Talking to Brian doesn't necessarily make me feel better, but it does help me feel a lot less alone. I make the necessary phone call to schedule an appointment with my doctor, and I'm more than a little disappointed that it will take a week to get in, because I need to know now. But, there’s nothing I can do, so in the end, there’s nothing left to do except wait. So I end up burying myself in work, purely for the sake of distraction. What can I say? Brian taught me well.

Luckily, there’s plenty that needs to be done, so I have a pretty solid excuse for spending late hours at the office, even though my real reason is just because I don’t want to sit alone in my apartment and have to think about the disaster my life has become. Rich has been sending me occasional text messages, all some variation on the theme of, I miss you. I’m sorry. Please give me another chance.

However, there’s no way in hell he’s getting a second chance with me -- especially not now.

So I continue ignoring his texts, swiping away the notification with nothing more than a brief glance each time my phone ‘dings’ with a new one. By the fifth message, I’ve turned off notifications and by the eighth message, I’m ready to block his ass completely, but I don’t get very far into that process before my office phone starts ringing. It’s a Connecticut area code this time, but I’m not super surprised to see that because I know exactly who’s calling, given that we’re in the final steps of producing a series of videos for the Connecticut Office of Tourism that includes television ads as well as a free, online webseries narrated by some B-list actor I’d never heard of who happens to be from Hartford, giving people ideas for planning trips and tours to his home state that he probably hadn’t been to in years before we flew him out to shoot the videos. But, they came to us with him already chosen, and it was what they wanted, though to be honest, I’m pretty proud of how everything turned out.

When I pick up the phone, I’m assuming that my contact has had a chance to take a look at the videos herself and wants to chat, so I’ve got a smile in my voice when I greet her with a cheerful, “Hello, Marcia, what can I do for you?”

However, her tone is nowhere near as cheerful when she ignores my question and utters a terse, somewhat-anxious, “We need to talk.”

Fifteen minutes later, my beautiful ads as well as the webseries might as well be garbage, because it turns out that our B-list actor has apparently been getting a little too friendly with his costars, and now there are over a dozen women saying he assaulted them, some up to a decade ago.

So, long story short, Marcia wants him gone, the tourism board wants him gone, and I do too, because the last thing I want is for my work to feature some asshole who can’t keep his hands to himself or thinks women are objects for his perusal. But, since everything is already finished and we literally just received the final cut of the webseries videos yesterday, getting his face and his voice out of the ad campaign means reshooting a lot of footage, which is going to take a lot of time that we don’t really have. But I guess now we have to find the time -- we don’t have much choice, because they’re counting on this campaign.

When I hang up with Marcia, I’m honestly not sure where to start. I have to find somebody else on short notice, preferably with a local connection, who’s available to travel so we can reshoot the necessary footage. Not to mention getting the entire production crew lined up again, which wasn’t an easy feat the first time. I promised Marcia I’d still deliver, but I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to do that.

I spend the rest of the afternoon scouring the internet for somebody -- anybody -- who might be able to fill in at the last minute, and I come up totally empty. Meanwhile, I’ve got other tasks and other accounts that I still need to be working on, which leaves me wishing I could somehow clone myself so I could get twice as much done, but still up to my high standards.

I know Brian would be willing to help, but I’ve seen his calendar and I know he’s basically booked up for the rest of the week with client meetings and tight deadlines, including a quick overnight trip to Chicago to meet with a new client who wants a national campaign. So it looks like I’m on my own with this one.

By the time I get home, I’m so exhausted that I end up practically falling into bed shortly after finishing the takeout I picked up on my way home from the office, and I try to ignore the fact that feeling more tired than usual is another indicator of pregnancy.

The next morning, I continue my aimless, desperate search for actors and other low-key famous people who happen to be from Connecticut, in between my own client meetings and conference calls. I’ve just clicked onto yet another page of what must be my umpteenth Google search when Brian appears outside my office door.

“Got any lunch plans?” he asks, lingering in the doorway for a moment before coming in and parking himself in front of my desk. “I asked Rob if he wanted to join us, but he’s still on house arrest.”

“Not everyone thinks of recuperating at home as ‘house arrest,’” I laugh, before I focus my attention back on my screen and the task at hand. “And unfortunately, I can’t go either. Gotta find a new spokesperson for these Visit Connecticut ads.”

“What? Why? I thought you had what’s-his-face doing them. Actually, I thought they were done.”

“Steven Smith. And they were. But it turns out that Mr. Smith is apparently a world class asshole who thinks with his dick, and also thought it was okay to assault about a dozen different women. I knew there was something about him I didn’t like. Anyway, everyone involved in the project wants him gone. Hell, so do I, but that means I’m back to square fucking one on most of this campaign.”

