“You forgot something. I just pulled it out of your old car. There’s a little adhesive left on the dash, but we’ll remove it. I thought you might want it.”

I almost took it from her. Almost. Fighting the tears that were starting to sting my eyes, I held out my palm. “Keep it.”

In the months after Chance, letting new things into my life seemed to be a bigger challenge than throwing old things out.

Jeremy Longthorpe was the CEO of a tech company and also a client of mine. We’d spent countless hours together working on a patent application for one of his recent inventions.

Even though he’d made it clear that he was interested in me, I pretended not to notice any of the hints he threw my way. He was really sweet and good-looking enough in a quirky-with-glasses kind of way. Going out with him could have also been a slight conflict of interest, even though the firm had no written rules against dating clients.

The truth was, I just didn’t feel ready. My mind was still very much preoccupied with memories of Chance. As much as I tried to rid the physical evidence of him, what remained thereafter couldn’t be destroyed as easily no matter how hard I tried. Although he’d hurt me, Chance was still taking up residence inside my head and in my broken heart.

Spending extra time with Jeremy was at the very least, a distraction. He was supposed to be meeting me at the office one Friday evening for a late-night work session. He’d called from the road to let me know he was running a little late and to ask me what kind of takeout I wanted him to bring.

My response was, “Something fast-foodish and really bad for me. It’s been that kind of day.”

“You got it,” he said. He was so nice.

The smell of something fried made its way to me before I even noticed him walking through the maze of cubicles and into my corner office. Jeremy was carrying two grease-laden bags. “Since you weren’t specific, I got a few different kinds of bad food.”

“Thank you. I’m starving.”

He slid some papers to the side to make room. “Why don’t we just enjoy our dinner before we get to work?”

“Okay,” I said, rummaging through the bags.

He’d brought food from Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Popeyes.

Popeyes.

I just couldn’t escape it. Chance was everywhere. Calling dibs on the chicken bites, I started to dig in when Jeremy reached over and grabbed one. “Hey, lay off my bites,” I joked. I remembered saying something similar to Chance the first day we met. Little reminders that came in waves unexpectedly like that always seemed to bring the pain back in full force.

I suddenly stopped eating.

Jeremy put his sandwich down. With his mouth full, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Were you mad that I took one of your chicken bites?”

I half-smiled. “No, no. It wasn’t that at all.”

He leaned in. “What is it?”

Looking down, I said, “It’s nothing.”

“Aubrey, clearly it’s not nothing. You were eating like a machine, and you suddenly stopped. What happened?”

The look on my face probably gave me away.

“You can talk to me, you know,” he said.

I wanted to tell someone. I hadn’t told anyone. Not one single person knew about what happened to me.

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Over the next hour, I told Jeremy everything that went down between Chance and me. He listened intently without passing judgment, and it felt so good to let it all out.

Nodding slowly with his arms crossed, Jeremy’s mouth curved into a sympathetic smile. “Well, this explains a lot.”

“Meaning?”

“Why you shut down whenever I insinuate that we go out.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Yes. I notice everything about you.” He looked down, almost embarrassed for having admitted his feelings in a roundabout way. When he looked up, he said, “I really like you, Aubrey.”

“I like you, too. I don’t want you to think my hesitation has anything to do with you.”

He placed his hand on my arm. “Look…now that I know the reason why you’re closed off, I think it’s even more important that we go out. I promise, I’m not going to expect anything. Let me just be your friend. And if things turn into more, fine. If they don’t, worst case scenario, we’ll have had a good time together.”

I smiled. “So, you’re asking me out more directly this time.”