The letter had arrived while I was in Houston.

I know it's from her because it's her writing on the envelope. Writing I never used to be able to understand but eventually grew into.

Kind of like her.

It's actually the first time I've properly thought about her since she left. I had, quite frankly, more important things to think about than an assistant having a bad day and quitting with no notice.

So unprofessional; I never really thought of her as selfish.

How dare she walk out on me because I cancelled a few silly little lunches? She knows how busy I am.

Well, you know what?

I don't feel like reading her letter. I bet she's begging for her job back.

Oh yes.

I'm on to you Donnatella Moss. You think that after working with you for nearly eight years I don't know how your sneaky little criminal mind works? Well, your gamble failed, didn't it?

Ha!

Ha Ha Ha!

I need a drink.

Ah, beer - the working class drink. Delicious.

I don't care about the letter. I'm going to stick it in a drawer. That's what I do with things I don't like.

I wonder what's on TV?

Okay, why is there nothing on? Why why why? I need TV!

I'll take a shower. No, I don't want a shower. But if I don't take a shower what can I do?

Bed? No, I'm not tired.

Right, shower.

No wait, I could clean the fridge!

Oh who am I kidding? I haven't cleaned the fridge the entire time I've been living here, why would I start now.

It's mocking me.

A little cream envelope with her stupid messy scribble on it is laughing at me from its hiding place beneath the silverware. I'm going to take a look at it. Just a look.

Hmm, she mailed it the day she quit.

Clever.

I'm not taking her back. There's nothing for her to come back to.

She wanted to bluff me into doing something. Well honey, it backfired. Big time.

If I open the letter I'll have to read it. If I read it, I'll be amused right? Yeah, I could use a laugh.

Oh man, eight pages of her penmanship. What did I do to deserve this?

Is she trying to piss me off?

Okay, well she already did that when she walked out on me in the middle of an astrological crisis. Things are falling from the sky all the time and the one time I panic about it - oh the irony.

I get her now.

She thinks she's so damn clever. Let's see how she expects to end this little practical joke.

Hmm. The paper even smells like her.

Oh dear, I can't believe I just sniffed it. Ugh.

"Dear Joshua,

How many beers did you have before you opened this letter? I would guess one, because after two you'd forget where you had hidden it, after three you'd have forgotten it existed and after four you'd have forgotten your own name. So I pick one. One beer and then you realized that beer wasn't going to work. Did you take a shower? I bet you thought about cleaning something.

How long did it take you before you took this letter from where you had hidden it because it was mocking you?"

Oh great Donna, now you're mocking me through paper. What did I do to deserve this?

"Right now you're angry. You're annoyed. You're calling me selfish and irresponsible."

Ha! I am not! You think you know me so well.

"Perhaps you're feeling sorry for yourself. Poor pitiful put upon Josh. Everyone picks on me; I'm the fall guy. I gave the best years of my life to this administration and when it gets bad - when the sky is literally falling in - she leaves me."

I don't believe you, Donna! I'm not thinking that, I would never think that.

Except... yeah. Now I am.

Damn you.

I wasn't thinking it before. You left me and all I felt was lost. So I went to find something. I didn't feel sorry for myself.

"I know you so well, Josh. I know you better than you know yourself because I can see all of you without the distraction of having to be you. I left because of you. And because of me. I left because you were lost and so was I and I knew that if we stayed where we were we'd never find ourselves.

You were never going to find your way. You relied on me too much and while I loved that, while it pleased me to look after you, I also know that having me there was stopping you from moving on. Not because you couldn't live your life without me, but because you wouldn't."

Yeah, I've already admitted I was lost. Ten points for pointing it out again.

"Do you know how long I watched you get more and more discouraged with your job? How many times I watched you come crashing in after a meeting went bad, after you couldn't make people agree to your way, after the frustrations you were feeling made you do stupid mistakes? Do you know how much I wanted to put my arms around you and tell you that it was okay, that you were okay? That it was a bump in the road and you would get over it and I would help you.

How close we were for so long. And how far did we grow apart last year? And for what reason? I hope you can enlighten me one day because I sure as hell can't figure where we went so wrong. Why you pushed me away, brushed me off when I asked for more work so I could help you more, so I could make a contribution and feel I was making a difference in the world."

Oh I get it. You wanted attention. You wanted to be famous and respected and in charge. Typical woman wanting everyone to admire you. Why do I pick the ones that have to be noticed?

"You have no idea how much you've taught me about politics and governing and making a difference and getting the best thing for Joe Public. How much you've inspired me to want to help those that couldn't help themselves. You make me proud to be a Democrat. You make me happy that I got into my car and drove halfway across the country.

I am so grateful you took me under your wing and gave me opportunities even though you didn't know me and I had no experience. What else could I do to repay you but organize the hell out of your life? But the thing is Josh, you started taking me for granted. You started expecting me to be there - His Girl Friday. We had the banter, we had the wit. You don't look like Cary Grant but your dimples more than make up for it."

You like my dimples?

"But Girl Friday turned into Girl Invisible. Two steps behind, silent, undemanding, and immobile until called upon. I know you didn't intend to put me there, I admit that it was partly my fault. I allowed myself to get shoved to the side because I figured that's how you needed me to be at that particular time.

I'm smart, Josh - I don't have a college education, I don't have Ivy League degrees - but I'm intelligent and capable and a quick thinker. Being taken for granted didn't work for me."

I never took you for granted!

"So I figured after almost 7 years in the White House (not to mention the 6 months on the campaign trail) you wouldn't mind giving me more. How long do you think I dropped hints that I wanted to be involved before you actually heard me? Before I actually had to come right out and demand my right to visit Brussels because of the hard work I'd done, even if it was in background?"

