Look Again

Even as the search indicator is spinning, I know how bad an idea this is.

At least, I think I know. Then the pages start loading and I realize it is worse. Much worse.

The guy is a dynamo, a successful investment banker. And I’m confident and secure enough to admit that Grayson Mercer Flanders is unusually handsome. Gross. And that is not all. Check all the boxes. He played polo in college. Polo. On a horse. (The horse was named Trouble Follows and I feel nothing but pity for the poor animal.) He (Grayson, not the horse) has effortless hair and a jawline like a Kennedy. I almost click off the phone. But I’m not done wallowing. I scroll through old pictures until Candace starts appearing in them, and I watch their online photo-journey. She looks great. Really great. Happy. And she’s changed her hair.

I better stop looking at them together.

I move to a bio site for Grayson.

Hank had not been kidding. Grayson’s mom is a Vanderbilt. Well. Candace shouldn’t be ashamed of that connection. He works at a huge midtown Manhattan firm. Successful by anyone’s standards.

They will be very happy together.I am proud of my charitable thought. Good job, Dex. Happy together until they need to have a conversation.

I immediately regret that thought. Maybe I can’t remember specific conversations I had with Candace, but we were funny. I remember laughing a lot.

Laughing is good.

I’m sure Candace is a great conversationalist. I can imagine them finding all kinds of important and nontrivial things to discuss. Trying to remember our last conversation, all I can come up with is a hazy feeling of defensiveness. I think about how Joey and I talk, which is not the same thing at all, I know. Because Joey is more interested in following rules than getting close to me. She cares way too much what Dr. Moreau thinks.

But she also cares what I think. She listens when I talk. She gives generous compliments that seem sincere, and I hold on to that as I remember what I heard her say in the old chapel today. That was different than her usual talk. That was mean. Kind of like I was mean the first time we met. Not my best work. But I hope I’ve done better since then. And she’s allowed a bad day. She’s allowed to be angry that I missed Harvest. I deserve that.

I glance again at the phone screen. I don’t care about Grayson Flanders and his dumb horse and the fancy Long Island hotel. I don’t care about Candace. I can regret what happened between us, because it hurt me and it shattered my confidence. But I’ve spent years rebuilding that confidence into something stronger, something better than it was before. I’ve become someone different, and I don’t care if Candace Holland ever sees me. I only care that Joey will see me for who I really am.

That Joey will give me a chance to show her I’m worth it.

But she doesn’t know it yet, because I haven’t been brave enough to get deep with her. We are so compatible in every way, but she doesn’t really know that yet. I haven’t shown her. I haven’t opened myself up to her because I’ve been afraid that what happened with Candace might happen again. So we keep it to the surface. Joey and I talk about kids and art and shows and kids’ art and kids in shows.

And pastries.

But I’m ready to try harder.

She’s worth it, even if it goes badly.

Because it might.