that car to finish the job. He later discovered through more drafts that he just wanted answers. He just wanted to know what the hell happened. Above all, Alex enjoyed the conversations and wanted them back. It didn’t even have to be fun and flirty. Anything. The only silver lining of the whole ordeal was that it got him back into the writing process. These weren’t short stories, of course. But, a start.
Alex didn’t realize how much he relied on Anna to fall asleep until he didn’t have it. During the first few months of 2022, Alex regressed on the sleep he worked so hard (through nightly conversations with Anna) to get on track. By April, the insomniac gave in to his condition and tried to use his time awake wisely. He journaled all of his thoughts. It was a better way to spend the evening than staring at the wall or the television. The writing became therapeutic. Alex went through dozens of Moleskin notebooks over the year, filled with imaginary conversations he might have with Anna. He also went into great detail about his feelings towards her. Some of it was sad, judgemental, and angry. Other pages reeked of sentimentality and desire.
In the end, he still had the lust. He had the memories. There were also two nude pictures to fall back on. He stopped looking at them altogether by the end of the summer. Alex even managed to get back into contact with Andrea. Not to his surprise, she already had a new boyfriend and was still doing well in her career. He told her he was happy for her and apologized for being an automaton in those last few days of 2021. She thanked him but became quiet after the conversation turned from “bouncy catch up” to “here’s why I am so sad.” She told him to take care and rest before she hung up. She had to go to the mall to get something with her boyfriend—the mall. Go figure.
Alex meandered through everything else in his life through the fall and early winter. Those weeks and long days felt to Alex like he was swimming through the mud: possible to do but never advisable or wanted. Anna never messaged. He saw she went on a family vacation to Yosemite. Alex thought that looked fun but wondered why she didn’t block him. Was it a lesson in cruelty? Alex decided to go home again for Christmas. There would be no drunken New Year’s Eve parties with Marty this time. He just wanted to spend time with his family. The holidays came and went with little fanfare. Alex put a brave face on the entire time, playing the part of the dutiful son to his mother and father while still waiting for word from Anna.
Alex spent the day helping his dad reorganize his office on the day before New Year’s Eve. John, a recently retired family practitioner, wanted to move all his old files and papers to the attic or shred what he didn’t need to make way for his latest hobby: painting wooden ducks. While moving all his papers, Alex put all the paper and notebooks in his desk drawer into one box. Rummaging through bits of nostalgia Alex could remember from his childhood, he found a new-looking address book.
“Hey, Dad. Is this address book new?” Alex remembered the worn, brown leather notebook with scraps of paper and business cards stuck between its pages.
“Ah, yes,” his dad said. “Your mother gave me that last year on Father’s Day. After I retired, I spent a little time updating all the addresses we received from friends and family members. It was fun to do some correspondence like that, old school-style.” The slang he put at the end of the phrase made Alex grit his teeth in laughter.
“So, these are updated addresses?” Alex was curious.
“Yes, Alex. Who do you want to look up? Take a look yourself.” He did. Leafing through the pages, he found some old familiar faces. Tim and Jill Anders. Carol Baker and her giant ass house on the James River looked the same. He thumbed to the back and saw it.
Anna and Rodney Block (Renquist)
4528 Fort McHenry Parkway
Glen Allen, VA 23060
Holy shit. There it was. After all this time. After all these years. That was Anna’s address, or at least an old one. Alex lifted the book to gesture to his dad. He had to look like he was posing a question and not fleecing him for information.
“Hey, Dad, I remember Anna. I know she got married. I didn’t realize she moved to Richmond.” Alex hoped he could maintain his nonchalance.
“Oh yeah, we got a Christmas card from her and Rodney a few years ago with their little boy. I kept the address label and added it. I don’t think they’ve moved since then. Remember when she threw you in the pool at family gatherings?” Alex did but tried to put it out of his mind. He wondered if his dad would buy that the same girl gave him half a blowjob in a parking lot almost a year ago. He bet he wouldn’t believe it. Over the past year, Alex started not to believe it himself. He quickly snapped a picture of the address with his phone and continued helping him move papers to the attic.