Hey, I sent you to Gaza instead!

Oh wait... yeah that didn't turn out so good.

"Do you know how happy I was when you told me I was going to the Middle East? Where I could really, really be a part of something. You had finally listened to what I was not so subtly asking for and you'd given it to me. I was nearly in tears that night at home. How girly of me I know, but I was now going halfway round the world on a diplomatic mission because you'd realized I was good for something. I quite literally could have kissed you - I know how much you like gratitude."

You could have kissed me? Yeah, that would have been a good idea at the office.

Oh it's bad when I start talking to pieces of paper.

Perhaps I shouldn't have had even the one beer.

"Do you want to know what happened then? Someone told me I was only going because you wanted to shut me up. That you were sending me to get me off your back - because I'd be so grateful that I'd stop bugging you. Perhaps not in those words, but I knew what was implied.

I'm not nothing, Josh; I'm not the little woman you have to placate. The little dog to whom you'll throw bones so she'll wait patiently by your feet. I went to Gaza, determined to learn what I could, determined to come back and make you listen. Oh wow, we both know what happened then."

Yeah, you got hurt and my guilt was unbearable. I went there to tell you... what? I don't know what I was going to tell you or even why.

My fear suffocated me.

"How pleased I was that the first face I saw was yours but I'm not going to write about our time there, that's left to my memory and perhaps to my regret.

Why didn't you give me things to do when I got back, Josh? Why did you insist on treating me like an invalid? My leg didn't work but my brain still did. I could have done anything you asked. Why did everything you say and did feel as though you were pandering to me? As though I was a child needing to be indulged?"

Well that's hardly my fault is it? You pretended everything was fine. How was I supposed to know you didn't like being looked after? I like it when you look after me. It makes me feel safe; protected. I wanted you to feel the same.

"You don't know how to look after people - that's okay, I don't mind that you're not a sensitive new aged guy. You wouldn't be you if you didn't have ego and arrogance. But when you were looking after me you looked and sounded stupid. I know you tried your best but you didn't see what I really wanted from you.

You didn't say what I needed you to say. All the things you did say came out wrong and I resented it and I resented you. I resented that for so many years you always had the right thing to say when I was feeling bad - despite being the one who usually made me feel bad in the first place - and now, you couldn't tell me what you really felt. What you really feel.

So I needed to make you listen. I tried talking to you at work. I tried scheduling lunches. You blew me off every single time. Why?"

Because I was busy, Donna, and I had work to do and you were always bugging me about something. Like you always bug me!

"When I said I needed you tonight, you brushed me off. Well, that was it. I wasn't going to let you do that anymore. I wasn't going to wait for the lunch that would never come despite your assurances. I know you. You'd have found an excuse, a reason to cancel on me again because you think you can cancel and I'll always be there waiting, ready for when you're ready. Well, Josh, I'm ready now. You're not. We're at different places in our lives."

So because I'm afraid to tell you how I feel, you go off and leave me. We're not like that, are we? We don't play the childish games. We don't throw tantrums when things go wrong.

Okay, well maybe we do.

Maybe I do.

"We're not having a relationship, Josh, not the type I want anyway. Whatever that is I don't know, but I know it's not the one we have right now. Maybe it's the one we had a few years ago; maybe it's the one we're never going to have because we're both too afraid. The thing is, I won't tell you I love you and I can't tell you that I don't. Anything I feel for you, or about you, is my business now because I choose to no longer be a part of your life. It's the way I need it to be. And this time, my needs come first.

You'd never move if I had stayed. You weren't happy, but you wouldn't have gone because you weren't sure if I'd have gone with you. Do you think for one minute Josh that if you'd asked me I'd have said no? Despite the fact that you take me for granted, I'd have still walked to the ends of the earth with you if it had helped. Do you really think, after all these years, that I wouldn't come with you if you begged me? But of course, you weren't going to. So I wasn't going to. Besides where would you have gone? What would you have done?"

I'd have gone to Texas to bet on a long shot. Your impetus was what I needed, Donna. You gave it to me.

"I didn't lie to you tonight. I do have another job, one that will be fulfilling. Not that working for you wasn't fulfilling. No, it was quite possibly the best years of my life but I got all filled up and you didn't allow me to expand. I want to you know that I'm not blaming you. Well, maybe a little."

I knew it, I knew you'd find a way to make it my fault. After I praise you for shoving me in the right direction.

"Josh, the place we ended up was a result of both of us being stubborn and neither of us realizing where we were going until it was too late.

So I'm starting a new job. I'm sorry I was so abrupt in telling you but if we'd had lunch several weeks ago when we'd originally scheduled it, perhaps you'd have been able to give me a good enough reason to tear up my resignation and stay. I don't know and now I won't know. I'm not going to ponder the past too much because I need to think about my future - as do you."

I am thinking, Donna. For the first time in a long time, I'm thinking about my life and why I hate it and what I can do to fix it. I'm thinking how I can start again without you and how much I'm dreading it. I'm thinking of how much I truly let you down and how much I hate myself for it.

"Anyway, I'm nearly to the end of this piece of paper and while eight pages of my writing is probably too much for you to read, I've managed to say all I think is necessary. You know my cell number. I'm not expecting a call because, though your need for me will allow you to dial, your pride will not allow you to finish. Good luck in the future. I know you will be brilliant with whatever you choose to do next.

Thank you so much for the past eight years, my only regret is that I wasn't able to kiss you goodbye.

Donna"

I haven't cried in years and now, I don't know if I'll stop.

She's gone.