Chapter 24

For the next two days, I still didn’t hear from him. What I should have done was blow it off.

Prime me: “Whatever. I don’t have time for guys who get their feelings hurt that easily.”

Current me: *Refreshes phone madly.*

I knew it didn’t make sense. If I had heard the last of Jack, what had I lost, really? We weren’t in a relationship. We didn’t have a future. We didn’t owe each other anything.

But at a bare minimum, we’d become friends. And when it came down to it, that was no small thing. Friends whose senses of humor were as out there as your own…those were four leaf clovers in the weed patches of life. I would feel just as bad if I had this kind of fight with Ranée.

It was cold comfort to know I’d at least offered up a sincere apology. I’d done the only thing I could do to make things right.

On the third day, I still didn’t feel any better. I’d read a book recently where a character described the feeling of missing someone as losing a tooth and constantly poking at the hole in your mouth where it should be. That was how the silence felt between Jack and me.

It was absurd. And unsustainable. And I couldn’t do a thing about it but suck it up and move on.

I decided to pour my frustration into work, and I kicked on my afterburners for the rest of the week, scheduling more meetings, running more efficiency diagnostics, checking in personally with more of my team than I had since my promotion.

On Thursday morning, my assistant Hailey chased me down the hall waving a message slip at me. “Peter called.” I read over the message from my boss while she put her hands on her knees and caught her breath. “I’ve got four times as many steps as usual today, and we’re only halfway through. Just tell me, are you trying to kill me? Because if you are, I need to go upgrade my healthcare plan.”

“Peter wants to order lunch for the team tomorrow because we’re two days ahead of deadline. I’ll find out what everyone wants.”

Hailey straightened. “Boss, that’s my job. You have to let me do it. Go sit in your office and think management thoughts while I handle the details.”

“But—”

“But that’s my job. Half of which you’ve been doing for a few days. Let me. I enjoy the feeling of earning my paycheck.”

Hailey was six years younger than me, but I felt like I’d just been schooled by someone twice my age and experience. I hesitated, then nodded. “Have I been micromanaging?”

“Um.”

I waved her off. “Enough said. Go get the orders. I’ll stay out of the way.”

I returned to my office and looked at my list of tasks, trying to figure out which ones I was micromanaging. I had eight things on my list. Technically, I could cross off five and leave them for other people. And maybe now was a good time to read a few articles on effective leadership to remind myself not to be a giant pain in my team’s collective backside.

I picked up my phone to pull up some bookmarked articles and froze.

I had a text from Jack.

I should set the phone down and do some deep breathing, manage my expectations before I opened it up.

I should.

But I fumbled it to the floor in my effort to swipe the message open as fast as possible.

In your message you said you weren’t sure why you pushed so hard, but you thought it was because…and then you didn’t finish. What were you going to say?

I set the phone down again. Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t that. Maybe, “We’re cool. Wanna FaceTime later?” Possibly, “Please don’t contact me again.” But not this.

I picked up the phone and opened our DMs to replay my message, trying to hear it from his perspective.

My face filled the screen. Even through my makeup I could see the slight circles under my eyes from the restless night I’d had the night before. Video Me started with a wobbly smile then cleared her throat. I fast forwarded to the part he asked about. “You didn’t owe me any explanation,” Video Me said. “And I shouldn’t have pushed you for one. I definitely shouldn’t have treated it all like a big joke. I’m not even sure why I pushed so hard. I think it’s because—”

Video Me broke off, stared down at her hands, and her shoulder rose and fell as if she were brushing something off. Then she picked up again. “Anyway, I’m sorry for digging into your past and bringing it up.”

I closed the message. It had been a two second pause, but even I could hear what he must have heard in it: a silence that spoke louder than words.

Why did he need me to fill it? What did he want? A true confession…of what? Feelings? But how was that supposed to play out? I dropped my head into my palms and tried to imagine it. Not how I wanted it to go, but how it would actually go.

ME: Well, Dr. Jack, it turns out that I feel something for you at an emotional level that I don’t remember feeling before, and maybe there are names for this feeling, but I don’t want to use any of those names because they all make me feel panicky. Do you have a prescription to fix this?

JACK: Sure. Let’s meet and see where this thing between us goes and figure out if we’ve got what it takes to grow a relationship. Because I think you’re right. We’ve got something.

ME: Is that crazy? We haven’t even met for real.

JACK: Why would that be crazy? We’ve spent hours talking and making each other laugh.

ME: We haven’t talked about our real things. About our hard things.

JACK: But we understand each other’s personalities. As well as I’ve understood anyone’s. Am I imagining that?

ME: No, but…

JACK: We already know we can talk for hours. That’s a big cornerstone of a relationship, right? So we’ve got something. Let’s build on it.

ME: Sounds good. The San Francisco housing market is rough, but I’ll keep an eye out for a good situation. Even if we were within a couple of hours of each other, we could make that work, right?

JACK: Oh. I was thinking maybe you’d just move up here and make way less money at a job you may or may not find in our much smaller Portland tech market.

ME: I’m not doing that. There aren’t tech jobs everywhere, but San Francisco needs doctors. Come on down!

JACK: I refuse to talk about being a doctor and my reasons are excellent, but I’m not going to tell you what they are.

ME: Well, I guess we tried. Bye.

JACK: Oh, well. Bye.

And I didn’t want the conversation to end that way.

“Emily?”

I shot up, blinking at Hailey who poked her head into my office. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, great. Just visualizing the week.”

She looked a little uncertain, but she stepped into the office holding her hands behind her back. “Excuse me for saying so, but you don’t seem all right in that underneath way, if that makes any sense. And I can’t say this would do it for me, but it seemed to make you happy that one time, so here you go.” She held her hands out to reveal a bag of Cheetos and a large cup of coffee.

It was the treat Jack had sent to my office all those weeks ago, only now instead of making me smile, it sent a hairline fracture through my already failing composure. I wasn’t sure what showed up on my face, but Hailey’s eyes widened. “Oops. Looks like I made a bad call. I’m sorry. I hope you feel better!” She backed out, treats still with her.

“No, stay.” I waved her over to my desk. “This is the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me since…” I touched the bag, and it crackled. “Well, since the last time someone did this for me. Thank you. I mean it.” I handed her my credit card. “I’m sorry I’ve been a crazy person this week. Go load yourself up with something from the café on me.”

She plucked the card from my fingers. “If you insist.”

“I’m ordering you to.”

“Bye, boss.”

I turned around to examine my superheroes on the window ledge. I bent forward and looked General Leia in the eye. “What am I supposed to do here? Give my life to the resistance? To resisting? What is my cause?”

I swear she rolled her eyes at me. I turned her to face out of the window but studied the rest of my action figures. All of them would have said, “You don’t need a man. But they make things more fun.” Except Jane Austen. Jane Austen would say to get the man.

Well, she would say to let the man come to me. And wasn’t that what Jack was doing?

Wasn’t he taking a step toward me by asking me to fill in that gap after “because…”?

I picked up Jane Austen and set her on the desk. Then I picked up my phone. It was time to give Jack an answer.