His profile says, “Let’s get weird and talk about our worst mistakes.”
I almost message, then don’t.
Instead, I let the phone drop onto my lap and look around my apartment, try to see it the way someone else would.
The laundry is in a heap in the corner, the hockey gear stacked like a shrine to pain, the trash can overflowing with protein bar wrappers.
The only sign of human life is a photo on the fridge, one of Maya and me at her high school graduation, both of us pretending the world wasn’t about to fuck us over.
I think about calling her, about saying, “Hey, little sister, I finally did it. I picked everyone.” I wonder if she’d care, or just make a meme out of it and send it to Mom.
The idea actually makes me smile, which is more than I expected.
For a second, I think about texting Darius.
Not the real him, not the one who’s probably asleep or at the gym, but the one I keep in my head, the one who always knows what to say. “You ever feel like a crash test dummy for your own bad decisions?” I’d say. He’d reply: “Just make sure you get a good highlight reel out of it.”
I almost type it. Then I don’t.
I look back at my phone. New matches already, the app’s dopamine engine whirring in the background. I swipe, I swipe, I try to care.
But all I feel is the cold from the fridge, and the weird relief that comes from having done something irreversible.
Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll wake up and this will all be embarrassing.
Maybe I’ll delete the apps, or maybe I’ll meet one of the faces, or maybe I’ll just keep pretending until pretending is the only thing left.
But tonight, in the blue light of the screen, I’m honest, at least for a minute.
I’m everyone.
And it almost feels like enough.
———
Thirty minutes in and my thumb’s gone numb from the repetition. Swipe, tap, swipe, tap.
Every third face is a bot, or an ex, or a friend-of-a-friend who already knows my entire tragic history. The blue glow of the phone paints my hands like crime scene evidence.
I keep waiting for the dopamine hit, the “aha” moment where matching strangers is supposed to feel like something, but all it does is grind the surface off my patience.
The first ping is from the marine bio grad student, the one with the crab. “Hey! You ever been to the Aquarium? I have discount passes lol.”
I stare at her profile, read the words out loud, “discount passes,” then wonder how the hell anyone gets excited about aquatic vertebrates at this hour.
I thumb a reply, “Only if we can do the touch tank, I like to assert dominance over the sea cucumbers.”
It’s forced, but she replies instantly, “You sound like my advisor. Are you a closeted marine biologist or just a fan of invasive species?”
I smile, a real one, at the word “invasive.” For a second, I consider leaning in, making it weird, but instead I just say, “I’m just a fan of things with spikes, tbh.”
She sends back a meme, some overused Spongebob thing, and it’s so aggressively normal that I almost want to scream.
I look at her photos again.
She’s cute, yeah, but her eyes have the glassy shine of someone who spends too much time under fluorescent light.
I wonder if she ever gets mad, or if her whole life is just prepping for a three-minute thesis.
