Page 154 of Only After We Met

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From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: Even if you don’t read this

My father’s sick. Cancer. He’s started chemo, at least that’s what my mom said the last time we talked. Can you believe it? Him. Of all people. Maybe you don’t understand what I mean, but you would if you knew him. He’s the kind of guy nothing ever affects. Proud. Serious. Smart. He graduated from Harvard with honors, just like my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and who knows how many generations before. The Bakers have gone there since it was founded, until I broke the tradition. He’s an imposing man. Remember when you told me you were glad Kate was going to help out at the publisher because you’d pee yourself in meetings? Well, my dad’s one of those guys who terrifies the people he negotiates with. He’s six-three, he is always in good shape as I remember, and when he shakes a guy’s hand, he squeezes hard and lets them know he’s no one to play with. He’s got presence, you know?

And he seemed invincible. What a word, right?Invincible.

Why do they even have that word in the dictionary? Is there anything it actually applies to? I doubt it. Everything dies, everything’s dust, everything gets forgotten in time. Nothing remains, nothing triumphs.

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: Even if you don’t read this

I don’t even know what I’m feeling, Ginger. And you’re not here to scream at me all the truths no one else dares to utter. I don’t know, I can’t get this fucking feeling out of my chest, this pressure… There are nights when I feel like I’m going to drown. I’m not myself. Or maybe I am, more than ever. I don’t know, that’s the problem. If at some point I thought I’d managed to get to know myself, that I had answers to all the questions I’d been asking myself, well… I was wrong. And the more I think about that, the worse I feel.

It’s like being lost and alone on an asteroid no one’s ever heard of, at some point of the galaxy beyond exploration, far from any other human being.

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: Even if you don’t read this

There’s no way you’re reading this, right, Ginger? There’s no wayyou’re actually reading this and closing every message when you’re done. That’s not you. It never has been. At times, I wanted to think so, especially at first, when you said you needed time… I know now that meant something else. That you needed to be away from me entirely. And I get it. It makes sense. I guess if I hadn’t fucked everything up, you’d still be there on the other side of the screen. You know I imagine you sometimes? I see a girl with a baby carriage, and I imagine you walking next to James or at the publisher or getting home each night, making dinner, laughing, having a glass of white wine, lying on the sofa at the end of the day, reading something, and then getting in bed with him.

When I see all this, I realize I screwed up. But you can’t go back in time and take your knowledge from the present with you, right? Because if you could, it would all be so fucking much easier… So many things would change. Things about you. Or the day I argued with my father. It’s funny. How a few words or an apparently meaningless decision can turn your entire life upside down… We should be terrified to even walk through the world, knowing we’re hanging by such a thin thread. You lose your balance for a second, just one, and you fall flat on the ground. I’m rambling. But I guess it doesn’t matter, since I doubt anyone’s even reading this fucking message.

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: Even if you don’t read this

They want me to put out another album soon. I said yes. I didn’tfeel anything at all. No joy, no excitement. I’m not sure if the problem’s me. But it usually is.

I think this is something else I’d change if I could go back.

I’d like to create, compose, but for others maybe, instead of for me. You always knew that, right? That I’d find that truly fulfilling, that those were the moments when I was happy, shutting myself up in the studio and forgetting to even eat.

But everything’s different now.

It feels like it has been for a long time.

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: Even if you don’t read this

Happy birthday, Ginger Snap.

And Merry Christmas.