Page 12 of Below the Shadow of the City

Then, it happens.

I get a text. I leap from my seat at the sound of the buzzing, forgetting how to be a person when I hold my phone in my hand and only manage to stare at it. The area code is strange, nothing I recognize from around here. He could be a transplant, having moved here recently. Maybe I’d been looking for him in the wrong places, but he exists. Maybe. Hopefully.

Unknown Number:

Chocolate chip, huh?

There is no way of knowing it was actually him, but somehow I can tell. Call it a sixth sense, or call it completely unfounded optimism.

Don’t tell me you’re some sort of monster who hates chocolate chip cookies.

Worse. I’m a vegan.

Shit. Really?

I’m so fucking sorry.

No. lol.

You actually happened to make my absolute favorite.

And I shamefully wolfed way too many of them down.

I pause the show entirely now, sorry talking head criminal investigator, something far more interesting has come up. Relief settles in. He liked the offering! It’s the first in many steps to figure out if I should put my heart at risk by talking to him. After all, there could still be a partner, or he could not feel the same way I do, or he could be a really tech-savvy ghost. Or, I’ll inevitably fuck it up. The most likely of these hypothetical outcomes.

My fingers can’t move fast enough to reply to him. I’m shaking far more than a twenty-eight year-old woman with a career and her own apartment should.

How can I be sure this is the same guy from the other night?

Maybe you’ll just have to take the risk and see.

But if it’s proof you want,

I still haven’t finished Les Miserables.

They’re still miserable.

Should we swap?

I’ve got a list of ten leadership hacks with your name on it.

Perfect, and I’ll attempt to explain the French Revolution to you.

We volley back and forth seamlessly. Conversation is as easy as it was in the basement. The text bubbles barely have time to form before they turn into flirty sentences and funny quips. There’s still the lingering air of mystery. I still have nothing to go off of, he’s a wavy figure made of blurry pixels.

After two hours straight of texting, I want some point of reference, so I can place pieces together and reconstruct him like a criminal sketch artist.

You can ask for a photo, you know. It’s the Twenty First century, and you’re too smart to let yourself get catfished.

Now that we’re more formally acquainted, could I get a real name?

What if I said no?

And that I’d rather things stay semi-anonymous.

You’re not doing great at proving you aren’t a serial killer.

I know.