Monday, March 5th, 2001

Compose new email?

-Yes.

If you consider me a friend, you're going to have to engage me in conversation. I don't exactly value relationships with people who quit talking to me for months and then suddenly expect me to bend over backwards for them. If I were you, I wouldn't value a particular relationship in your life, but then again, maybe that's just me.

If you consider me a best friend, you're going to have to confide in me. You used to tell me everything – and I do mean everything. Everything from what your daughter wore to her winter formal to the Van Halen song stuck in your head, from yet another miserable meeting at District to how fucked up politics in Washington have gotten. I've been there, and I've listened, and considering the secrets I'll always have to keep from you, I've gone as full disclosure as I possibly can. Let's think logically for a moment: you're not exactly going to be able to tell her the same things you tell me. She and you live in two completely different worlds, and she's not gonna change any time soon.

If you feel a flutter when you see me, you're going to have to let me know. Call me girly, call me lovesick. At this point, I really don't give a damn; whenever I look at you I still get that feeling, as if thousands of butterflies are trying to flap their way out of my stomach. I look you in the eye and the floor drops from under me. When your hand brushes against mine as I hand you a file, I feel like I've been electrocuted. That's what being away from you has done to me. Knowing that I could feel your skin against mine once we got out of work did wonders for my mood – and for my patience. Knowing what I had and losing it just makes me pissed, and you of all people should know that I don't take being pissed lightly. I doubt that you still get butterflies around the girl you knocked up in high school, the one you said you stayed with out of honor for her and for your daughter, and so that your father wouldn't cut you off from your vast inheritance at the ripe old age of eighteen.

If you still have any feelings for me, you're going to have to be obvious. Let's face facts; I'm observant when I need to be and as thick-headed as Almeida when I'm off duty. If you're back with your wife for the stability and the chance to see your daughter, you need to show it to me, and then you need to prove it to me, because as much as I need you, I'm not taking you back without a gun under my pillow and one eye wide open while I sleep.

And for Christ's sake, if you love me, then love me. Considering the line of work we're in, I never thought I would fall for anyone; in fact, with all the stress in my life, I never wanted to. You somehow wiggled your way into my brain, into my gut, into my crotch, and then into my heart. Imagine realizing that at thirty-one, you've fallen in love for the first time. Imagine having this realization the day after he dumps your ass and goes back to his wife. (And then imagine having to work with the bastard every day.) I've seen the way you roll your eyes when you're on the phone with her, and I've seen the way your eyes crinkle when it's your daughter on the phone, even when she's been suspended for organizing a student protest and needs you to pick her up from the principal's office. It's the way you used to look at me, back when we actually showed each other we cared. I miss that, God damn it, and I'm tired of the pretending. Yes, it's ironic coming from me, and no, I'm still not going to take my statement back.

This is killing me. Every night you go home to your wife is another bullet in my body. And I kind of like the idea of being alive. So do my employers (and not just the ones you've met). And considering my period's late, it could be that a life sitting on my bladder likes the fact that I'm still breathing, too.

"Nina?" Tony's head pokes into her private "office", his squinty eyes trying to figure out what she's up to. "I'm ready to leave. Are you coming?"

Shit.

Save message as draft?

DELETE.

"Let's go."