1. Paige
Butterflies - Kacey Musgraves
You have a new message.
“ G o away,” I grumble as I check the time on my phone.
It’s 8am on a Saturday, early October light streaming in through the crack in my curtains. I spent the entire night reading my favorite Elsie Silver book before I passed out around 3am. What can I say? The cowboys just do it for me.
The notification is from the dating app Mags convinced me to join last month in my wine drunk haze. I haven’t checked it since that night — truth be told, I’ve been avoiding the notifications — but hovering over the icon now, I can’t say I’m not curiou s.
Cade: Are you from Tennessee?
Staring at the message, brows drawn in confusion, I throw my phone down on the pillow in exasperation. I’m from a small town in Northern, Ontario, though I currently live in Toronto, so it takes me a minute to figure out what would give this guy the impression that I’m American, until it hits me — it’s a pickup line.
“Are you from Tennessee, ‘cause you’re the only ten I see.”
It’s cheesy, but not the worst line I’ve ever heard and I’m nothing if not nosy, so I snatch up my phone again and tap on his username.
I stare at his profile, wide eyed as I swipe through the various photos. This guy is hot but not in a conventional Captain America way — that’s never been my type — but he’s, for lack of a better word, beautiful. He has light brown hair that’s cropped at the sides with a little bit of length at the top, giving it an “I just pushed my hair back” kind of look, and I’d love to run my hands through it. Woah, where did that thought come from?
His eyes are a rich chestnut brown, and he has full lips to match his full… everything. I wouldn’t describe him as thin, nor is he plus size. He’s bulky and I definitely think he could toss me around in the bedroom, if you know what I mean.
The unfortunate thing about this app is that you can see exactly what rating you’re given so while I’ve been ogling this guy’s ‘assets’ and dating credentials, (26-year-old bartender from Kentucky, 6’1”), I’ve also been avoiding the number on the top right of the screen, displaying whatever arbitrary rating I’ve been given. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that particular brand of self-flagellation. The rating system seems ridicu lously archaic and entirely subjective, so I swipe back over to my inbox. Here goes nothing:
Paige: You gonna finish that pick up line?
I wait a few minutes before giving up on a response, heading downstairs towards the kitchen to see if Mags has recovered from another night downtown. Maggie invited me to hit the bars with her latest hookup, but I politely declined and scurried away to my room with my kindle and my emotional support water bottle. Crowds have always made me uncomfortable, and the thought of being a third wheel is far from appealing.
Around 2am, while I was grabbing a refill in the kitchen, Mags stumbled in, disheveled and looking well-fucked. I’m definitely not jealous; not even a little bit. Oh, who am I kidding?
When I round the corner into the kitchen, I find Maggie slumped at the island with a half empty “Fuck the Patriarchy” coffee mug in one hand and her phone in the other.
“Rough night?” She startles at the sound of my voice.
“Can you keep it down?”
A soft laugh escapes me - clearly someone had too much to drink last night.
“Sorry,” I whisper before gesturing to her mug. “Refill?”
“No, but can you carry me to bed? It’s too early to be human.”
Although I could probably wear pocket-sized Maggie like a backpack, I have no choice but to decline.
“No can do, Mags. You have class in 20 minutes.”
I hear what sounds like a garbled “fuuuuck” as I head into the ki tchen for some caffeine and a bowl of cereal. While I’m pouring an ungodly amount of pumpkin spice creamer into the strongest coffee known to man, my phone chimes with another notification.
Cade: I guess I could see why you would think that.
Cade: Your profile says UofT, so I assumed it meant the University of Tennessee.
Well, this is awkward. While I’m fairly certain this conversation is dead on arrival, I respond anyway. It can’t possibly get any worse.
Paige: Shit, that’s embarrassing. Please forget this ever happened. In fact, just forget me entirely.
I have a tendency to ramble when the anxiety comes out to play. My heart is beating out of my chest, my stomach is in knots, and my face is overheating with every second that ticks by without a response. It feels like a million tiny insects are crawling over my skin. Logically, I know that my physical response to embarrassment is irrational, but at this point in my life, it’s a conditioned response and nobody ever said anxiety is rooted in reality. In my head, everybody hates me and I’m fighting an uphill battle .
