Page 43 of Finding Jack
That knowledge settled somewhere in my belly and fluttered, and I pressed my hands to my stomach, trying to identify the reason for the sudden onset of nerves. I wasn’t a flutterer.
I’d had a few medium-range relationships. At thirty-one, I wasn’t opposed to the idea of finding “the” right guy. In fact, I’d been open to it, choosing guys like Paul who were steady, committed, ready to settle. But Paul had been my second solid relationship to fizzle in two years, and I hadn’t been nearly as upset as I should have been about either failure.
They didn’t even feel like failures, honestly. I had a sense of escape.
That was the flutter, I realized. A little instinct urging me to run from Jack.
What? I sat up and forced myself to check in with each part of my body. Feet, arms, legs, back, and neck all reported in for regular duty. But my hands, head, chest, and stomach weren’t quite right. But neither did they feel wrong, exactly.
Hands…slight tingle, like how they felt when I was at the beach and they were sandy and I plunged them into the cold Pacific to rinse them. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was more like they were putting me on notice. “Hi. We’re extra here today.”
Head was easy. My brain had been replaced by a bunch of balloons, all bright and bobbing.
Chest…hmm. That was less cheerful. A tightness occupied its center. What was that? Was it the contraction around something that had gone missing? Or the presence of something new trying to make space?
I narrowed my focus to my stomach, the noisiest part of the neighborhood at the moment. It was telling me to run, but why? I turned the feeling over, poked at it.
My chest, I realized. My stomach was fluttering because it knew what that feeling in my chest was: I’d given up real estate inside it for the first time. Ever.
Jack had carved out a little room for himself.
I took a deep breath. Okay. This would be okay. I’d figure this out.
Right?
Yes, I would figure this out. But for now, I’d shut up the flutter with some food.
Ranée was already at the table eating cereal. She was dressed in her horse barn clothes. “Volunteering again today?” She nodded and pushed a piece of cereal around with her spoon. “You don’t like it?” I asked, trying to make sense of her mood. Maybe she wasn’t totally awake yet?
“I like it a lot.” She pushed another marshmallow around her bowl and set her spoon down. Then she stared off into the distance.
Okayyyy. I went to the fridge to decide what would make my stomach stop fluttering. Not yogurt. Not eggs. A muffin? Maybe. Bacon? My stomach gurgled. Of course bacon. I pulled out the package and rattled around in the cupboards looking for the skillet and a plate for draining the strips.
I glanced over at Ranée while the skillet heated. She hadn’t moved. “Ranée?”
She sighed. “I’m going to the horse barn. Did you know Paul volunteers there?”
Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t that. “Paul? Like Proper Paul? My Paul?”
“I mean, he’s not really your Paul, right? I thought you were interested in Jack.”
“I am. And no, he’s not my Paul. But I had no idea he rode horses.”
“I guess he used to do it at summer camp a lot. Seems he was recently dumped and he was trying to cheer himself up by going back to a happy time in his life and that meant riding horses, I guess.”
I winced at the word “dumped.” “I broke up with him. I didn’t dump him.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’m too nice to dump anyone.”
“Maybe I was wrong to tell you to dump him.”
“Are you high?”
“I’m not high.”
“Then maybe you’re having a stroke? I bet that’s it. You’re having a stroke that’s wiping out your short-term memory of the five months you spent nagging me to cut him loose.”
