Down the Rabbit Hole

Had he seen her profile?

She hoped if he had that he took it as a sign that she was over him, even though she was as far from that as she could be. She may have broken up with him, but that didn’t mean the dream had died—the dream that she’d found the right one, that he was all he’d seemed to be, that she had stumbled upon nirvana. It was the dream that was so very hard to let go of. At least that was what she had been telling herself.

She knew better now. Staring down the barrel of the dating gun, she was afraid she wanted nobody but Jeremy. Even the Jeremy who listened with half an ear and couldn’t drag his eyes from a backlit screen.

She flipped a pen through her fingers, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Then, despite herself, she clicked on his profile. It might make her feel worse, but if she didn’t look she’d spend too much time wondering what he’d said.

As she’d learned to do on the other profiles, she skipped quickly over the multiple-choice section and went straight to the personal essay.

Sometimes superficial and regularly overconfident, I can be an insensitive bastard to those who can do nothing for me. I like things my own way and am persuasive enough to get them. I use my charm to make people like me, and am lost when it doesn’t work. I do not trust my own substance. I occasionally use people. I tend to disappear on women I’ve lost interest in. I have a bad habit of not paying attention to people, of only hearing what I want to hear, of taking people for granted. I want love but have no idea what it actually is. If I’m with you, I’ll likely only spend ten minutes out of every hour actually focused on you. The rest of the time I’ll be carrying on conversations with others who are potentially more interesting on my phone because I have the attention span of a gnat. I have an insatiable need to be entertained at every moment. I blame others for my boredom.

What the heck—?

Was this a joke? Was it aimed at her? She was the one who’d complained about his inattention, his phone dependence and, yes, maybe she’d accused him of needing to be entertained all the damn time—but she didn’t say any of that other stuff. Is that what he’d thought? Or was it just true?

Was he going for some kind of sympathy? Did he hope people would take it as a joke? It wasn’t funny to her.

She leaned forward and reread it. I tend to disappear on women I’ve lost interest in. He’d disappeared on her, that was for sure.

She sat back in her chair, gripping the pen in her fingers. It was here in black-and-white—he’d lost interest in her. She had broken up with him, but there was obviously no going back. She considered writing to him, asking him what he was doing there. Had he known she was on iLove too, and was he making fun of her, the site or himself? Or maybe all three? But it would be too humiliating. If he saw her profile at all, let him think she was far too busy with other men to be looking at him.

She clicked on See the Guys Looking at You and up came a screen of head shots of smiling men, short paragraphs listing their vitals next to them. Here was HardLovinMan22 in a blurry shot wearing a cowboy hat, thirty-four years old, Aries, nonsmoker, in a suburb not far from hers. And Waiting4You, balding, sweet-smiled, thirty-eight, Pisces, nonsmoker, closer to downtown. ReelMeIn was posed, not surprisingly, with a fishing rod.

But Jeremy gnawed at her, and she scrolled down through the several pages of guys who’d looked at her, searching for his photo in the lineup.

He wasn’t there.

And now she was wasting time second-guessing herself again. He was not that into her. Even April had seen it. It was time to let go—especially since she’d already let him go.

She glanced again at the guy in the cowboy hat. He looked nice. She wasn’t into cowboys, especially, but she wouldn’t mind a simple, uncomplicated date. She clicked, read the pleasant essay and decided to write. It was time to get off the computer and out on a date. There’d be no getting over Jeremy sitting here in her office.

She dropped the pen on the desk and started typing.

CHAPTER FIVE

Macy’s hands were sweating, and she was having trouble taking a deep breath. Her mouth was dry and her smile felt stiff as she asked the restaurant’s hostess if anybody had mentioned that they were meeting someone here.

The blonde was wearing earrings the size of handcuffs, and she pointed a manicured hand toward the front of the dining room. “Yes, are you looking for that gentleman by the window?”