That evening, Alex decided to drive by her house on his way back to D.C. He told his parents he would go home early on Sunday the 1st. The plan was to get to her house in the Innsbrook section of the Richmond suburb in the late morning, just in case she and her family were out. He didn’t want to be seen.
New Year’s Eve came and went. He did get a call from Martin but decided to sit out this year. Lightning would not strike twice with Anna. He wasn’t that lucky. Alex told him that next year, of course, they would party just like in old times. Alex doubted it. He spent the evening instead reading through a few of the Moleskin journals he brought down. In the three days he had been back home in Williamsburg, he filled half a book with his thoughts, most of which came after discovering Anna’s home address.
Alex pulled away from his parent’s house at 7:30 a.m. He said goodbye to his mom and dad and told them he would return for his mother’s birthday in March. He parked his car on the side of the road when he drove out of eyeshot and opened his phone to find the image of the address. He typed it in Google Maps and resumed driving: One hour and fourteen minutes until arrival. That put him at their location around 9 a.m. Perfect.
He arrived on Fort McHenry Parkway at five minutes before nine. Alex parked his car a quarter of a mile from his destination to gather his thoughts. He took a giant sip of gas station coffee, now cold and starting to turn into a wet, grimy sludge in his mouth. The acrid taste was necessary to wake him up. He could do this. Alex took a deep breath and resumed the drive, parking on the opposite side of the street in front of the Renquist residence just past 9 a.m. He turned the car off. He didn’t think keeping the car running in case her neighbors grew suspicious was wise.
The first thing Alex noticed was the house: A modest house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood checked all of Anna’s boxes. He saw her silver BMW in the driveway. She was likely home. He wondered which of the windows was for the spare bedroom she spent her evenings messaging Alex from. He guessed the top left.
Alex stared at the house for a few solitary minutes. His right hand clutched his phone while his left held onto the latest thoughts he wrote down in his notebook. How long is too long to linger in front of the house? It wasn’t like he planned to get out of the car and casually walk up to the door, knock, and come in for tea. He wasn’t that stupid, but he knew he would fill the other half of the notebook that evening with alternate scenarios where he did. Scenarios where Anna answered the door in tears, overcome with joy that her knight in shining armor finally came to his senses to rescue his princess. Scenarios where he punches the abusive Rodney out to save Anna and her young son from the jaws of an unhappy life. There were also scenarios where the door opened to a shotgun and an itchy trigger finger. These were all possibilities in his mind he knew he could expand on later. For now, he wanted to savor the moment. That is until somebody opened the front door.
Anna left her house around 9:15 a.m. to take the trash out. Alex wasn’t sure that she could see him in his car. She could identify what his car looked like. Alex panicked. Could she see? The trash can, now in the front of the street, ready for trash pick up, was only about ten or fifteen feet away from his car. He could either run for it and speed away or slink down in the front seat and pray she doesn’t notice him. With her taking more and more steps towards the trashcan, Alex decided to turn the car and gun it. He turned the car on, pushed the gear into drive, and sped off, immediately hitting her neighbor’s trash can across the street with the right front bumper of his RAV-4. His first thought after hitting the can was the relief that the airbags did not deploy.
If Alex didn’t have her attention before, he did now. Immediately after hitting the trash can, he looked to his left and saw Anna staring at him in disbelief. She threw the trash down and ran towards the car in her pajamas and slippers.
“Alex, are you okay?” Her immediate first emotion was to make sure he was okay. His car would certainly need about a thousand dollars of repair. The trash can sat unphased and resilient like the iceberg that sank the Titanic. The metaphor was not lost on Alex.
“Yeah, I am okay, I think,” said Alex. He wanted to look down in shame but figured the face-to-face interaction was what he had wanted anyway, so he might as well soak it up. The look of concern turned directly into anger seamlessly.
“Alex, what the fuck are you doing here? How the fuck are you even here? You can’t be here!”
“So, funny story,” said Alex. “I was cleaning out my dad’s office and found your house in my dad’s address book. I know I shouldn’t be here. I am sorry. I just had to.” Alex felt like crying but knew better.
