It was hard for him, as he realized they hadn't even held hands on their drive down to New York.  He had been dating her for more than six months, and they weren't even intimate enough to need to touch one another in the silences of the drive.   

Sure, they were intimate, but really, what was that?  They had sex, but it often felt like an expectation.  We have been together for two months, and this is the natural order of things, had run through his mind the first time.  

She reminded him of high school, in a way.  The pretty girl in class had shown some interest in him, he was rebounding, and it had just happened.  She had seen him as the class clown, cute with potential.  Then the Stamford branch closing had run him for a loop.  He had not intended for the relationship to get so serious, hoping that eventually she would realize he wasn't quite right for her, and they would fizzle back into office friends with benefits.   

The next thing he knew, she was something comfortable to protect him from the raw emotion he knew would emerge with his own return to Scranton.  She was something different...stronger with less baggage.  Her expectations were pretty clear, and he didn't have to worry too much about losing himself in his feelings for her.  He always had a nagging feeling that she had a five year plan that she had already penciled him into, but, he convinced himself that he was pleased to be with someone who had goals she wanted to share with him.   

But after the beach, it had been harder and harder for him to be taken along for the ride that she had just assumed he was enjoying.  In fact, the week of conversations earlier in the spring should have been enough of a warning, but she was still something comfortable.  He allowed himself to go along in the motions of fighting and making up, if not for her only, as a way to convince himself that he was trying and succeeding to get over that someone else.  But after the fireside confession and the subsequent talk with his someone else, he was having a harder time convincing himself that all was still okay in his world.  He hadn't called about the job on his own, but to appease her insistence.  He still thought it was weird that they were interviewing for the same position, and that she was so certain she would get it.  Why had she even pushed him to make the phone call in the first place?   

She had put him into a horribly awkward position that he hid with his usual banter and jokes, hoping that his mischievous grins and cocked eyebrows would mask his hopes that she would get the job over him.  He liked feeling safe, and something about being in the big city with the fancy new job just seemed unappealing to him.  And he had to question her motives again, as he thought about how this would all fall into future plans.  Would she want him to move to New York with her?  She surely wasn't thinking they could make it as a long-distance relationship, nor would she want him so close to his braver, more assertive friend.   

His mind thought back to the moment he had opened his file folder and found the crinkled old yogurt lid, and the thought of a piece of trash brought a smile to his face.  

Where did Jim see himself in ten years?  Well, it had to be with someone a little less safe, and in a smaller city, for starters.  The rest could be drawn in later.