“What can I do to help?” Brian comes closer, peering at my screen, where I’ve been striking out left and right looking for someone else who could star in these videos for us.

“You can wave that magic wand of yours and make someone appear who’s from Connecticut, charismatic, doesn’t mind appearing on-camera, and is available ASAP to go reshoot these videos.”

“No magic wand, but I can help you look. Any preferences, or are we desperate enough that we’ll go with just about anybody?”

“Don’t you have a meeting this afternoon?”

“I do, but I can skip lunch.”

“You’re not skipping lunch. Justin will kill me if he finds out you came home again without eating, and it was all on my account.”

“Fine, then we’ll order in. But I can help you for at least a couple of hours.”

We order salads and sandwiches from the cafe on the ground floor of our building and set to collaborating in my office, me on my desktop and Brian on his laptop, having taken up residence in the armchair in the corner of my office, with his feet up in his wheelchair. Soon, however, two hours have passed and we are still no closer to finding someone else who can do this for us. We’ve each made about a dozen phone calls to potential candidates, but no one is available on such short notice.

Brian goes to his meeting, and I have no choice but to shift my attention to a couple of my other accounts that have deadlines fast approaching. Brian is heading to Chicago in the morning, so I won’t be seeing him in the office until Friday, and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage everything by myself while at the same time trying to find someone who can save our asses by agreeing to help us reshoot these ads. I know I’ll do it -- I always do -- but to be totally honest, between this and everything that’s happening in my personal life, I’m more than a little bit overwhelmed.

So it’s another late night of takeout and exhaustion for me, and I really wish I could just have a glass of wine, but I’m not going to do that. I’m up early the next morning so I can get to the office ahead of everyone else, praying that today’s the day when the new Connecticut tourism spokesperson falls out of the sky and into my lap.

My cell phone rings no less than five minutes after I arrive in the office, and I think to myself that it better not be Rich, trying a new tactic for his groveling, but it’s Brian.

“Hey, you. Did you forget something?” I tease, fully expecting that Brian needs me to forward him some file that he forgot to copy over to his laptop, or make one of his many last-minute, obsessive tweaks.

“I think I’ve got our new spokesperson,” he says, completely ignoring my question. There’s a lot of background noise on his end of the line, and I can hear a muffled voice making an announcement over the loudspeaker. “Shit, I have to go. But I’ll have Justin text you -- turns out one of his actor friends is actually from Connecticut, and Justin thinks he’ll be more than willing to do it. Hold on a sec.” I hear some rustling, then a beep and Brian talking to someone in the airport, then he’s back on the line with me. “Anyway, I’m about to board, so I’ll let you go. But hopefully this guy can save us.”

As I say goodbye to Brian and hang up, I think to myself that I hope he can too.

As promised, I get a message from Justin a few minutes later with the guy's contact info and a link to his YouTube channel. He's definitely younger than our original guy, but that might be a good thing -- fresh perspective. Sure, we already have the scripts finalized, and he'll just be reading them, but he seems like he'll bring some new life and excitement to the project, just from what I see on YouTube. Justin has already given him a heads up that I might be calling, so he's not super surprised to hear from me, and we don't have to talk very long before I know this is going to work out perfectly. Soon, I've got legal emailing him a contract and we're working out a tentative shooting schedule, contingent on the availability of the film crew.

Though I’ve made progress, I’m still not totally out of the woods yet on this project, and on top of that I still have everything else on my to-do list staring back at me from my computer screen, looking daunting. Normally, I’m not one to get overwhelmed by my to-do list, but between that and everything else in my life that just plain feels fucked up, ‘overwhelmed’ doesn’t even feel like the right word.

I try to take everything one step at a time, making my way through each item carefully and methodically, but by lunchtime, I’m so exhausted that I can barely hold my eyes open, and I’m wondering if this is what I have to look forward to for the next nine months, if I am pregnant. At least I’m more than halfway through this week already, because my doctor’s appointment can’t come soon enough.

Not that it will change anything, if my fears turn out to be true. But at least I’ll know for sure.

I take a break in between phone calls to just lean back in my chair and close my eyes, and I nearly jump out of my skin when Christina says my name from the doorway, her voice hesitant and quiet, but just enough to bring me back to full awareness.

“Sorry,” she says, once my eyes have come into focus and settled on her. “I had a couple of things I wanted to run by you. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I say, perhaps trying to convince myself as much as I’m trying to convince her.

