"I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it. And yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this —But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it." — Vita Sackville-West
April 1965 - London, LSE Halls of Residence
Jed hastily threw on the tan-coloured trench coat Abbey had sent him to survive the winter months in Britain and ventured out the student halls of residence. It was almost 5pm. 12pm in Boston and Monday was Abbey's half-day of classes.
He wrestled between the flood of Londoners that saturated the streets. The sky was a tar-black dome as rainclouds unleashed an April shower to be reckoned with and the pavements were streamed with puddles that Jed strained to avoid. He missed home. He was rarely, if ever, bothered by the cold but the constant rain had disheartened him. It was symbolic of his loneliness, halfway around the world, divided from the ones he loved. He had lost count of the times he decided to drop out and return to the states, pursue another doctorate at a school closer to Abbey but every time she talked him down. Five years wasn't forever, she assured him. Except, two already felt like a lifetime.
It wasn't all bad. The hiatus each semester allowed Jed to fly home and reunite with Abbey, and his family. She had even surprised him, when she flew over for his birthday celebration. Luckily, both he and Abbey had become keen flyers. He was always rather fond of long-haul travel. It was a chance to fly above the earth and free his mind. All that bothered him was the extreme exhaustion that inevitably consumed him. It required a couple of days, at least, to recuperate and adjust to the new time-zone.
Several blocks later, Jed reached the red telephone box that acted as his second home. He and Abbey talked on the phone three times a day; sunrise, sunset and once in between, for fair measure. The monthly phone bill racked up did little to deter him. He would spend his last dime - or, in this case, penny - to keep her on the line. A day without the musicality of her voice was absolute torture for Jed. "Hey, stud."
"How did you know it would be me?"
Abbey carefully stacked her books and discarded her purse to one side, as she kicked the front door of her dorm shut. "Because you always call at midday and I nearly trip over myself to be home from class in time for when you call," she sharply reminded him, still a little out of breath.
They instantly fell into conversation, the discussion wavered between their classes, hectic schedules and plans for the summer break. Truthfully, Jed didn't care what entered the conversation. He could listen to Abbey recite the alphabet until the day he died. " …anyway, Mille's convinced that Catholics have better sex lives because they teach us that pleasure is bad for you." Abbey cackled, as she recalled the late-hour conversation Millie had roped her into. "She also thinks you have a secret fetish for nuns."
Jed snickered, not one-hundred percent involved in the conversation. He shifted with discomfort at the very mention of their sex life, which was borderline non-existent. How much he yearned for Abbey only exacerbated the fear that overwhelmed him, when he pictured her in a classroom predominantly filled by the male population. There were five male students for every one female at Harvard Medical School and that kind of math left him very uneasy. While he considered Mille quirkier than most, he was relieved Abbey had befriended a fellow female student. "Maybe I do," Jed quipped, with the sense of humour Abbey had instilled in him.
Abbey howled in amusement, "Remind me next time I attend mass, I'll see if I can hire the outfit."
"I think my mother would have an opinion about that," he muttered.
"Mine too," Abbey simulated similar disapproval. "Anyway, she was in a better mood than usual. I think she's extra nervous about the next exam after that B+ she received last semester." In spite of Abbey's best effort to coax Millie into celebration, Jed's insensitive comment that Millie may as well have flunked it had cemented her foul mood. As a stellar A student, a B+ was simply unacceptable. "I promised I would help her study. I'm due to meet her in the library in a half-hour for revision." Aware that she had dominated the majority of the conversation, Abbey allowed the silence to creep in before she spoke. "Hey, I miss you."
Jed smiled, softly. He pictured her there with her hand twisted between the telephone cord. "I miss you, too."
The sound of sorrow suffused his tone and Abbey's lips twitched, "Only two more months left and you'll be back for summer break. I spoke to my parents yesterday and the coordinator has confirmed just about all the details, except the band. My mother already has wild ideas about a Grand Orchestra flown in from halfway across the world. I wonder who's more excited, my mother or yours." Despite Abbey's hope that mention of their nuptials would perk Jed's mood, his silence was an ominous reminder that he would have been far happier had they not postponed holy matrimony and she lived in London with him. "Listen, Jed, I realise the four-year engagement wasn't exactly what you had in mind -"
"I'm fine, Abbey, just tired." He quickly reiterated the withered response he often used, whenever Abbey attempted to explain her refusal to marry him until she had accomplished medical school. He was hurt, and understandably so.
"Just think, by July, we'll be husband and wife." Abbey offered what little consolation she could, in the hopes that Jed's insecurities wouldn't swallow him whole. Sometimes, he questioned whether she had any real intention to marry him, after all.
"Yeah." Jed consented, apathetically.
Abbey frowned, at his sullen attitude. "Oh, I ran into your brother yesterday, too." Jed internally huffed. As a second-year student at Harvard Business School, Jonathan had more access to his fiancée than he did. It wasn't out of the ordinary that he and Abbey dined for lunch, or met one another at the weekend. He had even driven Abbey home to the farm in New Hampshire. Their friendship, while strictly platonic, exposed the possessive, inane jealous aspect of Jed's personality and he loathed Jonathan for it. "It would appear that he and Renée are an item no more." She commentated, in amusement. The playboy ways of the baby Bartlet brother was absurdly humorous for Abbey, especially his contrast to Jed, whose behaviour had always been so prim-and-proper toward women.
"She was never his type." Jed off-handedly replied.
Abbey smiled, "I don't think your brother has ever had a particular type. He doesn't strike me as particular at all, in fact. Anyway, he invited me to dinner next week to meet the replacement. I think her name's Nora. Apparently, she's a freshman here at Harvard."
Raindrops hailed relentlessly on the phone box and Jed subconsciously hunched his shoulders to protect himself from the elements. "Yeah." The line crackled and Jed peered out at the skies that darkened, and the ominous drum-rumble of thunder became more distinct. "Listen, Abbey, that hurricane on the North Atlantic looks like it's about to make an appearance." He hated to cut the conversation short.
Abbey collected the hint Jed subtly dropped. "Okay, well, we'll talk tomorrow then. Stay safe. I love you."
Jed's lips thinned, appreciatively. "I will. I love you, too." He replaced the phone on its hook and braced himself for the sharp wind and heavy rain that hailed down upon him, for his quick stretch back toward LSE. The downpour saturated him and mixed with the few tears he allowed to fall. His only solace was that, with each day that passed, he was another day closer to Abbey.