Page 36 of Most Likely to Match
Mom got up in a flurry, stomping and talking loud enough that I had to stop myself once or twice from asking her to keep it down for Chloe. Dad says nothing of “my friend” to Mom. But at the door as I say goodbye to them, he squeezes my shoulder in his too big palm. He nods at me and grunts a rumblingmiss you. Mom kisses every inch of my face, and I let her, even though I am objectively too old for this.
When I slide into bed next to Chloe, early light creeps under the blinds, and when I wake from a restless sleep a few hours later, thedaylight is strong enough for me to know that with the right adjustments to my smart phone settings, I could get a photo of her.
So I do it.
I’ve already stolen her panties. Might as well lean into it. And besides, if we’re keeping a record of compromising photos, this is nothing in comparison to what her friends did to me.
I take a photo of her, asleep, in my bed. The gold in her hair fading into shadows, faint wrinkles along her cheek from the pillow, her wrists folded under her chin like an adorable pangolin. I tell myself that’s why I’m taking the photo, to tease her later about the curl of her arms beneath her. To assure her of their cuteness.
But really, despite all the firsts I’ve had with Chloe— first kiss, first blow job, first fuck, first heartbreak— this is the first time I’ve seen her sleep.
By the time I get out of the shower, she’s up, wearing the t-shirt she slept in overtop of the dress she wore last night. “Is this okay?” she asks, tugging at the cotton. “I’ll wash it and give it back.”
I don’t answer her until I’ve scurried into my small walk-in closet in nothing but the towel around my waist. “It’s fine,” I say. I don’t offer to return the favor and give her underwear back, and she doesn’t ask. The answering silence is deafening as I pull on my underwear that immediately gets damp, then my t-shirt, which instantly clings to my back.
Dad’s warning and her sudden distance last night are heavier this morning. Or maybe now that I’m out from under the cloud of sex-induced brain fog, I’m realizing what a bad idea all of this is. I hop from one foot to the other into a pair of loose fitting jeans, and when I turn, she’s standing in the doorway of my closet. I jump back, hangers clanking against each other. “Shit, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” She stares at the floor, like the violation was my state of undress and not an emotional turmoil of my own making. She holds up her phone, the screen blank, still staring at the floor. “We did something right last night. I woke up to a ton of notifications; a bunch of people filled in the interest form.”
“Hey.” I close the foot of distance between us, rub my thumb along the inside of her upheld wrist. “That’s great.”
“Do you want to grab brunch?” she asks, my belly now her focus of attention since it’s in her line of sight. “We can discuss onboarding them and scheduling their sessions with you.” Finally, she blinks up at me, but then away again. “My treat?”
I want to ask her what’s wrong, the words piling up in my mouth like a fender bender on the 401 Highway at rush hour. Then, when she’s finished telling me, I want her to ask me the same. I want to lay all my questions, my confusion, my shame and embarrassment at her feet. Not so she’ll do something with it, but because sometimes saying it out loud to someone who matters justfeelsbetter.
But if I do that, it would mean acknowledging the one thing I didn’t— don’t— want to talk about. Admitting to the hurt her betrayal caused, acknowledging that yeah, she probably didn’t plan it with her friends, but that that’s not really the point. It was the fact that she was friends with them at all. That I was good enough for her to take pleasure from, to play act an adult relationship with, but not good enough for her to claim in public. When it really mattered.
But I don’t say any of that. Melinda, my therapist, would provide a reassuring, compassionate reason for why I stay silent. She would explain the power trauma has to keep us quiet, the wound experience that informs my inner child. She would tell me all this so that I would avoid using a word like coward to explain my inability to speak up and ask for what I want. But we’d both know I am one.
And that’s why, instead of saying any of that, I grab a random hat from where they hang along my closet wall, and say, “Sure. Brunch sounds great.”
We spendfive minutes sitting in her car on the side of the road, looking up “brunch spots near you” since neither of us were big brunchers when we were teens and we don’t know which restaurants are even in existence anymore.
“We can choose between greasy diner and…” I squint at my phone screen. “It looks like the old exotic dance club is now a Japanese bakery,” I say, presenting my phone screen to her. “Cream cheese buns.”
Instead of showing any interest in the baked goods in 5G, she shuts her own phone screen down, shoving it quickly into the bag on her lap. She shakes her head no, but says, “Yeah, sure. Wherever you want.”
“What were you looking up?” I ask. The car is already warm from sitting in the morning sun, but a chill lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. It’s not as if I think she’s an actual villain, texting my secrets to a group chat that has sustained itself on laughing at my misfortune for the last fifteen years.
I just, very simply, don’t trust her. The realization kills my appetite.
“How about the diner?” I say when she doesn’t bother to answer me.
We drive in silence. I roll down my window and rest my head against the door, fatigue from the long night and short sleep catching up to me in the warmth of the car and the gentle slow-stop of suburban driving. About twelve hours ago, Chloe was riding my hand in this seat. I wish I could rewind to that moment. Or even better, to sitting behind the booth with her or talking to her in the parking lot afterward.
The diner parking lot is already packed. It’s one of those strange suburban islands, flanked by a strip mall on one side and movie theater on the other. Evidence of how it stayed the same while the businesses, the buildings, even the infrastructure around it changed.
Chloe waits for a spot as a family of six piles into a minivan, and by the time we’re finally approaching the restaurant, my appetite begins to rear its head again. It helps that the smell of greasy diner bacon and sweet pancakes wafts out of the building.
I hold the door open for her. “Why did you need a boyfriend?”
“Where do you want to sit?” she asks at the same time.
The host, a young person with a lip ring and a shaved head anddeep bronze skin, does not bother to straighten from their lean against the host stand. “You can sit in that booth.” They point to the only available table, a large booth in the back corner; probably the one just vacated by the family if the numerous plates still piled on its surface are any indication.
The diner is overly lit, with an entire wall of windows and buzzing fluorescents, and overly loud, bursting at the seams with families and extended families, elderly couples and singles lining the old-fashioned bar. Faintly, music plays over the din. Silver wall boxes line every booth and are evenly spaced along the bar, and a jukebox sits against the far wall.
All of it serves to add to my growing agitation. The feeling thatsomethingis off. Worse, unsafe. I can’t be safe until I figure out what it is.