“Okay,” she says, though I can hear in her voice that she doesn’t quite believe me. We spend a few minutes going over the things she wanted to ask me about, and I feel like her eyes are appraising me the entire time, even though she likely isn’t -- it’s all in my imagination because I feel like I might as well have a flashing neon sign on my head that says, “Pregnant.”

Brian calls me mid-afternoon, supposedly to give me an update on how his first meeting went, though I can tell from the unusually large amount of questions he asks that he’s really just checking up on me, though he’d never outwardly admit to that, because that wouldn’t be his style. I can tell he’s worried, but he’s also leaving the ball in my court as to how much help I want to ask for. And I love him for that; he knows me well.

I feel like I probably should stay late at the office, because I have so much I need to get done, but I end up going home right on time because I’m just too tired to stay. I hate to say that, but it is what it is. When I get to my apartment, I toe off my shoes in the middle of the living room and collapse onto the sofa, wondering how on earth I’m going to keep going if this complete and total lack of energy keeps up. Louis jumps up onto the cushion next to me and pushes his head underneath my hand -- his way of asking me to pet him, by essentially making it happen himself. I’m happy to oblige, of course, and the feeling of his silky fur against my skin seems to have a calming effect on me. Maybe Louis knew that was what I needed, because I’ve spent most of the last few days feeling like I want to scream.

Why me? That’s the question I can’t seem to get out of my head. What did I do to make the universe see fit to give me the one thing in this world that I’d never want to have happen?

I know that’s the million-dollar question that a lot of people ask about a lot of different situations, but I still feel like I need an answer.

I remember sitting with Brian in his office in Pittsburgh almost thirteen years ago -- though I still can’t believe it’s been that long -- as he asked himself the same question. He’d been in a terrible mood all day, so I’d been trying to steer clear as much as possible, only stealing furtive glances at him through the glass door to his office because I was concerned, and I knew that there was probably something completely different underlying his snarky attitude and cantankerous disposition. He’d been like that most of the time since he’d come back to work after his accident, and I was never quite sure if it was physical pain or purely frustration that was causing it, though I figured it was likely a little of both. I heard him talking to Justin, as had become customary on Wednesday afternoons, ever since Justin had left for New York, and, as usual, the way he sounded as he talked on the phone was completely different from how he’d been all day. They talked for more than thirty minutes, and I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation, which was mostly about Justin’s art. Every time it seemed like Justin had tried to shift the focus onto Brian, Brian would shift it back to Justin. He hung up the phone sounding positive, but the second he put the phone down, his posture immediately changed as he slumped forward, propping his elbow up on his desk and pinching the space between his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I’d gotten up from my desk and gone into Brian’s office -- not to ask something from my boss, but to check on my friend. He didn’t even look up as I opened the door and walked in, but it was obvious he knew it was me when he said, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

That statement could have applied to many different things, but I knew what it was about, because Ted and I had been trying to encourage Brian to tell Justin what was really going on, and I knew via Ted that everyone else in Brian’s circle of friends had been trying to do the same. We all respected his right and his desire to tell Justin in his own time -- even Debbie, which surprised the hell out of me, given the stories I’d heard -- but we all really, really wished he would do it, because all of us could see how much he was struggling, and how big of a toll it was taking on him to pretend everything was okay every week when he talked to Justin.

“Then don’t,” I said. “Tell him. There’s no need for it to be a secret.”

“I don’t know how to say it. I can’t. I just keep wishing it hadn’t happened at all.” He paused, finally looking up at me for the first time since I’d come into the room, and I could see the tears in his eyes. For all of the times since he’d come back to work that I’d practically dragged him out of the office, even going so far as to drive him home myself more than once, the only emotion I’d seen come out of him about this was anger. But this looked like defeat -- not something I would ever have associated with Brian Kinney. “I just keep wondering why my life is such a fucking mess. Why me? What did I do?”

I remember wanting to give him a hug, but the way he was sitting wouldn’t have allowed for it very easily, and I didn’t want to ask permission. Maybe I should have. I don’t know. Either way, the thing I remember the most was how much I wished I had an answer for him -- that I could somehow pull profound wisdom out of the air to make all of this make sense. But I couldn’t.

I didn’t have an answer for Brian back then, just like I don’t have an answer for myself now. All I could do was support him and be there for him every step of the way. So I did. And eventually, it all worked out. I have to hope the same will be true for me.

It doesn’t matter how many times you ask yourself “why” -- sometimes the universe doesn’t have an answer for you. All you can do is try to get through, leaning on your support system the whole way. Still, it’s hard to be the one who needs help, and I know Brian understands that, perhaps better than anyone else I know.

But just like Brian had all of us back then, I know I have him now. And I’m grateful for that. For right now, that’ll have to be enough.