Page 5 of Ghosted
“You’re being dumb. You always look hot. Now shut up and let me take the picture.” She proceeds to manhandle meinto position, even going so far as to dab my lips with her blood-red lip gloss. “Now smile like I said something funny, but not too hilarious.”
“Oh, so smile like I do any time you attempt humor?” I ask. At her pout, I can’t help but laugh, and that’s when she snaps the picture.
She checks it over and nods her approval. “Damn, I’m good. I should charge for this.”
“You already did by making me pay for dinner,” I respond flatly, making “gimme” hands at my phone. I have to admit, it is a really good picture of me. The way she positioned my arms made my boobs look extra perky, and the way I’m looking over my shoulder accentuates my cheekbones and heart shaped face. And, wow. That lip gloss makes my teeth lookwhite.I make a mental note to ask her what it is and/or steal it from her later. Most importantly, I look happy. The warm glow of the low lighting makes my blue eyes softer. I don’t look like a freak of nature at all.
The time at the top of my phone makes me groan. “Hey, I have to get home to do the potion pulls right now. I’m running a sale, and I’m expecting a lot of people to be watching.”
“How convenient,” Wren replies.
“Well, if I want to pay my rent, I have to make some money,” I say defensively.
“Aunt Clarissa doesn’t charge you rent,” she retorts.
“Ah, but you’re the one running up my credit card bill. Come on, do you want to watch?” I ask, standing and gathering my coat.
“Nah, I’d better get home. I have to be at Brewed early tomorrow,” Wren says, stifling a yawn. She stands with me and grabs her black, vegan-leather purse off thetable.
“See you tomorrow. I’ll stop in for a coffee,” I say, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, which she grudgingly accepts.
“Okay, I'd better see that you’ve at least looked at a few guys,” she says with a surprisingly scary glare. I roll my eyes and nod. She smiles toothily, then leads me through the bar and into the misty night.
FOUR
I viciously frogthe last two rows of the maroon sweater I’m attempting to knit before I finally release a scream of frustration. Well, scream is a stretch; what ends up coming out of my throat is a weird mix of a strangled bird and a dying cat. I’m glad I live alone and don’t have to explain that one.
I toss the whole project off my lap and stand from my couch in a huff. I’ve been trying to learn to knit for weeks because I thought it would be a nice, calming hobby to pick up.
Wrong.
Knittingmustinvolve some type of witchcraft that I’m not privy to. No matter how hard I try or how many tutorials I watch, everything I make looks like a half-blind toddler was playing with yarn. Even that might be too generous a description.
I go to my small kitchen and gulp a glass of water to calm down. Just as I’m contemplating lighting every skein of yarn I’ve bought on fire, my phonedings!with a notification sound I’m unfamiliar with. I frown down at it to see a MatchStik notification.
I totally forgot I redownloaded this godforsaken app.
I click on the notification and see that someone has “liked me,” even though I haven't done anything with it since reinstating my profile with Wren last night. I scowl at my phone, unsure how to feel. On the one hand, it’s nice that someone finds me attractive (at least enough to swipe right instead of left), but on the other hand, I don’t know if I’m ready to dive back into the dating pool. A girl can only take so many men running and screaming (literally) when they get to know the real her before she decides that she’d rather be alone.
I think about my sister and how brave she always is. How unapologetically herself. How she keeps trying because she has hope that one day someone will love all of her.
I tap on the notification:
Dean likes you!
I tap on his photo icon and have to tamp down my immediate excitement. The man is gorgeous. Dark hair that curls just a bit over his starched white collar. Sun-kissed skin that makes his golden brown eyes glow. A bright smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, unapologetic in its brilliance. Muscular forearms peek out of rolled sleeves, and a botanical tattoo wraps around his right arm.
Damn.
I scroll through his profile and find that he’s a lawyer, thirty-two years old, and a Gemini. I scroll to the prompts he chose to answer and appreciate that we have a very similar sense of humor. He comes across warm and intelligent, and I want to know more.
In response to the prompt “My Weird But True Story,” hesaid, “My weird but true story is that one time, in college, I brought a stray cat into my dorm room because it was freezing out and I felt bad for it. I fed her some of my canned tuna and named her Fish. Well, lucky for Fish and unlucky for me, she had her kittens on my favorite sweatshirt under my bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of meowing and realized I was now harboring five contraband cats instead of one. Fish and her four kittens, Trout, Bass, Salmon, and Tuna, were taken to a fantastic foster home and now ‘work’ at a local cat cafe.”
I can’t help but laugh, hoping that the story is true and not something he made up to seem sympathetic.
I go back to his pictures and quickly flip through them—the extra pictures tell a lot about a person. No gym-bro photos and/or man holding dead animal photos, so things are looking promising. With the sensation of jumping off a cliff, I swipe right on him too. Then, I immediately exit out of the app, silence notifications, and toss my phone across my small apartment so it lands with a bounce on my well-loved sofa.
I resolvenotto look at my phone for the rest of the night. I wind up my knitting project and stuff it back into the storage basket next to my couch. I braid my hair into a long fishtail and then undo it. I pick up the book I was reading and plop on my armchair situated at the furthest point from my couch in the living room. I read for what feels like forever. I check the time on the antique clock mounted on the wall. Only five minutes have passed.
