My fingers race over the screen, typing in my email to my old account. My phone auto-fills the password. This is really happening.
Welcome Back, Katie! The app is thrilled to see me. I pace into my tiny kitchen. I am not thrilled. I am decidedly uncomfortable.
I am also twenty-six years old, and on the continuum ofnever been kissedtosexually confident, I’m probably further to the left than I’d like to be.
My old profile fills the screen. I squint at the photo. It isfine? I think? Blurry and a little out of date, but—I scroll briefly through my phone—I don’t have any other pictures, unless they’re with Tristan.
I bite my lip. I think that’s a no-no. Ugh, whatever. I scroll through the relevant sections, deleting the old details,updating my age—I’m twenty-six now, not twenty-three, and save it.
A man appears.
I lurch sideways into my dining table. My finger slides over the screen.
Congratulations! The app rains confetti. I’m not sure what I’m being congratulated for until it announces in bold letters—It’s a match!More confetti.
Another man is on my screen now, and I catch myself judging his facial hair and his posture. He’s holding a dog, at least. Points for him. Sienna told me men do that because they want to seem approachable. So maybe he’s not approachable and just trying to game the system? Or maybe I should be glad he’s socially savvy enough to try? One of us has to be.
Shit. My finger hovers. I imagine him doing the same thing—eyeing that blurry photo of mine, with a friend looking over his shoulder. I swipe before I can lose my courage. No confetti this time. My stomach plummets, and I toss the phone down.
I don’t think I can do this. I yank the fridge open and pull out a nonalcoholic beer. I’m not on shift tonight, but anything could happen. As much as I want a drink, this beer-flavored beverage will have to do.
I take quick sips and eye my phone like it will jump off the table and force me to start talking to strangers.
Because that’s the next step. Swiping is fine, but it’s the talking that gets me. Well, the talking and what feels like the endless judgment of it all.
It feels like shoutingpick meinto the void, except the void doesn’t shout back. Instead, the void sends you dick pics and asks ifu up?
“God, Katie. A therapist would have a field day withyou.” I take another sip of beer and force myself to pick the phone back up. Man #1 has messaged me. Clancy. That has to be a fake name, right? I don’t know a single Clancy under seventy-eight.
Hey, he writes.
Not a promising start. Clancy needs me to carry the conversation, and god, I don’t want to. I can make conversation. I can be funny. But I have to be comfortable. And when I’m with strangers, I so rarely feel comfortable. I feel like I’m watching myself from above, wondering if I’m moving my hands too much, or if I’m being boring.
It feels like I’m dredging up a core memory of a little girl waiting to be picked. If she just wore her nicest dress and her best pair of shoes and was polite, she’d get a family.
I set the phone back down. I’ll try again tomorrow. When the sting of the conversation with Tristan has dulled.
Let’s give it a go, Bailey.
I know what would happen. Eventually, I’d want more with Tristan Prince, just like I’ve wanted more with every friend or boyfriend I’ve clung to. That little girl is still inside me and she’d marry him and she’d want him to pick her. I refuse. I will not be that girl and I will not marry him just because it’s convenient.
What does Sienna always say?The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?
Well, I’m getting under someone else. As fast as humanly possible.
And I’m never thinking about how attractive Tristan is ever again.
9
KATIE
Tristan misses our run the next morning. It’s five a.m. and I’m doing a circuit of the property alone and trying not to resent him for being in his warm bed when I’m out here freezing and checking for paparazzi.
There were photos posted last night that could only have been taken by a photographer with an amazing telephoto lens or from someone who had access to the property. As my feet slap the pavement, I think about those photos for the hundredth time since I got the notification at four a.m.
They featured Tristan emerging from his black sports car, and then another shot of him walking into the garden. The garden isn’t visible from the gates, and the thought of an intruder,here, makes my fist clench.
I force my shoulders to lower as I run.
