The day I went to Winsome for lunch, I went to visit Ethan and Chloe at their new place after they got home from work. Being home alone without Gemma was hellish. I couldn’t believe I’d texted There hasn’t been anyone else but you for weeks.

I really couldn’t believe she didn’t respond to that.

As much as I liked Ethan and Chloe and their new place, it just made Gemma’s absence even more obvious because I couldn’t think of one time that I’d hung out with them without her. I was lousy company and I was miserable.

Misery was a totally unfamiliar feeling for me.

When you’re a runner, you learn to make friends with pain. You know that physical pain is inevitable when you push your body to its limit and you know that suffering is a choice. I had always chosen not to suffer.

Until now.

I was making myself suffer.

I was making myself miserable.

I was making myself visualize Ben doing all the things that I wanted to do to Gemma, in some hidden corner of the movie set, in a hotel room, in a parked car by the side of the freeway in the desert, against a wall in the bathroom of some restaurant, in his office trailer.

I couldn’t make it stop.

“Make it stop,” I groaned out loud.

It just didn’t seem right. If she wasn’t with Andrew, she should be with me. Not some random guy she just happened to meet at work.  I have no idea why I was never jealous of Andrew. I guess it was because she knew him long before she ever met me.

For as long as I’d known her, she had never been far from my thoughts, but now she was dominating my entire being. She was it. Gemma Kelly was my everything. I couldn’t lose her to some other guy that she’d just met. 

Chloe had disappeared to their home office to take a work call, so Ethan was alone in watching me stretched out on their sofa, covering my face. It was humbling.

“Is this an ego thing?” Ethan asked.

Of course it’s an ego thing. “No it’s not an ego thing.  It’s a Gemma thing. God. Give us both a little more credit.”

“Calm down, you’re being a drama queen.”

I wasn’t being a drama queen, I just didn’t know if I wanted to live in a world where Gemma was with anyone else but me. Why would anyone want to live in that world? It wouldn’t make sense. 

“You calm down.” She was having sex with Ben at that very moment, I could feel it. I groaned again. It was pathetic.

He took a sip of his gin and tonic, smacked his lips together, then offered this: “Here’s a thought. Devils advocate. Why not go out and bang some hot chicks. See how you feel afterwards.  Let me know how it goes.”

I peered up at him through one eye. “Why are you like this?”

“I don’t know what to say here.  I’m not the kind of friend who’s good at talking about stuff. You know who is?”

“If you say Gemma I will punch you in the head.”

“Her too, but I was gonna say my wife.”

“I already talked to her.”

“Oh yeah. She told me about that call.”

“Course she did.”

“By the way. Andie, the redhead who was at your party, wanted me to tell you that if you need a new renter for downstairs, she’s ‘still very interested.’”

I opened the other eye. “She said she’s ‘still very interested?’”

“She definitely said that.”

I tapped my fingers on my thigh. “That is interesting…No I can’t. I can’t do that to Gemma. And I haven’t decided if I’m going to rent it out again or not.”

“What would you be doing to Gemma?”

“Don’t make me explain the obvious.”

“Well. Gemma isn’t the one with the jealousy problem.”

I pulled myself up to slouch on the sofa. “You think I have a problem?”

“No. The level of jealousy you’re feeling is totally normal for an alpha male such as yourself and perfectly healthy.”

“It is, right? It’s normal to care about a friend.”

“No. It’s going to ruin everything.” 

“You are not good at talking me through this stuff.”

“I agree. You should talk to Chloe.”

“I need to get some new friends.”

“What happened to your buddies from college?”

“They’ll just ask me about Gemma. They think she’s hot.”

“So you’ll have to get new friends who are straight women who won’t try to hit on Gemma?”

“No way. Never again. Don’t ever be best friends with a woman, Ethan.”

“I am best friends with a woman. My wife.”

“Yeah.” I pushed out a breath. “Me too.”

“Look, I believe you’re into Gemma, I see it, I completely get it and I encourage it. But are you one hundred percent sure that this isn’t a grass is greener situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s been the one attractive woman in your life that you can’t quite have, for years, are you sure this isn’t just about getting her? Because if you get her and then you drop her once you’ve had her, you lose your best friend, and Chloe will kick the shit out of you, and she’ll kick the shit out of me if I stay friends with you, so you’d basically lose everyone in LA that’s important to you.”

I stared at him, holding my breath as his words wove their way through my brain and my soul. “Fuuuuuck.”

“So no pressure—just saying think about it.”

“I can’t not think about it.”

“If this were a movie I’d take you to a strip club to try to cheer you up.”

Before I could even get a little bit excited about the prospect, Chloe called out from the other room: “If you go to a strip club I will strip you of your balls while you’re sleeping!”

Ethan grinned at me. “And that is why she’s my best friend.”

“I need another drink.”

“Okay. But before I pour you one…” He lowered his voice and got in closer. I instinctively pulled away from him, but I was desperate to hear what he had to say despite his historic inability to say anything worthwhile on the subject. “You didn’t hear this from me. But a while ago, she told Chloe that she has a journal with a list.”

“A list of what?”

“Reasons why you guys should be just friends. Apparently she filled the journal up months ago. Maybe if you happened to find it you could have a better understanding of why she’s been struggling with this.”

I was back home in less than twenty minutes and may have grabbed Ethan and kissed him on the forehead before leaving.

I did hesitate before opening the door to Gemma’s room. I really did. But then I was pretty certain I heard someone moving around in there, so obviously I had to go in to make sure there wasn’t some creepy prowler inside.

There was. It was me.

And in that perfectly decorganized bedroom, a journal was sitting on the bed.

Just sitting there.

At the foot of the bed.

Like a girl in a towel, sitting there, waiting for me to make the next move.

I made that next move, and as I flipped through the pages, I knew I had to make another one.

Soon.