Page 16 of Shake the Habit

He had been at times, although I’d tried hard to keep him quiet. We talked more about my dog’s behavioral issues, and Caleb suggested that Sir might want to come for visits at his farm. “He could run off-leash and work through his desire to roam.”

I didn’t mentioned that the dog had already roamed away from me again, and had made a trek of several miles on his own. “I don’t trust him. I don’t know if he’ll come back,” I said. “This isn’t one of those things of ‘let him go free and maybe he’ll show that he really loves you.’ This is a thing of Sir disappearing forever and me losing him for good. I don’t believe in that ‘let him go’ stuff, anyway. If you love someone, you have to maintain a grip. Otherwise, who knows what they might be doing out of your eyesight?” And in my personal experience, my boyfriends had done a lot. So had I, to be honest.

“Is that how you’ve been conducting your love life?”

“I don’t think you’re one to give advice about that,” I countered. “You told me you haven’t had time for a relationship, but you’re just about forty. In all those years, you’ve never been able to squeeze one in?”

“I’m six years away from forty,” he said, which showed a lot about his level of denial. “I have been with people,” he said next, which sounded defensive in the extreme.

“But you’ve never been close to marriage or even an engagement.”

He paused. “Uh, no. That’s true.”

“So we’re both idiots,” I said, which felt better than being in it alone.

“I’m not willing to concede that,” Caleb said. “One of us is, and it’s the person who suggested that you’re not good at your job and that you were only hired because your cousin feels sorry for you. I’m sorry I said that, and I’m absolutely the idiot.”

“No, you’re not. But I did ask Marc, and he told me that I’m helpful to his business.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he responded. “I don’t mind that you told me about your problems in the past, either. I’m glad that you came through that and now you’re enjoying your job, taking care of Sir, and doing well.”

“It sounds better when you put it that way.”

“It sounded better to me when you talked about a new year like a blank chapter. Anything could happen,” he said. “Maybe something good.”

“Maybe a lot of good things,” I encouraged. “Marc could make your barn so nice. Sir will come visit and hang out, you could get heat in the house and bring the kitchen into the present.”

“All positives,” he agreed, nodding. “How about you?”

I considered for a moment. “I used to think into the future like that,” I said slowly. “I used to tell myself, ‘This year, I’ll meet someone who will really love me!’ and I’d have these dreams about my boyfriend taking me to Florence, Italy.” The farthest I’d actually gone with a boyfriend was Gatlinburg and then hiscar had broken down and he’d claimed to have forgotten his wallet. “Sir and I just watched a six-part series about traveling over there and he loved it.”

“Imagine him on a plane,” Caleb remarked, and I shuddered.

“Maybe not Europe,” I agreed. “Another thing I always dreamed about was music. I’d think, ‘This year, a rep from a big record company in Nashville will hear me and think that I have the voice they’ve been looking for!’ I imagined that they would sign me to a huge contract and I would have used the money to fix up my parents’ house, because they spent so much helping me that they put off doing things. I might have gone on tour like my cousin Cassidy except that I would be the singer.’” I paused for breath. “I don’t really think those things anymore.”

“You just go day to day,” he said, and I nodded.

“I focus on smaller stuff, attainable stuff. Like, ‘Today I won’t cry until I’m back at home and wearing my PJs again.”

“Hell, that’s awful.”

“But it doesn’t have to be sad things all the time,” I assured him. “I don’t focus only on how I’m lonely and loveless. Next year I could say, ‘Today, I’ll run for a block with Sir’ or, ‘Today, I’ll drink my whole bottle of water instead of avoiding good hydration and using it on the plants in the office.’”

“I was a runner,” Caleb said. “When I showed up for high school, I realized that I was very behind in sports. I started doing cross country that fall, but I haven’t gone out regularly in a while.”

“Why did you stop? Wait, I can guess. You got too busy?”

He smiled back at me. “I hurt my knee, actually. By the time it healed, yeah, I got busy. I did my undergrad degree in two years, I started my company, and I got my MBA while I was working. Busy.”

“How’d you do college in two years?”

“I was ahead by the time I started boarding school. My mom pushed me to go farther than most kids.”

“You were two years ahead?” I wondered.

“In most subjects. I was four years ahead in math, so they let me take courses at the university, and I had finished most of the high school science classes, too.”

“My Lord.” I thought about my own experience. “I struggled a lot in high school.”

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