Page 76 of Swiped
* * *
Nat’s brain felt sticky and sore, like her mouth after she’d binged a whole bag of sour gummies, but this time she’d consumed hours of videos on the internet. Her ass actually hurt from sitting too long, which was truly a feat considering that she was a coder. She forced her stiff legs to stand and tried to stretch out the stabbing knots of pain behind her shoulder blades. Hadn’t she just watched a demo about using, like, a sock, two straws, and a watermelon to fix back pain? She couldn’t remember. Her mind was a blurry smear of sassy pets, miracle neck creams, banal observations that somehow felt profound, and enough conflicting information on healthy eating to keep her afraid of the grocery store for years to come. And yet she still had hours to kill before the interview.
She decided to stop avoiding her last resort and take a walk.
The rain had finally let up, and the San Francisco afternoon was crisp and gorgeous as Nat walked in the direction of the waterfront baseball stadium. It was helpful and grounding to be near water, right? She was pretty sure that was something people said. A group of men in business casual polos and khakis approached her on the sidewalk. The one in navy blue with a salt-and-pepper beard shot her an approving look as she walked by. An ironic laugh rattled in her throat. Of course, now she was getting attention, after all those failed dates, and when she had Thom and was about to pronounce it to the whole world.
The idea still felt wobbly in her mind. She had Thom. She had a boyfriend. Her long, lonely dry spell was officially over, and quite possibly forever, since he met all her criteria to a tee. What more could she want, right? She’d listed out every possible thing.
A shadow darkened her thoughts as she walked another block. There was no way he really was the same guy who had cheated on Rami’s sister, right? Nat had only shown him onepicture in a dark bar, and Rami probably wanted to mess with her mind. If that was the same Thom — her Thom — it would mean he’d lied to her from day one, and why would he do that? Her mind flashed to how Eric had lied about his height on his profile and used much younger pictures of himself. Then there was her original profile, where she’d only put in whatever the data showed her was popular to make sure someone, anyone, would actually pick her. She jammed a crosswalk button and chewed her lip. What was the word Rami kept using to describe being on the apps?
Vulnerable.
It would have never occurred to her. She’d genuinely thought that fielding rejections through DMs and swipes would make it so that it didn’t hurt. When she thought about how she’d been turned down by Jake back in London, Owen in the park, and a string of other guys throughout her life, what she couldn’t forget were the looks on their faces as they’d let her know that they weren’t interested. It was like looking into the cruelest mirror — seeing so clearly how very much someone didn’t care about you, no matter how much you cared for them. She’d searched every cute guy’s face since, always expecting to see that same dull sheen of dismissal. She’d never wanted to see that look on anyone’s face ever again.
Nat reached the ballpark and cut around the back toward the seal statue. Seeing that stupid thing always cheered her up. So, she’d made BeTwo in the hopes that moving the romantic trial-and-error into pixels on tiny screens would prevent pain, and let her users protect themselves with matches based on data before making a personal investment and exposing their hearts. But the data was only as reliable as the users who entered it, and worse, there was no way to tell what was true until you met in person, anyway. So then what were all the hours spent on BeTwo even accomplishing?
She rubbed the giant baseball perched on the seal’s nose and wished for good luck with the interview in a few hours. Now she knew from her own hours of swiping, and being unmatched and ghosted threads, and toe-curling awkward dates that those seemingly small digital actionswerea type of personal investment — an investment of time. Instead of creating a shortcut around romantic vulnerability, she might have inadvertently made the path all the more twisted — literally and figuratively.
Despite the dimple of sunshine on the seal’s cheery smile, or the way the waves in the bay glittered, her nerves crackled like static around her temples, and her heart felt like a lead cannonball lodged in her chest. She wanted to talk to Sara about it, but that was impossible. She wanted to talk to Jo, but she hadn’t figured out a way to smooth things over, and asking if she thought their whole company was a mistake before their biggest-ever PR event probably wasn’t the move. She could talk to Thom, but something inside her knew that he wouldn’t get it. She could practically hear his lush rumble reassuring her that she was brilliant and her algorithm was incredible — which, for the first time ever, was not exactly what she wanted to hear.
