Page 67 of Love or Leave

"Reaching out?" Dr. Tanaka asked. "He said reaching out?"

Cara looked down, then back up. "Yup. Sounds like a work email."

"To see ifwe'reokay?"

Cara nodded.

"What are you going to do?"

Cara shrugged. She literally had no clue.

Ignoring her feelings was impossible, but she knew she couldn't date Antonio.

Just then, her phone pinged with another text.

She looked down, expecting another message from Antonio. Maybe one that didn't sound so stiff and impersonal. But when she opened her phone, she saw it was from Jalen.

"Now golf guy just messaged."

Dr. Tanaka let out a low whistle. "When did your life get so exciting?"

Cara rolled her eyes. "He wants to know if I'm going to the game with him tonight."

Dr. Tanaka loaded her fork with pad thai and stuffed it into her mouth. "Are you?"

Cara flopped back in her chair. "What would you do?"

"Forget him," she said around a mouthful of food. "Forget both of them."

Cara raised an eyebrow. "But golf guy isn't bad. Right?"

Dr. Tanaka placed her lunch on her lap and gave Cara her full attention.

"You want to find your person, right?"

"Yeah…" she said trepidatiously, a little afraid of the intensity coming off Dr. Tanaka.

"And you know you're never going to be happy spending your life going to hockey games, or golfing, or everything else this guy is dragging you to, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," she said.

"So why waste your time?"

"Well, most guys like sports. You don't have to have everything in common with someone to make a relationship work, do you?"

If she had to find someone who was just like her, she’d be alone forever.

"No, but there are fewer things to fight about later."

Cara shrugged and opened the conversation with Jalen. At least his text sounded like a human wrote it to another human he cared about.

"I'm saying yes to the hockey game," Cara said with a shrug. "I have nothing better to do and I could use a night out. And this will give me one more chance to see if there's anything there before cutting things off."

She typed out a falsely enthusiastic response to Jalen.

Cara: I'm free and I'd love to go to the game with you tonight.

With a decisive nod, Cara hit send.There. Done.

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