“Ugh, let me guess…that fucking Christmas card, huh?” Alex nodded. “So you’re spying on me and my family?”
“No! I mean, kind of? That wasn’t my intention. I wanted to see your house before I made my way back up to D.C. I wasn’t going to go in or anything.”
Anna folded her arms. The trash was still on the curb outside of the black receptacle. “Okay. So you just wanted to be a voyeur. I get it. Very classy, Alex. I would have thought better of you.” At this point, Alex did start to tear up. He couldn’t help it. All those months–All those journals filled with his thoughts and feelings. Anger, sadness, depression. All of it came out at once under his eyes. The tears trickled down his face.
“Well, what the fuck do you expect me to do, Anna?” His voice grew a bit louder yet weaker in its delivery. “We share this amazing afternoon at the mall. It was the first time we had seen each other since we were kids; somehow, it all clicked eventually. It must have because I am sure you remember what happened next.” Anna looked off to the left after he said that. “And yet, halfway through, you just leave and decide to ghost me. How long was that going to last?”
“It’s a two-way street, Alex,” Anna said. “You could have messaged me.”
“Oh, I know I could have. But I didn’t. I wanted to keep what little respect I had for myself intact. But don’t get me wrong. The scenario played out in my mind.” He lifted the notebook he still clung to in his left hand. He shoved it at her as if to tell her to open and read it. She did. Flipping through a few pages, she looked around to see if her neighbors were watching.
“Jesus, Alex. What is all this? A manifesto on how you want to kill me?” She half laughed at this but wasn’t quite sure what she was reading.
“This is one of many journals I’ve kept since January about my thoughts. They aren’t all about you, but most of them are. They include what I’d say to you if I ever saw you again. I am here now and know exactly what I want to say.
She gave the book back to him and took a step back. She also resumed folding her hands.
“I want to say that I love you. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I know you have a family, which complicates things, but I do. I don’t want you to say it back necessarily, but you might, too. I couldn’t even bring myself to write those words in the dozen notebooks I filled up with words this year, but I am saying it now. I love you, Anna Renquist. And I miss you. I’m sorry we ended things so awkwardly. We can’t just pick things back up, but can we at least resume what we had?
“Alex, I’m sorry, but I don’t love you.” His heart sank in his chest. “We can’t resume what we had.” The arms uncrossed. She put one of them on the hood of his car and drew closer to ensure nobody heard her. “What we had was fun. It was flirty. It cleared my head and made me feel some worth again. And yes, for a minute there, things got out of hand, and we both acted in the moment.” She cleared her throat. “No. I ACTED in the moment. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I did that because that is not what I wanted. When I told you it meant more than just friends and more than just talking, that was completely true. It was more. But there was a time and a place, and that place shut down the minute we kissed.”
She leaned in closer. Alex’s tears stopped, but his stomach was now in his shoes. “And it was a wonderful kiss, but something I could never do again. Not for me. Not for my family.” She started to cry. “I came back from that parking lot a different person. I had crossed a line. But truthfully, I have you to thank for that. It made me see my errors and gave me a roadmap to improve the life I had with my son and Rodney. I know you don’t want to hear it, but things have been great with us.”
“That’s great,” Alex said in between sniffles. “I’m glad my half-blowjob did that for you.”
“Don’t be like that, Alex,” Anna said. It’s not like that. There’s no reason to be crass. You gave that to me. I know you’re angry. I know you want to be mad at me, and you can. You have every right. I led you on and then cut you off. But I am here now, telling you your love did not go to waste, even if I can’t ever give it back to you rightfully. You got me my ‘mojo’ back with my family unit. Can you at least acknowledge and accept that as a good thing?”
Alex thought about it. “I guess I can. I am happy that you’re happy.”
“That’s great, Alex. I know it’s hard. It’s a tough pill to swallow. But I know, after all the hours we talked, that you will find somebody fantastic. You’re a special guy.” The words “special guy” kept playing like a broken rewind button in Alex’s mind. It felt almost too cliche to say, as if rehearsed. Maybe it was, and she always knew he would come around one day to confront her.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I want you to know I am better now because of you. Please take care of yourself. Please move on from this. I know I have.” She touched his hand and held it there for a second. A solitary tear ran down the left side of her face and onto her hand. She turned and walked away towards her bag of trash.
