I stand up from my chair and leave the parish centre basement recreation room to stand in the darkened hallway. My clawed fingers scratch against my phone.
“Joanna,” I say her name with authority, ownership. “Are you alone?”
“Yes, well, I mean the building has a security guard, Pauly,” I hear the pause in her speech like she is waiting for me to speak over her, but when I do not, she keeps explaining Pauly to me. “But he did his rounds like an hour ago so he won’t be back until like three.”
“And you have this Pauly’s work rounds memorised because?”
“Oh- well, I have been known to burn the midnight oil, and he likes the same trash soap operas I do,” she confesses this grave sin of wage theft to me in such a weak tone, I should not be surprised with what follows next. “I’m sorry.”
“Have you eaten today? Drunk water, anything more than that sugary coffee you like?” I ask.
“I had some snacks at lunch, and I reheated the leftovers from Sunday.”
My pause in the conversation is heavy, and I am sure if she could see the look I am making she would blush and apologise again.
“And I will take a five-minute break to fill up my water glass and rest my eyes.”
I want to argue that she should leave work tonight, and for good, but Joanna is an adult. When I said we had eternity to figure it out, I meant it. If she wants to work, I will encourage her to do just that. But I cannot watch her dig herself into a hole like this.
“I will be finished here in about fifteen minutes, and then it is just a short walk to your office. Shall I pick you up and take you home?”
There is a heavy sigh on her end of the receiver. I do not need to be a monster to feel insecurity and sadness in just that. I should not have asked. I should have told her.
“I- oh, um, I-” she sighs again. “I can’t. I’m going to finalise some forms here, and there is a massive pile of laundry I have to start.”
“Do you want to have breakfast with me?” I ask. “I would like to see my mate even if she insists on working herself to death.”
“Yes, absolutely,” she responds instantly. There is a rustling, followed by a low tone in my phone. “I have sent you a place I have always wanted to try. It’s near the library. Seven sound good?”
“Perfect, mon abeille, thank you.”
We hang up after a short goodbye, and I am left riddled with concern but not sure how to address this. I thought finding Joanna out so late on that very first night was a fluke. Then again, the night of her attack, I assumed it was the bond that had drawn her out so late. Now I am not so sure. These are not the habits of someone who knows how to take care of themself. Her work is not an obsession, or at least a healthy one. It seems to have rewired the parts of Joanna that know how to relax and breathe and enjoy life. What would have become of my mate if we had never crossed paths?
I wonder what else can change about my human in just a few days.
21 days
I am not restless this week.
After a weekend of pulling Joanna away from her laptop and her incessantly ringing phone, I have come to realise that her work is not something she does to sustain her lifestyle. It is something she does compulsively as if she will cease to exist if she took even a moment’s break. While it makes every moment I am able to have her full attention all the more precious, every moment her focus is elsewhere, I am scheming up new reasons and ways to make her realise her work is not her life. That she now, in fact, has many lives she will get to live, so she should start a new one as soon as feasibly possible.
At our Wednesday morning breakfast, I tasted her guilt mixing with my tea.
“I’m sorry,” she yawns. “I feel like I am trying to live two different lives at once here.”
“You know I want you at home Joanna, but I also understand modern courting involves dates and time. Are you sleeping alright?”
“No.” Her admission makes the guilt in her taste rise. “I’ve been getting these annoying spam calls at all hours of the night. I’m getting nothing done at work because all I hear in my head is my phone ringing.”
She has endeavoured since then to come see me before she rushes to her flat to prepare for the next workday. Every night, she has worked late, well past midnight, only to stumble into the library shortly after she sends me a text message. I do not know what she could possibly be doing at her office that keeps her this late. She does not dodge the question. Her answer has just always been the same. Emails, presentations, budgets, suppliers.
So I make a cup of chamomile tea with a dribble of honey and sit her in my office. She has taken to asking me about different time periods in my life, which eases my worries. I find myself sharing details about my life I have not with anyone before. I remember little anecdotes that I had otherwise forgotten. The joy that pours from her as she laughs at my reactions or encourages my stories warms me. Little forgotten parts of myself come to the surface of my existence, and Joanna is the cause of that.
“If you wrote a book, I would be the first to buy it.” She’s told me this multiple times, but I scoff.
“I am not a writer of books but a keeper of them.” I remind her.
“Were you at The Library of Alexandria?” She asks after taking a sip of her tea. The bags under her eyes are heavy tonight, dark circles adding a hollow look to soft features.
