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Joanie had interviews today for the final intern position, which means my spot was added in thanks to my father. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

She said she felt like she needed better organization with the intern program, so I suggested a focus department each week for us. This broadens our knowledge and it gives the different departments access to our skills, and apparently the idea never occurred to her. She’s smart and great at what she does, but the interns were sort of thrust in her lap last-minute, so she’s been struggling with where to place us.

The way she praised my idea felt wonderful.

My father has barely acknowledged that he’s been seeing her, and I’ve certainly never seen them together , but the fact that someone in a semi-maternal position over me had something nice to say to me felt surprisingly good.

Any time I did something worthy of praise before, my narcissistic mother would either claim responsibility for it or she’d find something about it to nitpick.

This wasn’t like that. It was a simple I love that idea followed by a hand on my shoulder.

Admittedly my normally sunny disposition has had a bit of a cloud over it since Cooper Noah broke up with me, but her words helped lighten those clouds just a little.

I felt something good pull at me again—a feeling I haven’t felt since I turned around after digging around in the refrigerator and Cooper was standing in my dad’s kitchen.

He was there to witness the moment, though, and that seemed to steal something from it. The clouds darkened a little again, and when he left, they seemed to settle in for the long haul.

“I’ve made a short list of all our departments here,” she says, handing out slips of paper with all the departments listed. “Write your name on the top and rank the top five you think would most benefit you. I can’t guarantee you’ll get all of them, and this is still a general internship program, so you’ll deal with every department at some point, but I’d like to place you a little better based on your strengths.”

I’m not sure if this applies to me, too, or not since I’ve already been tapped to shadow Cooper and work on social media. Still, I glance over the list. Business development and analytics, baseball operations, marketing and social media, broadcasting, fan experience, guest services, community relations, corporate sponsorships, public relations, ticket operations, finance, planning and development, HR, IT and video…the list goes on. There are way more departments than I ever realized that are involved with a baseball team, and I look over my options.

I have no idea what I want out of my future. Working at a ballpark would be fun, sure, but I’m not sure how good a fit it is if it means I’m going to be around Cooper more often. I like the idea of working with my dad, but he’ll be busy on the game side, not on the front office side.

And I don’t really know all that much about baseball. I’m learning, and I’m a fairly quick study, but that doesn’t mean this is a good fit for me.

I mark marketing and social media as my top choice, followed by community relations and business analytics. I like the fan experience and corporate sponsorships, too, so I add those on as my fourth and fifth choices, though most of the options listed sound interesting to me in some capacity.

I glance over at Justin’s list. He has numbers listed next to business, marketing, corporate sponsorships, finance, and IT. I almost erase my choices and choose the same as him so we can work together, but I don’t. I want to learn from this internship, and picking the same things as my friend doesn’t seem like the best way to do that. Besides, finance and IT sound boring.

I guess I’m just finding myself clinging onto him, and it’s as I stare down at my paper that I realize that. My entire life, I’ve had difficulty choosing direction. I defer to other people when I don’t want to make a decision, and I become clingy when someone shows me positive attention.

Maybe that’s what I’m doing with Cooper. Maybe it was never about love at all between the two of us, but someone stepped in, made me feel good, and I clung to that.

Maybe it’s time for me to let him go.

It’s what he wants, and I’ve been stuck in neutral the past week as I’ve tried to deal with the loss.

I’ve also spent my whole life believing that in order to matter, you need to be the best. It’s why I’m a perfectionist, and it means a lot to me to be recognized for the things I work hard at.

It’s why I found my father. I wanted him to be proud of me since I never felt like I was good enough for my mother.

It was terrifying when I started the search. My mother convinced me he abandoned me, and I spent my life believing that. I spent my life nurturing huge abandonment issues all because of my mother’s lies.

Instead of giving me that praise I always craved, my mother was the best at finding something wrong. At prom, the night I felt most beautiful in my entire life…she didn’t like the way I did my hair.

When I was named salutatorian at my high school graduation, she asked who valedictorian was instead of congratulating me. I’d never felt like more of a failure even though salutatorian was something that should have been celebrated.

That’s how it went my entire life.

Is it any wonder I wanted to get away from her the moment I found my father?

Is it any wonder I fell so hard and so fast for the wrong person? And now that I think about it, does the fact that Cooper is twelve years older than me play into it, too? I never looked at him as a father figure. He wasn’t…but the fact that someone older in an authoritative position made me feel so damn good about myself might speak to my issues.

Or maybe it speaks more loudly to how I should face those issues. Maybe my relationships will always fail until I can resolve the problems that I cover with a sunny disposition.

But I have no idea how to resolve any of it. The fear of rejection and abandonment. The fear of trusting the wrong person or being taken advantage of. The fear of being punished for my mistakes. The fear of falling short, or of coming in second, or of being a failure.

Maybe it starts with choosing a path instead of being indecisive about what I want out of my future.

I like marketing, and I like social media. I put a big circle around that department on the list, and I write a little note beside it. Very interested in pursuing this in my future.

I realize that will force Joanie and me to spend more time together since she’s the head of the marketing department…but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. We’ve started to bond even though neither of us has acknowledged her relationship with my father, and maybe we can sit down and have a good, honest talk.

Or not. The thought of doing that and being rejected creeps in. The thought of growing close to Joanie only to see my father end things with her makes me nearly physically feel the abandonment before it even happens.

Maybe I should start with an honest talk with my father first. He’s been busy, and I’ve been busy, and we haven’t connected as much lately as we did the first couple years I lived with him.

I send him a text while the others finish filling out their preferences.

Me: Can we do dinner soon? I miss seeing you.

His reply comes quick.

Dad: Of course. Tonight, five o’clock, Desmonds?

Me: It’s a date.