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[email protected]
    Subject: re: Finally!
    24 July, 10:23 pm
    Dear Jess, my beautiful Kiwi baby,
    I’m so glad you’re okay and that nobody was hurt during the earthquake. Sounds like you’re having a blast filming and making friends. Send me a picture! It’s exactly the kind of adventure you deserve, and I hope your can pour your whole self into it. Don’t worry about me at all. I’ve got my hands full with something that feels pretty great, it’s a lot of hard work (I haven’t worked so hard in a really long time) and I’m feeling better about life than I have since—God, I don’t even know. A long time.
    The judge gave me a weird sentence. That’s all I’m ready to say at the moment. It has the potential to be really good, but I could also humiliate myself completely. Not ready to tell you all about it yet, especially not in email, but maybe we can figure out a time to Skype once you get your iPad back. Or can you Skype some other way? The timing is really hard, but I can maybe work it out around 8 am your time, or maybe 10 pm or 11 pm your time. 
    If we can’t, no big deal. Maybe I can get to Queenstown eventually or something.
    Love,
    Tyler
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    T o:  [email protected]
    From:  [email protected]
    Subject: re: Finally!
    25 July, 05:34
    Tyler! How mysterious you are! I’m dying to find out what you’re doing. Please give me more hints! I have no idea when we can Skype. 8 am, I’m always working. Maybe I can stay up until 10 one night, but honestly, we’re working 12 and 14 hours every day, doing a lot of physical stuff, hiking, kayaking, all that stuff, and the minute we get back to the house and eat, we’re all fast asleep. My dad came in and found us all crashed on the couch in front of a movie last night, piled up like kittens, he said. :)
    I’d LOVE to see you in Queenstown if you can get there, but remember, we are working tons. Might be better to wait until we’re done with the commercials. After August 16, I think they said. Something like that.
    Gotta go! Van is here. Xoxoxox
    J
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    T he days melt one into the other, all exactly the same. Eat, train, eat, train, eat, weights, eat, sleep.
    Start again.
    Alice spends the morning evaluating my form and style, puts me through my paces, sets up some challenges, and then it’s drills and more drills and more drills. It’s exhilarating and exhausting, feeling my body coming back to life, finding the pace and my power.
    Maybe I might really have a shot. Not at a medal, of course, but at maybe making the team.
    The downside to life is that it’s nearly impossible to catch Jess, time-wise. When I’m getting up to hit the slopes, she’s fast asleep. By the time I’m back to the apartment, she’s off to film. Our relationship is all in email.
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    T o: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Subject: sliding in next to you
    26 July, 6:32 am
    I woke up thinking of you this morning, dreaming that your silky hair was spread out over my chest. I miss you like an arm or an internal organ and wish I could see you right now. RIGHT NOW. I’d hold you close and smell the curve of your neck and run my hands over your sweet ass and kiss you until you were boneless, weightless, melting into me.
    You are sleeping as I write this, and I’m imagining that I’m sliding into bed beside you, naked, and curling myself around you. Feel it?
    God, I miss you.
    Xoxoxo
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    T o: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Subject:
    26 July, 9:14 pm
    Long day here. Really long, hard and disappointing. I was hoping to find something from you in my inbox, but I realize you’ve probably been working since I sent that first email this morning, or maybe you’re traveling or you were asleep and then had to go to work.
    Sorry, I shouldn’t even have commented on it. And what I should do is erase this email and start over, but I’m not going to.