2. Zoya
ZOYA
Karina waits until we’re off the clock, which is how I know whatever she has planned is going to be both stupid and impossible to escape.
By the time we leave the library, the sky is already turning that soft gray-blue it gets right before full dark, and the air has the kind of cool bite that makes me wish I’d brought a thicker cardigan.
Karina, of course, is completely unbothered.
She walks beside me with her bag slung over one shoulder and the expression of a woman carrying out a mission she has already decided will change my life.
I know that expression. It has never once led to anything normal.
“This is your chance,” she says as we head down the sidewalk.
“For what?”
“To stop being pathetic about men.”
“I am not pathetic about men.”
She cuts me a look. “You nearly had a nervous breakdown because your hot patron asked for a book recommendation.”
“That is a malicious oversimplification.”
“It’s a factual summary.”
I glare at her. “You’re a terrible friend.”
“And yet here I am, trying to help you.”
“That’s what cult leaders say.”
She laughs and hooks her arm through mine. “You’ll thank me later.”
“I already know I won’t.”
We end up at the little wine bar two blocks from my apartment, the one with dim lighting and mismatched chairs and a menu that is somehow both too expensive and too confusing.
Karina likes it because she says it makes her feel sophisticated.
I like it because the lights are low enough that I can exist in public without feeling especially perceived.
We slide into a corner booth, and before I can even settle properly, she leans across the table and says, “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
I narrow my eyes. “That sentence never leads anywhere good.”
“You need confidence.”
“I need mozzarella sticks.”
“You need practice flirting.”
I stare at her.
She stares back.
“No,” I say.
“You haven’t even heard the idea.”
“I’ve heard enough.”
She waves that away. “You are going to text a random number.”
I blink. “I’m sorry?”
“A random number.”
“That’s not a real thing people do.”
“It is now.”
I laugh because she can’t possibly be serious, but the problem is she looks very serious, and Karina looking serious is one of the more ominous forces in my life.
“You want me to text a stranger,” I say slowly.
“Yes.”
“For confidence.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your plan.”
“It’s an excellent plan.”
“It’s unhinged.”
She points at me. “Exactly. You need something low stakes. Anonymous. No pressure. No consequences.”
“There are absolutely consequences. The consequence is I get murdered.”
“You’re not going to get murdered by texting hello to some random accountant in the suburbs.”
“You don’t know that he’s an accountant.”
She pulls out her phone like she’s been waiting for this exact level of resistance. “Fine. We’ll make it even safer.”
“How?”
“We use a number generator.”
I stare at her.
She opens a website.
“Karina.”
“Nope.”
“This is insane.”
She starts tapping anyway. “You don’t have to say anything weird. Just something casual. Something harmless. It’s not about getting a date. It’s about proving to yourself that you can talk to someone without dying.”
“I can talk to people without dying.”
“You can talk to old women looking for murder mysteries without dying.”
“That is a skill.”
“It is. Sadly, it’s not the skill we’re testing.”
The server comes by, and I order a glass of red wine because I can feel this situation slipping beyond my control. Karina orders something sparkling and obnoxious and then goes right back to ruining my evening.
She turns her phone toward me. “Pick one.”
On the screen is a list of random phone numbers.
I just stare. “This cannot be legal.”
“It’s legal enough.”
“That’s not a phrase.”
“It is tonight.”
I press my fingertips to my forehead. “Why are you like this?”
“Because God knew your life would be boring without me.”
That, unfortunately, is not completely untrue.
I take a long breath and look at the numbers. None of them mean anything. They’re just digits. Someone out there belongs to each one, obviously, but to me they’re blank. Unattached. Safe in the weirdest possible way.
Karina must see the shift in my expression, because she pounces immediately.
“There,” she says. “You’re considering it.”
“I’m considering whether friendship is worth this level of abuse.”
“It is.”
“Debatable.”
She grabs my phone out of my hand before I can stop her.
“Karina.”
“Relax.”
“That word has never relaxed anyone.”
She inputs one of the numbers, saves nothing, just leaves it there in a blank message thread, and drops the phone in front of me like she’s setting down a loaded weapon.
I look at it.
Unknown number.
Empty screen.
Cursor blinking.
My stomach tightens. “This is so humiliating.”
“No, it’s freeing.”
“It is humiliating and freeing.”
“Send something simple.”
I pick up my wine and take a long drink.
Karina waits.
I keep staring at the blank message field.