“Oh, and Alex?” Anna was now back on her side of the curb near her trash can. “Can you make sure not to show those journals to anyone? Maybe burn them? I would rather you not keep that much personal information about me out in the open.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “See ya.”
She smiled wide enough to convince Alex she meant it, too. “See you, Alex.” He pulled his busted car into drive and sped off.
When Alex got home, he took the 11 journals he had filled over the year out to the small communal grill on the top of his apartment building. Thankfully, no one else was up on the rooftop terrace. He put them all in a neat pile in the center of the charcoal grill and lit a match, setting thousands of words and hours of writing on fire. Washington was very cold that afternoon, so the warmth of his words gave him a sense of relief for the first time in a long time.
While his journals burned, Alex went into Facebook and deleted Anna from his friend list. Still without a cell phone number, he was entirely out of contact with her.
Stage Five: Acceptance
Alex knew a few things. He knew how to press a pair of pants properly. He knew how to read a map, even if he primarily relied on Google to direct his navigation nowadays. He also knew how to correctly guess all fifty states within three minutes, a party trick he pulled out in shared company if he was a few drinks in and feeling frisky.
He also knew that Anna was an unhealthy obsession. That obsession took over his life for the better part of an entire year. And for what? One ten-minute makeout session and the opportunity to be ghosted twice? Not to mention a bumper that cost over one thousand dollars to fix. Most obsessions end in disaster or a renewed vigor to pursue that vice. Alex had neither. He knew cutting off contact with her was the best thing to do, even if he didn’t want to.
Over the next few weeks, Alex resumed life, which went on as planned. The shame of that New Year’s Day melted away eventually. It took time. Alex often woke up in a cold sweat, worried he was back attempting to drive away, only to hit a trash can. Sometimes, he hit a person. Sometimes, it was Andrea. Each time in his dream, he saw Anna and her family staring at him, pointing and laughing.
The weeks turned to months without a word. No contact. Out of the blue, one day, Alex confessed everything to his mother. She called to wish him a happy birthday in March, not expecting to morph from caring mother to relationship therapist. He only shared that the girl he fell in love with was a “childhood friend.” When his mother pressed him on exactly who it was, he just told her she was “taken” and “definitely not interested.”
His mother wasn’t mad. Not in a traditional sense. She wanted to understand why it meant so much to him. “Alex, you never took too much interest in much growing up,” she said, “at least in the traditional sense of sticking to it.” She breathed a few sighs of frustration. “I’m just trying to understand why you thought this was a good idea if you knew this was all going to fall apart.”
“I don’t know, mom. I think I’m a fool, but I knew I was. It was like lining up off a cliff as a lemming. You know you’ll fall, but you’re scared as hell as you watch everyone else punch into oblivion.” For the first time in weeks, Alex held back tears. “I just want to eliminate the frustration and stop the endless loop of longing.” She talked to him for another half an hour or so, assuring him this would be between the two of them. His father would not understand.
Spring came and went, and Alex was still waiting for word. Eventually, Alex got a therapist to discuss these complicated issues. He knew he could not rely on his mother much longer. Keeping any information from her husband was hard enough. That kind of one-on-one interaction had an expiration date, and the date had come and gone.
The therapist’s conversations started slowly at first. She was good, however. She knew when Alex withheld his feelings or critical information. After a few sessions, Alex became an open book. Dr. Riser convinced Alex that his happiness and Anna’s were more important than any relationship. The last thing Anna told Alex to do was move on. Through intense sessions and lots of journals (not the crazy kind he wrote in before), he felt like he could.
Spring gave way to summer. There was no contact, but Alex did well in his job. What he could do was amazing if he didn’t spend all night complaining about it to someone. No one was there to orchestrate the instrument of sadness he played so well. Alex even had a half dozen dates with a girl he met at a Starbucks in May. They had some perfectly satisfactory sex on the Saturday before Memorial Day. The relationship didn’t last long, but the staying power of that brief interlude was enough to believe that Alex could move on. He could do it. All the while, the irregular sleep pattern that crept up in the post-Anna depression season began to return to normal. Each six to seven-hour sleep felt like a victory.
