Chapter 26 Now

Don't be so hard on yourself. Just do your best.

It's advice I've often given to patients, yet I'm not good at listening to myself lately. I stop at the restaurant door and take a deep breath. Yes, I made a date with this man while inebriated. But maybe it's for the best. Maybe this is just what I need—a push to put myself out there. And really try this time. Dinner. Not just drinks. Date number two.

I open the door and look around. Robert is only a few feet away, but that's not who I'm looking for, is it? Damn it. This time I didn't pick the place to meet. Robert did. And yet we're still in Gabriel's neck of the woods.

Robert smiles and walks over. There's an awkward few seconds where neither of us is sure how to greet the other. Kiss? Hug? Both? None? We somehow settle on an inelegant hug, one where we both go for the right side at the same time and then both move to the left in unison.

He laughs and puts both hands on my shoulders. "How about I go left and you go right?"

The acknowledgment of our clumsiness helps break the tension and we hug.

"I'm sorry if I'm a minute or two late," I say.

"No worries. I didn't even notice." He winks. "It was only a minute and thirty-six seconds, by the way. Not that I was worried you'd ghost me."

I smile. He's a nice guy. The right mix of wry humor and wit.

Robert steps behind me to help take off my coat. "They said our table is going to be a few minutes. Would you like to get a drink at the bar while we wait?"

The thought of alcohol after how I felt when I woke up this morning makes me queasy. But we had drinks together last time, and I don't want to admit I'm hungover, which would give away that our date was the result of my drunk texting. So I nod. "Sure, that sounds great."

Robert lets the hostess know where we'll be, and we take seats at the bar. The layout isn't that different from the last place we met, with bistro tables and small booths lining one wall of the bar. I can't help it: I scan each one looking for Gabriel.

"So." Robert turns to face me. "I was surprised to hear from you after you hadn't answered my last few texts."

I look down. "I'm sorry about that. I guess I just lost track of things."

Robert waits until our eyes meet to speak again. "Is that true?"

My gut reaction is to be defensive, say "of course it is." But if I want any shot at a relationship with him, lying isn't the way to start things. So I sigh and shake my head. "No, I'm sorry. It's not."

He nods. "Getting back out there after you lose someone can be hard. I get it."

I act like I've just come clean, but is that what I've really just done? Did my ignoring Robert have anything to do with Connor and jumping back into the dating pool? Or was it something—or someone—else leaving me too distracted? I'm not sure anymore. I nod, though. "Thank you for being so understanding."

A little while later, the hostess shows us to our table. My seat has a clear view to the door, and I wish it didn't. With my back to the entrance, it would have made watching every person come in and out of the restaurant a lot more difficult. I couldn't have twisted my entire body every two minutes. But this way, I smile and nod, sip my wine, shift my eyes slightly over Robert's shoulder, and glance at the door. He doesn't even notice my incessant checking.

Halfway through the second glass of wine I'd told myself I wasn't going to have, I finally start to relax. My nerves calm and my shoulders lower. I even stop looking at the door as often.

"So what made you go into psychiatry?" Robert asks. "Is that the field you were interested in when you started medical school?"

I shake my head. "I went in thinking I wanted to do cardiology, believe it or not."

"That's a pretty big change. But most of the people I went to med school with were interested in one thing and came out practicing in another area. When I started, I wanted to be a plastic surgeon. Two nose jobs and a breast augmentation and drive my Porsche home by five."

I laugh. "Did you at least wind up with the Porsche?"

"My only car is the subway car." He chuckles. "But during my second year of medical school, my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The outlook was grim, and I wound up doing a lot of research, trying to find her clinical trials and stuff. While I was doing it, I realized I was actually interested in the field. She died the day after my graduation. Made me appreciate that life was short, and I was only going into plastics for the money. So I pivoted and went into a field that felt right."

"I'm sorry for your loss. But it sounds like your mom led you to something that brings you happiness, which is a beautiful thing."

"Thanks. I like to think she did." Robert sips his wine and lifts his chin. "So why psychiatry?"

"I like the diversity of it. A cardiologist treats the same thing for most of their career. Of course, new treatments and procedures move medicine forward, which is always exciting. But I liked that mental health patients were all so different, with varied diagnoses. Plus, during my clinical rotations, I asked every resident I worked with if they would recommend their field. Across the board in almost every specialty, only about forty percent said yes for one reason or another. But a hundred percent of the psychiatrists said yes, and usually with a smile."

"I bet you get some interesting patients."

My mind automatically goes to Gabriel. But I tamp down those thoughts and force myself to gaze across the table and not gawk at the door.

Robert and I spend the next hour talking over a delicious meal. Aside from medicine and having lost our spouses, we have other things in common, too. We're both lefties, love psychological thriller movies, prefer cold-weather vacations to warm, and oddly, our grandparents were huge Elvis fans, which turned us into fans, too. After dinner, we stand outside the restaurant.

"So how was it?" Robert asks.

"Dinner? It was delicious."

He smiles. "No, I meant your first dinner date in a decade."

"Oh." I laugh. "I had a really nice time. Thank you."

But then I get a feeling, the kind that prickles the hair on the back of your neck because you're certain someone is watching. My eyes dart around the street until they land on a figure down at the end of the block. It's dark out, so it's hard to see. But there's definitely a person leaning against a building. As soon as I spot them, they pull up a hoodie and turn to face forward. The fabric drapes over the sides of their head so I can't even make out a profile. But when a puff of smoke billows into the crisp air, my eyes widen.

Is that…?

Gabriel bought cigarettes once.

I squint to get a better look, but whoever it is shoves their hands into their pockets, pushes off the building, and starts walking in the other direction.

God, I'm really losing my mind.

Robert turns and looks over his shoulder. "Is everything okay?"

I keep staring, watching the person turn the nearby corner and disappear from sight. "Um, yeah. I'm sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew." I force my attention back to my date, my heart racing wildly. "I'm sorry. You were saying?"

Robert reaches out and takes my hand. He laces our fingers and swings our joined palms playfully. "I was trying to work up the courage to ask you if you'd like to come back to my place and check out my Elvis collection and maybe have a drink. But no matter how many ways I practice saying it in my head, it sounds pretty cheesy." He smiles, and I can tell it's a nervous one. "I'm not ready for the night to end. It would just be a drink, I promise. I get that dating is new to you."

Someone yells from down the block, the direction the person leaning against the building just went. But a few seconds later, two teenagers pop out from that same corner. They're laughing as they jog across the street hand in hand. One of them is wearing a hoodie. Is that who it was? Just a kid? Though the hood is down now, and the color doesn't look as dark as the other one. At least, I think it doesn't. No, I'm wrong. It's probably the same color. My mind is just screwing with me.

Isn't it?

When I finally drag my attention back to my date, he smiles. "What do you say? One glass of wine and one Elvis album and I'll call you an Uber?"

I look over his shoulder again. The street is empty now. Even the teenagers are gone. The stalker I've made up in my head is nowhere to be found. God, I really need to let this paranoia go. To let everything to do with my past go. And since there's no better way to put the past behind you than to take a step forward, I force a smile. "Sure. I'd like that."