Sexting The Priest

Chapter Two: No Names

I read *I think you have the wrong number* four times before I manage to type anything back, mostly because I'm too busy deciding between three equally humiliating options: apologize and pray he never thinks about tonight again, block my own number like a coward, or throw myself directly into the ocean, dress and all.

There isn't an ocean anywhere near my apartment. I check, mentally, before I let myself rule it out completely.

I go with a fourth option nobody asked for.

*Oh my god,* I type. *I am so sorry. That was — not meant for you. Wrong number. Very wrong number.*

The reply comes fast enough that I know he hasn't gone back to sleep, if he was ever asleep at all.

*I gathered.*

*I can only offer, as an explanation, that I am extremely drunk, recently and badly heartbroken, and apparently my ex-boyfriend's phone number lives permanently in my thumbs whether I authorize it to or not.*

*For what it's worth,* he writes, *whoever he is, he sounds like he's making a mistake.*

I stare at that one longer than it deserves, sitting up straighter against the bathtub like the words themselves have better posture than I do.

*That's either very kind,* I type, *or you're just being polite to a stranger currently having a full breakdown on her bathroom floor.*

*Can't it be both?*

*Depends. Are you always this diplomatic with women who accidentally describe their lingerie to you at midnight?*

*You'd be the first case study. I'm making the policy up as I go.*

*So far you're doing great. Ten out of ten. Would receive an accidental confession from again.*

*High praise. I'll add it to my resume, right under "good with strangers."*

I laugh — actually laugh, out loud, alone in my bathroom — the first real laugh I've managed since the coffee-mug Tuesday. It startles me almost as much as the wrong number did, like some part of me forgot the sound was still in there.

I should stop here. This is the part where a person with any remaining dignity types *thanks for being so nice about it, sorry again* and puts the phone face-down for the last time tonight.

Instead I peel myself off the cold tile, wine bottle empty, dress rumpled well past saving, and migrate to my bed, phone still lit in my hand, like this is a conversation I need to be horizontal for. I don't bother taking the dress off. I don't bother with much of anything except propping myself against the pillows and watching the little dots start up again before I've even sent my next line.

*I have to ask,* I send. *Do you always respond this graciously to explicit texts from total strangers, or did I just get lucky tonight?*

*You're the first,* he says. *Entirely uncharted territory.*

*Well. You're a natural.*

*I'll take it. Most of what I do doesn't exactly come with a review process.*

It goes on longer than it should. Long enough that I stop performing wit and start just talking, the way you do at one in the morning with someone who has no context for you and therefore nothing left to disappoint. I tell him — not everything, not names, not anything he could trace back to a real, findable person — but enough. That I bought a dress for a dinner reservation that got cancelled. That the breakup came with an apology text three days later that somehow hurt worse than silence would have. That the worst part isn't missing him, exactly. It's missing who I thought I was going to get to keep being.

*"I don't think I'm built for forever,"* I type, quoting it exactly, because apparently I have that sentence memorized the same way I had his old number memorized — filed away for maximum future damage. *That's the line he used. Eleven years, and that's the exit he picked.*

There's a pause longer than the others. Long enough that I check to make sure the message actually sent.

*For what it's worth,* he writes finally, *the people who are actually built for forever don't usually announce it in a sentence that's really about themselves.*

I read that four times too. It isn't comfort, exactly. It's better than comfort — the first thing anyone's said about the breakup that doesn't feel like it's trying to talk me out of how I feel.

*You should charge for that,* I type, throat tighter than I'd like. *What about you — you always this wise at 1 a.m., or is tonight special?*

*What do you even do,* I add, before he can answer, *that comes with promises heavy enough to keep a person up this late?*

*Nothing glamorous,* he writes. *Mostly listening to people. Some nights that's harder than it sounds.*

*Some nights you get accidental confessions from strangers instead.*

*Some nights I do. Still deciding if that's an improvement.*

The dots start, stop, start again — longer this time, like he's choosing between two answers and isn't sure yet which one he trusts himself with.

*I made a promise a long time ago,* he writes eventually. *I've spent most of my life trying to be worthy of it. Some nights I'm better at believing that's the same thing as wanting it than others.*

I don't fully understand what that means. I understand enough to know it's the truest thing either of us has said all night, and that it cost him something to send it to a stranger who accidentally texted him her underwear.

*That sounds heavier than a dress from a cancelled dinner,* I type.

*Different weight. Same species of heavy, maybe.*

*You should charge for that too. Which reminds me — I don't even know your name to put on the invoice.*

The three dots start on my end this time. Stop. Start again, the way his did a minute ago, like I'm choosing between two answers and don't trust myself with either one.

*Do I get yours?* I ask instead of answering.

*Let's not ruin it with names,* he says, before I can say it first. *You're objectively the least complicated thing in my life right now. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as it lasts.*

*Relationship,* I type back, mostly to see what he does with it.

*Wrong word. Incident. Whatever this is.*

I laugh again, quieter this time, alone in a dark room with a stranger's honesty glowing on my ceiling.

*Deal,* I write. *No names. Just two strangers being weird at each other at* — I check the time, and it startles a real, surprised laugh out of me — *2:14 in the morning.*

*I can live with that,* he says.

*Careful. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week.*

*Then your week has been underperforming. I'm just a stranger with decent manners and bad timing.*

I fall asleep forty minutes later, phone still lit on the pillow beside me, dress never taken off, mascara migrated somewhere south of where it started. The last thing I do before my eyes actually close is read the whole thread over again from the top — the wrong number, the apology, the four words I already know I'm going to think about tomorrow whether I want to or not.

*The people who are actually built for forever don't usually announce it.*

For the first time in nineteen days, I fall asleep without checking whether Reid ever read anything I sent him.

I don't think about him once.