Jed left Abbey's place and immediately went to Confession. He had felt so many feelings for Abbey that night, and it all filled him with tremendous guilt. The lust he struggled against was suddenly the least of his worries. When Ron had shown up to be with his girlfriend, Jed had been filled with a jealous rage. He was angry at Abbey for being with Ron, and he envied Ron for being with Abbey. Jed prayed for a long time, desperately seeking guidance and strength to prevent those awful feelings from returning.
The next morning, Abbey awoke on the floor of the bathroom in her apartment. Her eyes blinked open, violently opposed to the bright light. Millie was there, holding her blonde hair back with one hand and brushing her teeth with the other. She spit and rinsed her mouth before turning to Abbey with a smile.
"Good morning. How are you feeling?"
Abbey glared as she sat up. "I hate you."
"I'm pretty sure that hatred should probably be directed to the bottle of Jack Daniels you consumed last night," Millie told her with a smirk.
"How did I end up here?" she asked, looking around and noticing that she was still in her clothes from the previous evening, but she no longer had shoes. And goodness only knew how her hair looked.
"I had Ron carry you in here when you passed out. I sent him home after that, but he did offer to stay. I checked on you a few times during the night. You just slept."
"What time is it? I have to pack and see Ron and then go to the airport with Jed," Abbey said, hauling herself off the floor.
Millie took Abbey's hands to help her up. "It's only nine. You've got plenty of time to pack. And Ron isn't going to meet you for lunch because he saw you at the party last night, so he just asked that you call him when you get to your parents' house."
Abbey paused. "Wait, Ron was at the party last night?"
"Yeah, but you were already pretty bombed by the time he got here."
"Oh." Abbey suddenly felt very embarrassed. She had no memory of anything at the party other than the fact that it occurred. Jed had been there. They had a good time. Hadn't they? She had no idea. Her head was throbbing too much to really think too much about it.
A few hours later, Abbey was in the cab on the way to Jed's apartment. They did this every time they went back home. She would cover the cab to the airport, and he would cover the one from the airport back to their respective apartments on the return trip to Notre Dame.
Jed put his suitcase in the trunk of the cab and got in the backseat next to Abbey. He still wasn't in the best mood and certainly didn't want to spend the next four hours sitting next to her.
"Hi," she said with a gloomy expression.
He couldn't see much of her face because she was leaning on her arm against the door and she had sunglasses hiding her eyes. "Hi," he replied, equally gruff.
Abbey assumed that Jed was just as hungover as she was, so she didn't bother forcing any conversation.
Jed sat next to her on the way to the airport and all the way to Boston on the plane, barely speaking two words to her. He felt like he wanted to yell at her, but every time he got close to actually doing it, the guilt bubbled up again. What could he say? That he was pissed at her for kissing her boyfriend? He had no right to feel that way, let alone say anything about it. So he just stewed silently next to her. If Abbey noticed, she didn't say anything about it.
Jed had thought that he would get over his jealousy and anger after a day or so. After all, he wouldn't see Abbey until they went back to school in August. He was sure to miss her.
Abbey got over her hangover by the time her father picked her up from the airport and drove her home. She instantly felt bad for ignoring Jed during their whole flight. She wouldn't see him until they flew back to Indiana, and she missed him already. The next day, Abbey wrote a letter apologizing for her bad mood and asking him to write her back when he could. She sent it off to the address she had for him in New Hampshire and eagerly awaited his response.
He got her letter and read it over and over and over for days. But he didn't write back. Why did she do this to him? Why was she so kind? Why did he get excited when she wrote that she would miss him? Why did he feel a surge of affection over the way she wrote his name or the way the capital letters she wrote were obscenely bigger than the lowercase letters after them? Why did he care so much? After a week, Jed folded the letter and buried it in the back of a drawer in his desk so he wouldn't have to think about it. He didn't send a response.
Abbey went to D.C. with her father a few weeks later and had a wonderful time. She thought about Jed wherever she went. He was an American Studies minor, and he had regaled her with stories of the Founding Fathers for hours during their Friday night study sessions. Despite the fact that she hadn't gotten a letter from him, she wrote him another. Abbey figured that his reply was probably waiting for her back home in Massachusetts, so she wasn't too worried about not having heard from him yet.
Dear Jed,
I'm in D.C. with Dad right now, and I can't help but wish you were here with me. He's in conferences a lot during the day, so I'm left all alone. I wander the city, visiting the memorials and the Smithsonian and everything else of interest. I do love it here, but I find myself with so many questions that I know you'd have the answers to. I think I'll start carrying a notebook with me and writing things down to ask you when we get back to school. Maybe I'll make you answer them all on the plane back to Indiana.
