Chapter 19

The gym was deserted. That was no surprise late on a Friday night. I was glad for the empty line of treadmills and jumped on the middle one, setting the course for hills.

I raced up them, digging hard, trying to outrun the unsettled feeling. It began to work, and my muscles loosened into the easy rhythm they usually found around the three-mile mark. But I forgot what also happened around the three-mile mark: mental clarity.

As I turned the situation with Jack over in my head, one truth bubbled up, even when I tried to flip the problem and look at it another way: I liked Jack. Really liked him. Liked him in the way that made me care whether he’d ended our date to talk to another woman. That made me care about why he’d invested so little of himself in a place he’d been living in for two years. That made me care about why he held so much of himself back from our conversations.

Yes, he was funny, creative in our dates, generous in the way he sent me treats tailored to make me smile. And he’d resisted the idea of classifying us as “Just friends.” But there were little details I didn’t know about his life, and even though I’d pressed only very lightly, he’d thrown up fortress-like defenses when I tried to ask about the simple things.

Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right at all.

Ranée said he was a good guy. My instincts told me the same thing. But they were also telling me that he was hiding something. What could he be working so hard to avoid talking about?

Did it matter? There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t make him tell me a thing. My choices were to quit talking to him, or to let this stay what it was—a “virtual flirtation”—or to press him until he quit talking to me.

I didn’t want to quit talking to him.

I started mile five and reset the course to stay flat so I could think. Why was it important to me to keep talking to him? I’d gone from being furious with him two months before for his ninja photoshopping to dumping Paul when I realized I wanted someone more like…Jack.

But Jack wasn’t possible. Jack was hundreds of miles away. Jack was funny and handsome and thoughtful. But he was also secretive and elusive.

So what was the draw?

The mystery?

That was part of it. No one could resist a good mystery. But it wasn’t like me to become wrapped up in it to the exclusion of everything else, to pause during my work day to check in on his Twitter feed, or wait impatiently for his next IM. I’d never been that girl. And yet here I was.

By mile six, I was chasing down a new realization. I was thirty-one, excelling in my career, and some part of me was ready for a relationship. But Ranée was right: there was a part of my brain somewhere that kept choosing guys I knew I wouldn’t really commit to.

I hadn’t been willing to be “distracted” while I established myself professionally. But now I was firmly on the path up to the executive suite. I was good at what I did, and there would only be more promotions in my future. And now that I had what I’d worked toward, I felt a hole somewhere. Obviously I’d sensed that even when I was with Paul, or we’d still be dating.

Was my subconscious trying to tell me that JACK was the answer?

No. That made no sense. I had spent my whole adult life avoiding a relationship like my parents’, where my dad’s focus and my mom’s free-spiritedness had been oil and water. I was an urban-dwelling corporate ladder climber. Jack was a flannel-loving rural Oregon tree dweller.

I finished mile seven and slowed the treadmill, walking to cool down and crystallize my next step in my own mind.

By the time I headed to the locker room, I knew what I had to do: this pull I felt toward Jack was trying to tell me that it was time to find The One, a real relationship, one I could commit to as I entered the next phase of growing up: finding and keeping true love.

I already had the glimmer of a plan I couldn’t wait to put into action.