Chapter 7

Carole didn't want me to go on a date with Dog Boy, who'd finally texted me back. He apologized for the slowness of his communication, saying that he'd been really busy at work lately.

"It's not safe," she said.

I'd lost three pounds since starting a new fitness routine based entirely off Jill's videos. I watched her make salads and made my own less healthy versions. I bounced around my apartment until my neighbor banged the wall in irritation at the noise. It was the best that I'd felt since Max ghosted me, and I wanted someone to appreciate it. Dog Boy's communication was sporadic at best, but when I asked if he wanted to meet in person, he agreed almost immediately.

"It'll be fine," I reassured Carole. "I've gone on dates with lots of men that I met on the internet."

I didn't yet know about Emma, the fourth victim. Unlike me, Emma initially refused to go on dating apps. Dating apps, she told her friends, were inauthentic. She wanted to meet someone organically. One by one, her friends disappeared into coupledom and she remained single. She developed a lot of hobbies, joined an ultimate Frisbee team, took painting lessons, and became a regular at the gym. She devoted herself to being a good friend even as her own friends neglected her in favor of their romantic partners.

One night, at a party, she admitted that she was lonely. It was hard still being single with all her friends married or in long-term relationships. Every year of her life, she felt more and more alone.

"Why don't you sign up for a dating app? That's how we met," one of her friends said, gesturing to her boyfriend.

All of her friends joined in, pushing and pressuring her to make an account until finally, Emma downloaded the recommended app and set up her profile. She used an older picture of herself, one that she regularly used in her profile on social media sites. She had since gained ten or so pounds and a couple of gray hairs and she told herself that it was only dishonest if someone really fell in love with her and in that case, they would love her body as it was.

Her friends, who had all been in relationships for years, were eager to scroll and examine her choices. Emma, though, refused to click on anyone unless he really seemed like someone that she'd want to get to know, and even then, she wouldn't engage with anyone whose picture was too hot because it made them seem fake.

Finally, there was a ding to signal that she had matched with someone, and all her friends screamed with elation.

"Oh, he's cute," one said.

"Message him!" another insisted.

"Doesn't it look desperate if I message him too quickly?" Emma asked. She didn't know the rules to online dating.

"You're looking for love. Everyone looks desperate. Message him."

Emma didn't know what to say. How was she supposed to seduce someone when she was whittled down to text on a screen?

Hi, she wrote. The greeting felt stupid, juvenile.

Hey, he replied. How are you tonight?

You're actually the first person that I've talked to on one of these.

That's surprising. You're so sexy.

Emma giggled even though she didn't find it funny. She had always been uncomfortable with compliments, particularly those coming from strangers. She didn't like when men on the street made comments about her appearance and nothing about the digital space made this less uncomfortable. To the disappointment of her friends, she blocked him.

"No good relationship starts like that," she said.

A few conversations in and she found a guy who she actually liked. He was handsome, a lawyer, and his listed height was six foot one. She continued to message him even after she went home, and before she went to bed, they switched over to texting. It couldn't be that easy, could it? All that time she had spent being alone and the answer all along had been to download a dating app.

They decided to meet after they texted for two weeks. Emma told all her friends that she was going on a date with a man she'd never met before. She set up a joke safe word, "narwhal," in case she needed to be rescued.

"If I don't text you by ten p.m., something is wrong," she said.

They met at a bar. Emma didn't know if food was implied in the date, so she made sure to eat beforehand. She was nervous that she wouldn't be able to recognize him, or worse, that he wouldn't be able to recognize her. It was a relief that they spotted each other right away and he looked almost like his picture, the way that a new shirt looked almost the way it looked on the model when she put it on her ordinary body. He wasn't as tall as he said he was, his face not as handsome, and this was a disappointment even though he was handsomer than anyone else that she had previously dated.