I hope you're having a nice summer at the farm, and I certainly hope this letter finds you well. I miss seeing you and talking to you, but I guess letters will have to do for the next two months. I'll be here for another week, then helping at my father's practice for the rest of the summer. I hope to hear from you soon.
-Abbey
When Jed got this second letter, he didn't let himself pour over it as he had the last one. He read it a few times, leaving it by his bed for a day or so, before he shoved it back with the other one. Out of sight, out of mind. He got out a sheet of paper and sat down with a pen to reply but after he wrote Dear Abbey, he couldn't bring himself to continue. What could he say? How could he stop himself from saying everything he wanted? Ron Ehrlich's big dumb face popped into Jed's mind and he crumpled the attempted letter into a ball and threw it away. He went to church instead.
Abbey waited for weeks for a response. None came. She decided that there was no way Jed would ignore her on purpose. He was probably at his grandfather's farm and the letters had gone to his parents' house in Exeter. That had to be it. He just hadn't gotten the letters yet. Abbey then decided that it might be fun for Jed to come home to a stack of letters. After that, she wrote one every week for a month.
Jed opened each of the four letters as soon as they arrived, and each one sent him into a deeper depression. He couldn't escape her. Even when she was in another state, she was always there, in his mind and in his heart. He was supposed to become a priest, wasn't he? That was God's plan for him. He'd known that for years now. Jed Bartlet was going to become a priest so he could be a leader to a community, a source of strength in strife, a teacher and a helper to all in need. That's what he wanted to do. Had the Lord put Abbey in his path as an obstacle to overcome? A test of his devotion to God? If so, he would surely prove his faith.
By the time August rolled around, Abbey had overcome her optimistic denial. She was pissed. Even though she'd see Jed in ten days to fly back to school—assuming he was still planning on meeting her at the Boston airport—Abbey wrote one last letter.
Listen jackass, I don't know what the hell I did to you or why you're ignoring me, but you'd better cut it out. If I do not hear from you before we spend three hours on a plane together, sit next to someone else. So unless you've been in Alaska or you've broken both your hands and can't find someone to write a damn letter for you, we aren't friends like I thought we were.
When Jed got that letter, he instantly felt a flood of guilt. A different kind of guilt. Never mind that his feelings for Abbey were getting in the way of his life, he had hurt her. And that was something he had never wanted to do. Abbey Barrington only deserved the best the world had to offer. Jed had to make it right. He got in the car and drove.
By the time he made it to Massachusetts, it had started to rain. Hot, sticky summer rain. When he reached Abbey's town, he stopped at a gas station to ask directions to her address. It was almost dark by the time he arrived at her house. With no umbrella or jacket or anything, he got out of the car to knock on the door.
Dr. Barrington answered it. "Can I help you?" he asked. He had kind brown eyes behind his square-rimmed glasses and a mop of curly black hair on top of his head. He looked with interest at the young man dripping on his porch.
"Hello, sir. My name is Jed Bartlet, and I'm here to see Abbey."
"It's nice to meet you, Jed. Abbey talks about you all the time. Would you like to come in?"
"No thank you, sir. I'll just wait here."
Dr. Barrington closed the door, allowing Jed to wait out in the rain. He went into the living room to get Abbey. "Jed Bartlet is here to see you," he told his daughter.
Abbey leapt up. "He what?!" She ran to the door and ripped it open. "What are you doing here?!" she asked in surprise, her green eyes lighting up when she saw him.
Jed had taken a few steps back to give Abbey some space. "I'm here to see you. I got your letters."
Her brow furrowed. "Letters?" she asked, emphasizing the plural S.
"Yeah. All of them."
"Go to hell!" She slammed the door.
Jed couldn't help but start to laugh. He stepped off the porch and stood in the rain. "Fine by me, Abbey," he shouted. "If I wait here long enough, I'll probably drown!"
Abbey came back outside and stood out on the porch. "Are you insane!?"
"I must be," he replied, still standing in the pouring rain. "I'm sorry, Abbey. I'm so sorry."
"Why didn't you respond to any of my letters?" she asked, her voice calming. She wasn't mad anymore. Just hurt.
"Because I couldn't. I didn't know what to say. I was so mad."
"At me?"
"Yeah, at first. But mostly at me. I shouldn't have let that hurt you. I want you, Abbey. For worse or for better. I'd wait forever if I had to. Forever and ever."
Abbey couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was like a dream. It couldn't be real. A huge smile broke out onto her face, wrinkling her nose. She took a few steps forward, ready to leap into his arms.
But someone grabbed her around her middle, holding her back. "DON'T YOU DARE!" a voice bellowed into her ear.
Jed looked at her, sad and dejected. "I'm sorry. I won't bother you anymore." He turned and walked away.
Abbey kicked and flailed her arms and tried to scream, but no noise came out.
Her heart skipped a beat and she awoke with a start.
