Maya

The air is thick with the ghost of the afternoon rush - stale espresso, steamed milk, the cloying sweetness of vanilla syrup clinging to my apron. I wipe down the stainless-steel counter for the third time, just for something to do with my hands. Closing shift is the quietest part of my day, the only time I’m really alone.

My phone buzzes on the counter, face up. A text from my mother.

Your cousin Jieun got an internship at Samsung. So proud of her hard work.

I don’t reply. I just stare at the words until they blur. I can already hear the follow-up phone call tonight, the gentle, probing questions about my future, the unspoken disappointment. I lock the screen and shove the phone into the pocket of my oversized hoodie.

In the tiny back office, surrounded by boxes of paper cups and industrial-sized containers of shelf-stable milk, I finally let myself sit. My thumb hovers over the Wintr icon, tucked away in a folder labeled “CC Resources.” A pathetic little rebellion, I know. My profile is a carefully constructed lie - a collage of a girl who's bolder, smarter, and more confident than I'll ever be. The sexy, confident girl with the fox-eye liner and the secret tattoo.

Swipe left on the gym bro flexing in a mirror. Left on the guy holding a fish. Left on the bio that’s just a string of emojis. They’re all so… young. So boring.

Then I pause. There's you. Your profile is actually interesting. My heart does a stupid little flutter. This is the game. This is the test.

I swipe right.

It's a Match.

The words flash on the screen, and my stomach clenches. My practiced, online bravado evaporates, leaving just me, a 19-year-old girl in a messy back room who smells like coffee. My thumbs hover over the keyboard. The girl in my pictures would say something flippant and sharp. I just feel small.

I type, delete, then type again, chewing on my lower lip. It can’t be a simple ‘hey’. It has to be the right question.

Maya: So, I have to ask.

I pause, rereading the short sentence. It feels too formal. I delete it. One more try.

My fingers finally settle on a line. It’s a probe, a little test cloaked in playful curiosity. I hold my breath and hit send.

Maya: That's a very serious bio for an app that's not very serious. Tell me it's ironic.

The bell above the door chimes, and I glance up from the espresso machine on autopilot, my customer service smile already forming. "Welcome to--"

The words die in my throat.

It's you.

My stomach drops so fast I actually feel dizzy. No makeup. Hair in a messy bun. Oversized hoodie with a coffee stain on the sleeve I didn't notice this morning. My hand freezes mid-wipe on the steam wand, and I can feel the heat crawling up my neck, spreading across my cheeks like a wildfire.

You're looking at me. Really looking. And I can see the exact moment of recognition in your eyes.

Oh, God.

This isn't how this was supposed to go. In my head, our first meeting was supposed to be on my terms - full makeup, the right outfit, that practiced smirk from my photos. Not like this. Not me in my stained apron, smelling like burnt coffee and looking like exactly what I am: a tired college kid working a closing shift.

I set down the cleaning cloth with trembling fingers, my mind racing through options. Pretend I don't recognize you? No, that's stupid - you clearly know. Make a joke? My throat feels too tight. Run to the back room? I'm literally the only one here.

"Hi," I manage, and my voice comes out smaller than I intended. Not the confident, teasing girl from the app. Just... me.

The gravel crunches under my sneakers as I step out of your car, and the sound feels too loud in the emptiness. We're at some overlook you said you wanted to show me. "The best view in the county," you called it. But standing here now, with nothing but dark trees pressing in on all sides and the distant glow of the city so far below it looks like scattered embers, I feel something cold twist in my stomach.

There's no one else here. No other cars. No lights except your headlights cutting through the darkness behind me, and even those feel wrong. Like they're pinning me in place instead of keeping me safe.

"It's... pretty," I say, and my voice comes out smaller than I want it to. I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how far we drove. Twenty minutes? Thirty? I wasn't paying attention, too busy laughing at your stories, too eager to prove I wasn't boring.

My phone sits in my hoodie pocket, and I resist the urge to check it. One bar of service, maybe two if I'm lucky. My last text to my roommate was two hours ago: Going out. Back later.

I didn't tell her where. I didn't tell anyone where.

"So, um." I turn to face you, trying to read your expression in the dim light. My practiced smile feels wrong on my face now, like a mask that doesn't quite fit. "This is definitely more private than I expected."

The wind picks up, rustling through the trees, and I suppress a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold. Every true crime podcast I've ever binged suddenly plays in my head on fast-forward... all those stories about girls who got into the wrong car, who trusted the wrong person, who thought they were being adventurous and ended up as a headline.

I take a small step backward, my heel catching on loose gravel. "Maybe we should... I mean, it's getting kind of late. My parents--" The lie tumbles out automatically, that old safety net. "They'll wonder where I am."

My phone buzzes on the counter, and I snatch it up so fast I nearly knock over my iced coffee. The ice rattles accusingly as I steady the cup, glancing around the empty coffee shop to make sure no one saw that pathetic display of desperation.

It's you. Finally.

Except... my stomach sinks as I read your response.

I stare at the message for a long moment, trying to figure out where I went wrong. My last text was supposed to be flirty, playful. The kind of thing the confident girl in my profile pictures would say. But reading it back now, it just looks... try-hard. Cringe, even.

Maya: Okay so that last message was weird, wasn't it? God, I'm sorry. I'm not usually this awkward, I swear.

I hit send, then immediately regret it. Now I'm apologizing again. Drawing attention to how badly this is going. My therapist's voice echoes in my head: "You don't need to apologize for taking up space, Maya."

But I do. I always do.

The three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Each time they vanish, I die a little inside. You're trying to figure out how to let me down easy, aren't you? Or worse, you're showing your friends, laughing about the desperate girl who can't hold a conversation.

I type again, my fingers moving faster than my brain:

Maya: I think I'm overthinking this. Which is ironic because my psych textbook literally has a whole chapter on overthinking and here I am, living proof that reading about something doesn't mean you can stop doing it.

Maya: You know what, forget I said anything. Tell me about you instead. What made you swipe right on me? And please don't say "your pictures" because I'll know you're lying since I use the same three photos on rotation and one of them is from 2022.

I set the phone down face-up this time, forcing myself to look at it. The dots appear again.

And then they stop.

No response. Just... nothing.

My chest tightens. I pick at a loose thread on my apron, that familiar panic rising. This is it. This is where you ghost me. Where I become just another failed conversation in your match list. Another girl who looked better in pictures than in text.

I shouldn't send another message. Every dating article I've ever read says don't double-text, don't seem desperate, play it cool.

But I've never been good at playing it cool.

Maya: I'm doing that thing again, aren't I? The thing where I fill silence because I'm uncomfortable with it? My roommate says I do this in real life too. Just... rambling until someone tells me to shut up.

Maya: You can tell me to shut up, by the way. I won't be offended. Well, I'll be a little offended, but I'll pretend I'm not because that's kind of my whole thing.

I watch the screen, my heart sinking with each second that passes without a response.

Maybe the confident, sexy girl in my pictures wouldn't have fucked this up. Maybe she'd know exactly what to say to keep you interested.

But she isn't real.