Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It(13)

Get a random guy to buy me a drink Get drunk and make out with a stranger Rear-end a guy and exchange information Go on a date with one of the meet-cutes from above Go on a dating app date

Go on a date with Matthew

Advertise myself on Craigslist





4


I skip the entire way home, humming and singing under my breath. The excitement of creating the checklist with my friends is still pulsing through me. Even though I didn’t have a sip of alcohol, I feel buzzed. For the first time in a long time, thanks to my new list, I feel like I might actually be getting somewhere, like I might actually have some control. I trace the outline of Bev with my pointer finger. I can do hard things, too.

Thanks to my strict school night bedtime, I’m almost always the first one to leave Jeffery’s. Tonight is no exception. My shower lets out a high-pitched screech as I turn it on, and I give the water a minute to warm up before stepping out of my dirty clothes and under the steady stream of the showerhead. I let my lavender-scented soap wash away the parts of my day I don’t want to take with me to bed: the letter, the smell of the rotisserie chicken wafting out of the dumpster, the stickiness in the backs of my knees…all scrubbed away with my loofah.

Once I’m all dried off, I throw on a matching pajama set and curl up under the covers, settling in for the thirty minutes of phone scrolling I allot myself every night before lights-out. I open Instagram, passively commenting “CAN’T WAIT!” on the carousel of engagement photos that Jamie posted of her and Ethan with the caption “13 days to go!” I breeze past a few more posts of old friends with their new babies or new fiancés and then, almost without thinking, type Matthew’s name into the search bar. I scroll back to the first photo he ever posted, a picture of him playing Scrabble on the beach. He’s a photographer, so his feed mainly consists of landscapes and pictures of other people, but there are a few photos of just him that I keep coming back to. Like this one. The jet-black hair that sweeps right below the rim of his glasses, the dark circles under his eyes that I find so inexplicably cute, the camera that’s always dangling around his neck…all of it sends a wave of heat through me. I think about the list sitting downstairs in my bag, patiently waiting to be laminated, then the letter stuffed in my nightstand drawer, and wonder if I’d still be in this position if I had made it to my date with him.



* * *



—

I matched with Matthew on Hinge last year. I was home on Long Island for Thanksgiving break, bored out of my mind and entertaining myself by scrolling through the apps incessantly but never finding anyone that seemed worthy of a right swipe. The selection of men on Long Island was less than ideal, so I switched my location to Manhattan. Once I exhausted those options, I moved on to Brooklyn. At that point, I had decided to swipe left on every man in all five boroughs out of spite.

But my plan fell through when I found Matthew.

Between his deep blue eyes, his slightly lopsided smile, and the screenshot of his fastest crossword time, I hardly had time to think of the implications before an urgent signal from my brain forced my hand to tap the right side of my screen.

I had officially sent my first like.

Immediately, an anxious pit started to form in the bottom of my stomach. Maybe he won’t like me back, I thought. But within a few minutes, I had a message waiting for me.

Matthew:

Phoebe Berman…

It’s been a long time

I froze. How did he know my last name? Had we met before? If we had, there was no way I would have forgotten a face like his. I zoomed in on every one of his pictures, desperately searching for a spark of recognition. I was so sure I had never met him. But then how did he know my last name?

Phoebe:

It sure has

Tell me about the first time we met I want to relive it

Matthew:

You’re such a romantic

I remember that about you I sat behind you in Mr. Gordon’s class (I could see you reading Fifty Shades of Grey behind your calc textbook) I thought back to my junior year calculus class, conjuring a mental image of the boy who sat behind me. It was a senior who had this long black hair that covered his entire face. I remember always wondering, How can he see through all that hair? His name was…What was his name?

I broke into a full-on sprint up the stairs to my old bedroom, looking like a wild animal on all fours with my hands pushing off the steps in front of me in an effort to propel myself upstairs faster. Out of breath by the time I reached my bookshelf, I tore the yearbooks off the shelves until I found the one from my junior year. I scanned through the photos of the entire graduating class until I finally landed on him: Matthew Baxter. He had pushed his hair back slightly for the photo. I could make out one single blue eye.

Phoebe:

Oh my god

You cut your hair

Matthew:

I was going through something It won’t happen again

I promise

Phoebe:

Hey

Your body, your choice

I can’t believe you remember me!

Matthew: Are you kidding?

I had the biggest crush on you Even while the nervous pit in my stomach doubled in size, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning and blushing like a schoolgirl.

We moved over to text, where we spent the night swapping our most impressive crossword times. Matthew asked to take me out, but I had the perfect excuse not to go: I lived across the country and was flying out the next day. I told him that if he was still interested in May, when I’d be back home on Long Island for Jamie’s graduation, we’d go on a date. I’d even go meet him in the city. In the meantime, we’d keep up with our word games.