Page 11 of Texts From My Exes
CHAPTER
FIVE
HARPER
Tell me one dream, I’ll make it come true or maybe I’ll just make you—wish you knew the end to that sentence. Dinner? Tomorrow? I’ll let you pay because feminism. Five good? I have community service at seven.
–Dick
The cursor on my computer haunted me in real time as I tried to come up with a proper response to the explosion of comments on my TikTok.
One in particular had me irrationally irritated—probably because it had fifty-six replies and was single-handedly feeding the algorithm while spiraling out of control.
If number five was such a good guy, then why didn’t things work out? Why let him go?
Seems sketchy to me. Compared to the rest of the guys, you’d think she’d just settle—if that even means settling.
Maybe something happened we don’t know about?
Either way, I’m calling it—Fake. He’s fake because the rest of them sound like nightmares.
The comment below that one just said Agreed.
And the one beneaththatsaid: I mean, she picks the absolute worst personalities.
Rude.
True.
But still—rude.
Then came the war cries:
I’m voting for prison guy as the first.
Prison.
Prison.
PRISON!
Over a hundred comments chanting it like a messed-upHunger Gamestribute.
Which meant my first official date would be with—Cash.
(Yes, like the currency. No, that wasn’t his birth name.)
His actual name was James, but he changed it to Cash after he was “liberated” from prison.
Because apparently, “James” was his oppressed identity. I was afraid to look deeper into his profile.
That should be a fun conversation. His liberation from being named.
I grabbed my phone, smoothed my hair, and clicked record.
“Okay, based on all of these comments—some not-so-fun ones about fake exes—it looks like my first date is going to be Cash.”
Deep breath. Try not to visibly flinch.
