Everyone said it was love, though that seemed like the wrong word for it. It had the shape of love, certainly—the outlines, the choreography—but not the substance. Or maybe it was love, just the kind that didn't quite survive daylight.
He met her on Instagram, which was embarrassing to admit, though not as embarrassing as a dating app. Her profile wasn't especially curated: slightly blurry photos of her in cafés, a picture in front of the ocean, one with a dog that may or may not have been hers. She looked like someone who might know what to order at a bar when you didn't. That was enough.
He told himself he was ready. For what, he wasn't sure. He had been with women, yes, in the way people are "with" things: a car, a jacket, an idea. But this time he wanted a stranger, someone new enough that there wouldn't be any overlap with the rest of his life.
She was cool at first. Not aloof, exactly, but unwilling to play the part. When they met, she didn't offer to pay and didn't pretend to, which he found oddly appealing. There was something refreshing about a person who didn't feel the need to perform decency. She didn't flirt or ask follow-up questions, but she showed up, which counted for something.
He thought, at the time, that this was honesty.
The first hug lasted too long. That was his fault, probably. He froze. She kissed the side of his neck and stepped back as though nothing had happened, and he sat in his car afterwards with the engine running, whispering "Why?" into the steering wheel.
Still, they kept going out. One date blurred into another: dim bars, loud laughter, speeding through streets at night to get her home in time for sleep. It was domestic, in a way. Romantic, in the worst sense of the word.
She made him feel older. Not in a bad way. More that she required something of him—some shape of care—that he had never been asked to provide. And so he tried. He bought things, small things, and let her leave them at his place. He liked the sound of her sleepy voice on the phone. He thought this might be what people meant when they said "settling down," except the word "settling" stuck in his teeth like something unchewed.
And yet something was off. His body told him before his brain did. He didn't want to kiss her. He didn't know why. They hugged. She leaned on him. He listened when she talked. But something inside him pulled back, like the tide. She said things that made him pause—not because they were shocking, but because they were so confident in their smallness.
She kept score. She had a list of enemies. She said things like "I don't forget" and meant it.
He thought of leaving, and then didn't. He thought of kissing her, and then didn't. He thought of all the things he had once believed about himself—that he wasn't the kind of man to fall, that he couldn't be tricked. But here he was, tricked.
The worst part was how much it hurt. Even now, even with all his caution, all his supposed control—it hurt. Not because he loved her, not really. But because he had wanted to try. He had offered something of himself—whatever version he had—and it hadn't been enough.
He wondered what would've happened if he had given more. If he had fallen properly, if he had said the words out loud. But then again, maybe this was falling. Maybe this was what falling looked like, when you were old enough to know better.
He sat alone in his apartment that night, staring at the messages they'd sent, the small digital trail of something that wasn't quite a relationship and wasn't quite not. Her last message was a story about a fight she'd had with someone. He didn't reply.
He just watched the screen until it went dark.