he green dress I’d saved for was still in Claire’s bedroom when my phone slipped beneath her couch. I reached into the gap and pulled out something with my own eight-year-old face on it. Then I saw a note in Claire’s handwriting dated the day we matched on Tinder, and realized she’d known me first.
My phone disappeared between Claire’s couch cushion and the armrest while she was in the bedroom changing into the green dress I’d bought her.
I muttered something I wouldn’t repeat in front of my mother and shoved my hand into the gap.
She was in the bedroom changing into the green dress.
My fingers found two quarters, a pen cap, something that felt suspiciously like an ancient potato chip, and finally my phone.
But when I pulled my hand out, a photograph came with it.
It landed facedown on the rug.
I picked it up automatically.
Then I stopped.
A photograph came with it.
The picture was old enough that the colors had faded around the edges. A group of children sat on the floor of what looked like a library, each holding a book.
The picture was old.
Near the end of the row was a skinny boy with uneven brown hair and a gap where one front tooth should have been.
Me.
Eight years old, maybe nine.
I knew it was me because I remembered that awful striped shirt. My mother had insisted it made me look “handsome.”
I remembered that awful striped shirt.
I had never given Claire a childhood photograph.
Standing beside me was a girl about my age wearing purple glasses.
I turned the photograph over.
In faded blue ink, someone had written:
“Nora + Ethan, Summer Reading Club.”
I had never given Claire a childhood photograph.
Below that, in much newer black ink, were five words.
“Found Ethan today. Tell him.”
Underneath was a date.
I checked it twice.
It was the date Claire and I had matched on Tinder.
Underneath was a date.