The person whom she needed to talk to, of course, was Rami. But why would he help her? The fate of her whole career depended on proving him wrong. So, she would sit next to him and point to her handsome boyfriend and praise her dating app, and then the contest would be over, and she’d probably never see Rami again. If only that meant she would also stop thinking about the way his brooding eyes lit up when he made a good point, or how his dimples winked in his cheeks when he was really amused, or how safe she’d felt when he pulled her into his chest that night — all in those brief moments before she’d made him hate her again.
Nat leaned over the railing and let the salty sea breeze cool her face and lift the hair from her neck. She wasn’t sure if she could get through the next few hours alone, even if she deserved to. She pulled out her phone and texted Sara.
Nat:I miss you so much it feels like my teeth are gonna fall out.
I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible friend to you lately.
Please let me make it up to you?
She put her phone away and blinked back tears as a seagull screeched overhead. It was the best she could do, for now.
* * *
Rami steeled his nerves and waited for Allison to buzz him up to her apartment. The gleaming silver doors bleated their approval, and Rami pushed inside the slick apartment tower. It was so new, it still smelled like fresh paint inside. He’d watched this place being built, right over the footprint of, among other things, his childhood video store and a mom-and-pop taqueria that he used to love. Now it was a monolith of straight lines and shining glass in a city block full of derelict converted Victorians and the working families who clung to still being able to live in them. He pushed the elevator buttons and watched the doors glide silently shut. Getting himself worked up about gentrification was just a distraction, even he could see that. He needed to focus on his mission, no matter how unpleasant. He had come here to pick up Allison and escort her to the BuzzFill interview, yes, but he had also come here to break up with her. Hopefully, there was a way both things could somehow still happen, despite how impossible it was to imagine.
Allison answered the door in a frilly white dress that literally looked like an angel costume to Rami. He had to admit that the universe, or whatever, did have a good sense of humor sometimes.
“I’m not wearing this,” she said in lieu of an actual greeting. “I’m just trying things on and this is what I was wearing when you got here, but don’t worry.” She gestured down her figure to what, in Rami’s eyes, was a beautiful garment that complemented her curves and fair skin with an almost elfin perfection. “I know this looks awful.”
“You look incredible, actually,” he said as she spun away on a bare foot and disappeared into her bedroom. He slipped off his shoes and stepped inside. He had been to Allison’s apartment only once before, and it had been late, and they had been drinking, and so he hadn’t been in the state of mind to really take it in. To be fair, neither had she, and given her recent move, there hadn’t been much to look at, anyway. But now more of her furniture had arrived, and Rami could examine the scrapes in the robin’s egg blue paint of her small bookshelf, and the array of stone skulls that grinned between the spines of her books. They were mostly romance novels and a few of the usual novelty gift books about wet cats or rude birds that were the millennials’ fruit cake. Nestled under a skull carved from rose quartz was a scribbled note. It read:Abundance.I am the architect of my life!He touched the edge with his finger and closed his eyes. “Polar bears,” he whispered into the quiet. As if in response, loud rustling and a crash of hangers clattered from Allison’s room. He had to save her from her wardrobe spiral, especially if she was about to stay home alone. “Can I help you?” he called into her room as he padded through the junior one-bedroom floor plan that he could only imagine cost most of her salary.
“Yeah, come look at this option!”
Rami took a deep inhale. Time to face the music. He leaned against the doorframe and immediately lost his calming breath. Allison twirled in a stunner of an emerald green dress. The neckline plumped up her soft breasts, the waist nipped in above her hips, and the skirt flared over her legs in a swooping hourglass. She was a vision. And he didn’t feel anything close to what he should be feeling to see her.
“Good? Too much?” Her face was blotched and shiny with the effort of trying on several dozen looks, judging by the piles on her floor. Her jade green eyes blinked at him in full earnestness.
“Allison, you’re stunning. Truly.”
Her pink lips perked up in a smile, and she smoothed her skirt a little. “Well good. And thanks.”
Rami stretched his steps around the clothes on the floor to reach her and took her hand. “I can’t believe you would go to all this trouble to pick something to wear just for me and this absurd interview.”
“Of course!” She smiled at him, but her eyes wavered, ever so slightly, though they were standing close enough for Rami to notice. “It’s important to you.”
Rami squeezed her soft palm and guided her to sit on her bed with him. “It is important. That’s why I have to tell you something.” He took a deep breath and looked into her beautiful face. “You’re a smart, funny, kind and cool person, and you are truly one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever known, let alone been lucky enough to kiss.”
