Behind the Screen

Chapter 3

I walked out to my car at the end of the day and checked my phone.

"How'd things go today?" Emily had asked me.

"Okay I guess," I responded.

"You don't sound very convincing," she sent.

"I'm fine," I assured her.

"If you say so, wanna go to dinner tomorrow night or something?" She asked.

I started to respond and tell her that dinner sounded good, but I remembered Chloe's comment about having to stay late.

"Might have to stay at work late, so I'm not sure," I sent Emily.

"Again? Damn," she responded.

"I know...sorry," I said.

"No worries, we'll try to do something on Saturday," Emily sent.

"Sounds good," I responded.

After I had finished my conversation with Emily, I started my car and drove home.

I sighed when I pulled into the driveway and saw Spencer sitting on my front steps. He jumped up as soon as I got out of the car and waved to me.

"Spence, what are you doing here?" I asked him.

"I can't stop thinking about last night and I - I wanted to apologize and see if we could talk again," he said.

"I appreciate it, but you don't need to apologize," I said as I shook my head.

"I felt like I did," he said quietly as he put his head down, "could I maybe come in and talk to you?"

"Spencer, come on, I've told you that I don't want to talk again," I sighed.

"Right," he said, "I just had to try again."

"I'm not saying it's never going to happen, but you need to give me some space," I said.

"Yeah I - sorry, I will," he responded.

"Thank you," I said.

I stood outside of my car awkwardly, waiting for Spencer to leave my front steps so I could go inside.

"Oh, right, I'm going," he finally said.

I forced a small smile as he walked by and went towards his car.

I went inside and set my things down, feeling overwhelmed from the day. I felt my phone vibrate in my hand, and I looked at the screen expecting to see a text from Emily.

Instead I saw a notification from the dating app that I'd signed up for the night before. Damn, I had kind of forgotten that I did that.

I had barely looked at it, and I still didn't really know how it worked. I sat down on my couch and clicked on the notification.

A profile came up of someone who wanted to match with me, and I started to look through it. The only personal information I could see was an age range and gender.

I saw that my potential match was a woman between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-three. Kind of a random range, but I was thirty so I guess it was about right.

I scrolled down to her interests as I became more intrigued with my mystery suitor.

She liked to read, check; liked concerts, check; wanted to do more traveling, check again. It seemed like we had a lot in common.

It said that she was just looking for someone to chat with to start...maybe it wouldn't hurt to try. The allure of having someone to talk to that didn't know anything about me was drawing me in. It felt like it would be nice to have a fresh start.

I again had an internal debate with myself before I accepted the match request. I tossed my phone down right after I did, nervous about what would come next.

I glanced over at it sitting on the couch next to me, like watching it was going to cause a notification to pop up.

I turned my head away and leaned back against the couch, still a little confused with myself for doing anything with a dating app in the first place.

I left my phone sitting there and went into my room to change my clothes. I took off my outfit from work and pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt before going back out to the kitchen.

I opened the fridge and started looking for something to make for dinner, when I heard a faint noise from the couch.

I shut the door and walked over to grab my phone. There was the notification from the dating app.

I felt my stomach flip as I opened it up, not sure why I was feeling so nervous.

I clicked over to the messages tab to find a new one waiting for me.

"Hey, thanks for accepting :)"

I opened the chat as my fingers hovered over the keyboard on my phone and I continued to stare at the message.

"Hey, no problem," I finally responded.

I closed out of the app and slid my phone in my pocket before going back into the kitchen and resuming my search for dinner.

Who knew how fast I'd get a response, I didn't want to sit there and just wait for it.

I settled on pasta, and began to heat up some water on the stove when I heard my phone again. Damn, that was faster than I thought it would be.

I took it out of my pocket and read another message.

"What are you up to tonight?"

Oh great, was this going to turn into a creep asking me weird questions or asking me to meet up this quickly?

I jumped as I heard the water sizzling over on the stove. I'd been too distracted to realize that it had started to boil.

I turned it down and added the pasta before turning my attention back to my phone again.

"Just starting to make some dinner, what about you?" I asked.

My eyes started to go back and forth between the stove and my phone, seeing which one would require my attention first.

My food was ready before I saw anything else pop up on my screen, and I finished preparing it and sat down at the counter.

I knew I'd hear the notification if it came, but I kept checking. Why was I so concerned about this already?

I finished eating and cleaned everything up, and I still hadn't gotten a response yet. Maybe that would be it for the night.

I sat down on the couch and turned the TV on, determined to distract myself for a while before I went to bed.

It worked for a while, but just before I got up to head into my bedroom, my phone went off again.

I quickly grabbed it and started to read the latest message.

"Thinking of you of course ;)"

Oh shit, what had I gotten myself into?

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