I wanted that night with Chloe to go well so badly that I ignored every warning sign dressed up as confidence.

I’d been out of the dating world for a while. Not dramatically, not because of some huge heartbreak that left me unable to function. My last relationship had just faded out quietly, the way some things do when neither person has enough left to fight for it. After that, life became routine in the dullest sense—work, leftovers, reruns, and friends who loved me but were too busy building their own lives to notice I’d quietly stopped trying to build mine.My sister Erin was the one who finally dragged me back into it.

“You’re too decent to be hiding in your apartment like dating is extinct,” she told me one rainy Thursday night. Then she sat at my kitchen counter, stole half my fries, and forced me to download dating apps while making fun of every terrible profile photo I considered using.

When I matched with Chloe, I noticed her immediately. She was witty, confident, and sharp in a way that made it feel easy to talk to her. She teased me about one of my pictures—me holding a fish and looking oddly solemn.