“Who's got you blushing like that?” I hear Mags call from across the room, jolting me out of my mental spiral.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I respond, spinning around in a quest to hide the evidence, ultimately failing to find an adequate place to hide my phone.
“Yeah no, spill the beans, babe.”
“I’d much rather crawl into a hole and die,” I deadpan.
Maggie rounds the island, reaching for my phone just as another notification appears on my screen. In the scuffle, my phone is sent careening to the hardwood and I’m just praying it survives the crash. I snatch it off the floor, inspecting it for any damage. It appears completely unscathed — unlike my pride — and another notification appears.
“Oh my god…it’s the app! Let me see!” Mags screeches, as she makes another desperate attempt to snatch my phone out of my hand.
“No, Mags, please.” I’m utterly mortified at this point. “I promise, you don’t want the secondhand embarrassment it’ll cause you.”
“Nope. This is fucking adorable. You can tell your grandkids about this someday,” she says, as she scrolls through the messages.
I scoff. Over my dead body. I escape into the living room with Maggie hot on my heels.
We live in a beautiful 3 story house in The Beaches neighborhood of Toronto, a stone's throw away from downtown. Maggie’s dad is a big wig CEO, and he bought the house at the end of our 1st year of university. They decked it out with the finest furnishings Ikea has to offer, including each of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor and a shared study space where a formal dining room would normally be.
There’s a quaint garden in the backyard just off the small porch, perfect for my morning coffee and a good book.
But by far my favorite thing about this house is the giant clawfoot soaker tub in the main bathroom — it’s an absolute dream and I’ve found myself drifting off into vivid daydreams amongst the bubbles more than once since I moved in.
“Come on, Paige, this is so sweet. You have to see this.”
“Paige? There’s no Paige here. I’m going to change my name and join the circus. Do you think I could grow a beard? I’m definitely not cut out for any acrobatics, but I could add ‘freak show’ to my resume.”
Maggie all but shoves my phone in my face. “You’re being ridiculous. Look.”
Cade: I don’t think I’ll be able to forget you, Sunshine.
Cade: You’re already living rent free in my head.
Sunshine? Did this guy just give me a nickname? Did I like it?
I snatch my phone back from my bestie, typing and deleting my response several times over, before I finally muster up the courage to hit send.
Paige: Sunshine? Can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before.
Cade: Maybe your boyfriend needs to get more creative.
Paige: The only boyfriends I have are fictional.
Cade: Noted .
I pause, unsure of how to respond. Is he flirting with me? Do I want him to flirt with me? Just when my mind has started the all too familiar anxiety induced merry-go-round of thoughts, my phone chimes with yet another message.
Cade: So… are you from Tennessee?
Paige: Isn’t it like… social media rule #1 not tell strangers where you live?
Cade: I live in Kentucky. There… Now we’d both be breaking the rules.
Paige: I’m a student at the University of Toronto.
Cade: Canada, eh?
Paige: Laughs in Canadian. Dropping “eh” this early into the conversation is a bit disappointing. What happened to creativity, Cowboy?
Cade: I’m creative when it counts. And I’m definitely not a cowboy.
Damn. There goes that fantasy.
I decide to ignore the suggestive undertone of the last message, bypassing it in favor of a much safer path forwar d.
Paige: Can’t say I know much about Kentucky. Bourbon, fried chicken and horses?
Cade: So close. You forgot college basketball.
We spend the next several hours bantering back and forth. At some point Mags slipped off to class as our conversation continued late into the afternoon. For an introvert like me, conversation doesn’t always come easily. I often find myself tongue tied in social situations, tripping over the most mundane of topics. Maybe it’s because Cade isn’t from Canada, and this relationship — if you can even call it that — has a one-way ticket to nowhere, but there’s no pressure and it feels uncomplicated. I feel a sense of freedom to just be myself — something that’s usually hard for me to muster, even around family. This feels… easy.