Page 20 of The Swiping Game
“What did you do?”
“It’s more like what I didn’t do.”
“Oh hell.”
“Yeah, oh hell.”
For the next half hour and another round of drinks, I fill Hazel in on redownloading the app and matching with Tara. I admit that I swiped left on her knowing that it would show up as James but that I honestly didn’t know if she’d start a conversation. Or that it would still be going strong five days later. Or that I can’t help but smile every time I see her name pop up on my phone.
“So, you’re meaning to tell me that you’ve been talking to this woman—a woman you’ve known for years—for five days, and you two haven’t exchanged other pictures? Or anything else that would give you away?”
I shake my head. “No. And honestly, it hasn’t come up. I keep waiting for her to ask if we can meet, or at least FaceTime, but she hasn’t. And I’m not pressing it.”
“Why?”
The one-word question takes me off guard.
“Why what?”
“The fact that there are numerous questions that the word ‘why’ covers should just tell you how fucked you are. But I’ll start with this one. Why haven’t you told her?”
Isn’t that the question of the hour?
“I don’t know,” I say, which I know is lame, but it’s the truth.
“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to admit it. So we can stay here all night, and you can continue buying me overpriced martinis until you tell me the real reason why you haven’t told her who you are yet.”
I sit back and really think about her question. I know how it started. I know why I didn’t tell her at the beginning.
But now? Now I’m not sure if those same reasons hold up.
“I’m scared,” I say, just above a whisper.
“Why?”
“You’d be a great therapist, you know that?”
“I make more than therapists do. Now, why are you scared?”
I take a deep breath. Until right now, these thoughts were pressed so far back in my mind it was easy enough to ignore them.
“Tara and I—when we’re at the offices, we have this...I don’t know what you’d call it. We’re not friends, but we’re definitely not unfriendly. I tease her about anything I can, and she throws it right back at me. If we were kids, I’d compare it to chasing each other on the playground after I pulled on her pigtails. So I’m scared that if she finds out who I really am, this goes away. And I don’t want it to.”
All this does is make my sister smile.
“What? Why are you smiling like that?”
“Because you two have been on this road for a while now. It just took my app and a little bit of anonymity to get to this point.”
“We’ve never flirted before.”
“You might not think of it as flirting, but let me ask you this. In any of the time you have known her—before the app—were you ever attracted to her?”
I think about it. Last week I would have told Hazel hell no and felt confident about my answer. Yes, it took me seeing that picture of her in that red dress to amplify my attraction to her, but I guess now that I think about it, I always did think she was cute. I loved when she smiled, especially when she didn’t think anyone was looking. Hell, even the way her cheeks would get red when I said something to piss her off was pretty adorable.
Oh my God . . . Hazel is right. This has been there the whole time. I just didn’t know it.
And now that I do, I’m up shit creek without a paddle.