He went on vacation with his parents to New York City. They had a wonderful time. When his mom asked for an update on how he felt, Alex was happy to report that the time he had invested in himself was beginning to pay off. He thought everything tasted better in New York, especially a BEC (bacon, egg, and cheese) with a side order of self-reliance.
Alex returned to Williamsburg in the fall for his father’s 70th birthday. Over sixty people, including several doctor colleagues, relatives, and family friends, showed up. Anna’s parents showed up halfway through the festivities. Alex made it a point to talk to them to catch up. He felt like a voyeur, asking about their personal lives and their daughter’s.
He looked attentive when they updated him on everything Anna and her perfect family were doing this fall. She was not feeling well; otherwise, she planned to show up with her family. A likely story, Alex thought. Before they left, Alex went up to her parents one last time to tell them to “give Anna my best.” They said they would. Alex secretly hoped they did. Laying in his old bedroom that night, he felt much different. He hoped they would forget it altogether. He stared at the ceiling, marveling in disbelief at how stupid he had been, when his phone chimed. It was a message request.
Anna.
He didn’t want to look at it at first. Setting his phone back down on his small nightstand, he immediately picked it up to stare at it for a few minutes. He finally opened the app to see what the request said.
Anna Renquist
OCT 21 at 11:48 p.m.
Hey.
That was it—after all this time, just a simple “hey.” Nothing else. It may be better that way.
Alex’s first thought was to revert to his former self. He wanted to renew the conversation and get the old feeling of all-nighters talking about everything and nothing back. They may have a few laughs. Maybe she’d talk about how good of a kisser he was or send another nude photo. Everything was possible within those three letters: H—E—Y.
Alex sat up in bed and began writing a response. He wanted to say more than “hey,” but not enough to look desperate. Her parents went home and talked to her. Or maybe she called and asked how the party was (and, in her way, asked if I was there). If that didn’t seem fishy, he didn’t know what did. One or more of their parents were likely smart enough to combine two and two.
The words flew off his fingers. After finishing the text, he realized how desperate it sounded:
Hey, Anna. How are you? Long time no talk. I ran into your parents tonight at my dad’s 70th birthday party. Did they talk to you? Anyways, how are you doing? I’m good. I’ve been doing great. I am just focusing on myself and doing what I must to get over you. It was fucking hard. It took therapy. I’ve been going to a lot of therapy. Do you know how much that shit costs? But I talked it over. I talked over you–I talked through you. I was able to find a way to grow accustomed to the convenience of your absence. It started to feel good. At least I have found a way to believe myself when I say that. Therapy will do that. I worked hard to find a solution to save face and move on, all the while respecting your clear-cut boundaries made on that day at the beginning of this year. It’s been a while, but I must admit how good it feels to see you text again.
Alex did not hit send. He set the phone down and walked over to his window. Alex’s father had a small Japanese maple in his home’s front right flower bed. Alex thought about the Japanese maple on Anna’s back. Anna’s nude back and perfect ass. He thought about what the tattoo would look like bent over. Would she like that? He didn’t realize he was touching himself at first. With nobody else in the house, the feeling came naturally. The whole ordeal of stimulative muscle memory felt like a car accident in reverse.
Moving slowly at first, the memories played like flashes in his mind. He tried to remember everything. All the joy. All the pain. The body. The perfect nipples. The anger. The breasts. The bad breakup. The half-blow job. Up and Down. The door slamming. The trash can. The tattoo. The tree. The tree on her backside. Her ass. The tree. All of it at once. None of it at all.
Alex came quickly inside his pajama pants. He immediately removed them, changed his underwear, and washed his hands. Returning to the bedroom, he looked out the window again before grabbing his phone. He pressed DECLINE on the message request and crawled back into bed. He slept until 10:30 a.m. that morning.
We’re all just simple fools looking for a new and convenient way to get our rocks off.
Delusional Thoughts From Fantasy Island 