Down the Rabbit Hole

*

Macy could hardly believe her eyes. Two weeks after breaking up with Jeremy and then hearing absolutely nothing from him, she was sitting in her office after hours looking at his grinning face on an iLove dating profile. He’d actually come up in her Guys You Should Look At section!

Her entire body flushed with mortification. He’d certainly gotten over her in a hurry.

She leaned close. She had taken that photo! They’d been waiting for a table at Captain Newick’s and he’d been smiling so big—he had a killer smile—that she told him he looked like the picture of the cartoon captain on the wall behind him. He’d gathered her in close and they took a selfie with the sign. But only she knew it was behind him now, as it— along with herself—had been unceremoniously cropped out of the picture.

Memories of that day, when they’d driven out to the bay in search of bushels of crabs and cold beers, the sun hot on their heads in Jeremy’s convertible, enveloped her like mid-August humidity. She too had worn a grin that threatened to crack her face wide open, and she hadn’t even cared that her hair was blowing like a willow in a tornado and was likely to look like a tumbleweed before it was all over. Jeremy was laughing and glancing at her so often it was as if he couldn’t believe his luck, and they were singing together to the music, unself-conscious and electric. Neither one of them had had a care in the world beyond finding the elusive Captain Newick’s, which instead of being on the bay was on a back road by a river that fed into it, and boasted the best steamed blue crabs within reach of the city.

He hadn’t been on his phone at all that day. In fact she hadn’t even been aware of the problem yet. She’d still had the wild intoxicating idea that there weren’t any problems between them.

Every woman on here would want that guy, she knew. The one who was totally there, undistracted, happy, in tune. The guy who seemed like he’d be there forever, making up for everything you’d ever lost in your life.

Until he disappeared and you became the superfluous doll across the table from the guy making love to his cell phone.

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.