I got to the bar early, so I sat in a back booth, sipping a daiquiri and watching the men who came in. For a long time, I’d stayed off the apps and avoided the bars. I spent my nights alone, drinking tea and watching Mad Men with my cat. Lately, though, I’d felt that gnawing sense of loneliness—or was it lust?—and now I was waiting for Kevin, a blond boy I’d met on Tinder. After my second drink, I began to feel annoyed and a little offended. He was running late. The bar was a tiki place, and they blasted Hawaiian pop while I knocked back my daiquiris and wondered if Kevin was about to stand me up.  

“Well, there you are! I was sitting up front.” 

A man with dark hair sat beside me in the booth. 

“Sorry,” I said, “who are you?” 

He laughed and sipped my drink. 

“You’re funnier in person,” he said. 

“You’re telling me you’re Kevin?” 

“Don’t look so excited,” he said. “Jesus. You’re lucky you’re so cute.” 

I took out my phone and showed him a picture of Kevin, blond and shirtless, proudly holding a dead fish. His face was rounder than this man’s; his nose was wider. 

“That’s you?” I asked. 

“Yeah, it’s an old picture. I used to dye my hair. Look, what are you implying? You think I catfished you?”  

No, maybe not. Why would he bother? This guy wasn’t bad-looking. In fact, he was pretty cute. Wasn’t he? Or was I just drunk? 

He asked about the metal show I’d just attended; he asked about my work. Was my boss still breathing down my neck? He seemed friendly and, as I had another drink, I decided to look past the discrepancy between his appearance and his photos. He had his arm around me and, really, it was a relief just to have someone touch me. 

We ended up at his apartment, where all the walls were bare. We made out on the bed, but something felt off. Was I just nervous? I hadn’t had sex in a while. 

“You know,” I said, looking at the door, which had a crack down the middle, “Sometimes I worry there’s something really wrong with me. At first, no one sees it. But then, they get to know me, and—” 

“I think that’s the vodka talking,” Kevin said, except it wasn’t Kevin, it was Ethan, my coworker from the bank. 

“The fuck are you doing here?” I asked. 

Ethan laughed.  

“Here, in my apartment?” 

He lay on the bed with his shirt off, his arms behind his head. 

“I think I’m hooking up with you,” he said. 

He rose to embrace me, he kissed my neck, and I found myself running a hand up his back. Something was wrong. I should leave. But, then again, Ethan was gorgeous. I’d fantasized about fucking Ethan many times. Why was I so worried? He squeezed my ass and bit my neck a little too hard. I broke away briefly to finish my drink before taking off my shirt. 

In the morning, I slept late, and Ethan made us pancakes. Although, of course, it wasn’t Ethan, it was Kate, my college ex, and she sat at the foot of the bed, dressed for work. It had been a fun week, she said, but it had to end. 

“I mean, it feels like a relapse, fucking you again.” 

“Well, look,” I said, “can we at least get some coffee? Talk it out?” 

There was so much to discuss. Something weird had happened the night before, hadn’t it?  

“What do you mean, something weird?” she asked. 

Well, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t totally remember. I’d had a lot to drink. 

“What else is new,” she said.  

She smiled, though, and she said that a coffee would be nice. 

We walked down East Broadway, the sunlight watery and pale. She laughed at the sparrows fighting in Seward Park, and I searched for a way to ask, What had gone wrong back in college? What was it about me that had made her break things off? 

But then it was night and we were at my place, where bookshelves lined the walls. She lit some candles, and I left for the bathroom. I felt dizzy from the drinks. There was something deeply wrong going on, and I stared into the mirror, trying to remember what it was. 

Should I ask Kate to leave? But that would be crazy. This was my second chance with her. It was what I’d always wanted. As I came back into the room, carrying two glasses of wine, she said, What a crazy month. The best of her life. And, honestly, when she’d met me on the ferry, she’d thought I was a little strange. Maybe a little self-involved. But then I’d turned out to be so sweet—and, of course, it wasn’t Kate saying this. Kate would never have called me sweet. It was some other woman sitting on my bed. And she could just tell, she said, as she wrapped her arms around me, the faint smell of jasmine clinging to her blouse, that I really saw her. And did I know how rare that was? 

“Of course I do,” I said. I didn’t hesitate at all. I finished my drink and bit into her shoulder. 

What a month. What a year. We spent every moment together. At work, where we fucked in the bathroom and both got fired, on the ferry, where we watched the sun set and I proposed, at the bar on Norfolk, and the bar on Rivington, and the bar on Grand, where I threw up and he cried for some damn reason, and then in the bar where we’d met, the Hawaiian music blaring, the yellow streamers crisscrossing the room, and Kevin wasn’t crying anymore, he was very controlled. He looked like he’d cried so much he’d gone dry. His hair was blond again. He looked the way he had in his Tinder pictures. I wanted to say it was great to finally meet him, but he was saying, “I just don’t understand. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Did I even know, he asked, how hard he’d been trying? How much he’d put up with for my sake? Or was I so locked in my own world that I didn’t even notice? 

“You know the worst part?” he said. “I’m not even mad anymore. I just feel sorry for you.” 

I stared at my martini. The music played so loud I couldn’t think. 

“The lies,” he said. “The cheating. The absolutely nonstop drinking.” 

What could I say? That I had no clue what he was talking about? That everything had just sort of happened, and I’d gotten swept along? I felt sorry for me, too. I felt sorry for all of us.