I could just not do it. I could lock my phone, change the subject, go home, put on soft pants, and read in bed like a sane person. That’s what I should do. That’s what any emotionally stable adult would do.
Instead, because there is apparently something rotten in me where self-preservation ought to be, I type: Hi. My friend says I need practice talking to strangers, so… hello.
I stare at the message.
Karina gasps like I’ve just made a major artistic breakthrough. “That’s perfect.”
“It’s awful.”
“It’s cute.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“That’s part of the charm.”
I look at the send arrow for a long second.
Then I hit it, and the message goes. Just like that. The world doesn’t end. No alarms go off. No one bursts through the front door to arrest me for being deeply weird in public. The text just sits there on the screen, sent, ordinary, irreversible.
“Oh my God,” I say.
Karina beams. “You did it.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
I drop my phone face down on the table like distance might somehow lessen what I’ve done. “This was a mistake.”
“Maybe. But it was a brave mistake.”
“I don’t want brave mistakes. I want emotionally safe choices.”
“That’s not how character development works.”
I squint at her. “When did you become so annoying?”
“Birth, probably.”
The server brings our drinks, and for a few blessed minutes the conversation shifts to other things.
One of the student assistants at the library who has a crush on a philosophy professor.
Karina’s latest dating disaster. A woman who tried to return a cookbook from 2009 and insisted late fees were classist. My pulse settles. My humiliation becomes manageable.
Then my phone buzzes.
I freeze.
Karina sees my face immediately. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She reaches for my phone, and I slap my hand over it before she can get there.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Her grin is feral. “He answered.”
I flip the phone over. There’s one message.
Unknown Number: That depends. How are you with strangers?
I just stare at it.
It’s not obscene. It’s not creepy. It’s not what I expected at all.
It’s… smooth. Annoyingly smooth.
Karina makes a strangled sound. “Oh, he’s good.”
“Stop saying he like that.”
“What else would I say? Mysterious sexy texter?”
“That’s worse.”
“It is, but it’s also accurate.”
I reread the message.
How are you with strangers?
There’s something about it that feels playful without trying too hard. Confident. Easy. Like this person didn’t blink at getting a random text from an unknown number. Like he just rolled with it.
I type before I can overthink it: Not usually great. This is me being chaotic under peer pressure.
I show Karina before I send it.
She clutches her chest. “That’s adorable.”
“It’s humiliating that you think adorable is helping.”
“Send it.”
I do.
We wait.
This time the response comes faster.
Unknown Number: Then I’m honored to be your bad decision for the evening.
I make a noise I do not mean to make.
Karina’s eyes go wide. “Oh, I hate him already.”
“You hate everyone.”
“No, I hate men who are immediately better at this than we are.”
I lift my brows. “We don’t even know if this is a guy.”
She pauses.
Then she snatches the phone closer again like she can determine gender by sheer force of judgment. “That,” she says, “is technically true.”
“Thank you.”
“But,” she adds, holding up one finger, “this reads like a guy.”
“This reads like a person with basic conversational skills.”
“It reads like a smug person with basic conversational skills.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Karina keeps staring at the message. “No woman would say, ‘Then I’m honored to be your bad decision for the evening.’”
I take the phone back. “That feels wildly unscientific.”
“It’s very scientific. I have years of field research.”
“Your field research is just bad dates.”
“And yet, here I stand, experienced.”
I laugh into my wine and look down at the thread again.
Unknown Number: Then I’m honored to be your bad decision for the evening.
It is smooth. I can admit that privately. Maybe not to Karina, because she’ll become unbearable, but privately, sure. Smooth enough that I’m suddenly very glad I can’t see my own face right now.
Karina leans forward, eyes bright. “Ask.”
“Ask what?”
“If they’re a guy.”
I wrinkle my nose. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s weird.”
“You texted a random number because I bullied you into it, but asking who they are is where you draw the line?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.”
She lets out a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Then keep flirting ambiguously with mystery gender.”
“I am not flirting ambiguously.”
“You are doing exactly that.”
I ignore her and type: My friend is going to be unbearably smug about this.
Unknown Number: She sounds exhausting.
I grin before I can stop myself.
Karina sees it and points accusingly. “There. That face.”
“What face?”
“The one that says you like this.”
“I like being mildly entertained.”
“You like being texted by a stranger with game.”
“We don’t know if this stranger has game. We know they can construct one decent sentence.”
Karina sits back in the booth, folding her arms. “You’re defensive.”
“I’m realistic.”