It was awkward for the first few minutes. It was strange to meet someone for the first time with the expectation of getting to know them romantically. All of Emma's previous relationships had sprung from friendships, and in that case, it was always the physical aspect that was most uncomfortable. Dating apps reversed that dynamic. She met the man because she could envision herself having sex with him, but she didn't know if there was anything beyond that.

Things got easier after she had a couple of drinks. They had both spent time in France and they discussed their favorite places. He suggested that they order food and she didn't want to offend him by saying that she had already eaten, so she agreed. Emma's entrée was objectively better than his and she offered to share a portion with him. At the end of the night, he kissed her on the lips and then Emma sat in her car for half an hour trying to decide if she was sober enough to drive.

It would be believable if I said that was the man that killed her. Every story about a man and a woman has the potential of ending in death no matter how innocuous the beginning, but Emma never saw him again. She sent him a follow-up text the next day, saying that she would like to go out for a second time, and it was as though he had disappeared from the earth. Emma felt strangely bereft at the loss of this man that she'd only met once. She couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to see her again, not after they'd had such a great time together on their date. It was embarrassing, especially since she'd already told her friends that she was going to see him again.

That was why she didn't tell her friends about the second man that she met on the app.

While I went on a date with Dog Boy, a man who would never escape the moniker I gave him in my phone contacts, Emma went on a date with William Thompson, a handsome, smart, rich lawyer who liked all the same things that she did. No one knew about the date. Not her siblings, her coworkers, or her friends.

Dog Boy and I met up at a brewery. I didn't care for beer, but I pretended to for his sake because he said he "loved beer more than almost anything in the world" and I wanted him, or someone, to love me more than almost anything in the world too.

William and Emma went to an Italian restaurant. She ordered squid ink pasta and he got seafood linguine. He gave her one of his mussels after she told him that mussels were her favorite. Unlike other men Emma had dated, he liked to read, and they spent a good portion of the meal discussing the latest work by Sally Rooney. She might've texted a friend to tell them about how much she liked the man in front of her if only she wasn't having such a good time.

Dog Boy and I talked about work. He was employed at a tech startup where he confessed that he was "overpaid to do very little."

"They'll probably go under soon," he said. He seemed unconcerned.

He was almost cute in the way that many of the boys I dated were. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with him, but his awkwardness took away from some of his potential attractiveness. I figured it was an asset in the startup world, where social ineptitude was often mistaken for genius.

"What do you do?" he asked.

"I work at a nonprofit," I said, and proceeded to complain about my boss.

William and Emma's server would later say that they didn't look like a couple on a first date, but rather two people deep in the throes of love.

"There was no sign that he was going to hurt her," she said.

William paid the bill and the two of them left together. The server couldn't remember whether or not they were holding hands.

Dog Boy invited me back to his apartment under the premise of watching a television show he liked. His dog greeted me with enthusiasm and the whole thing was worth it if only for those moments I spent with my hands in her fur.

I was surprised when he kissed me because he seemed like the type of man who was uncomfortable with making the first move. He wasn't a good kisser; his mouth too slobbery and eager. It made me think of Max, who for all his flaws was quite good at all things related to sex.

"Should we go to my bedroom?" he asked, and I nodded.

We had sex with the lights off. I got the impression that he was self-conscious about his body. Foreplay was brief, his fingers fumbling around inside my underwear before he pulled them off completely.

We fucked missionary style until he came and rolled off me. He kissed me on the cheek, leaving behind spit. I didn't approach anything close to an orgasm. I hoped Max could sense that I was having sex with someone new.

When we finished, I lay in his bed while he checked emails on his phone. When he started scrolling Twitter, I got out of bed and put my clothes on.

"I'm going to go home," I announced.

"Okay," he replied, glancing up from his phone. "I had a nice time tonight."

"Yeah," I said.

I took an Uber back to the bar where my car was waiting for me and drove home. It was late by the time I arrived back at my apartment, and I greedily gulped down water before putting my body to bed.

"Thank god, you're safe," Carole said when I arrived at work the next morning. "I was worried about you."

I rolled my exhausted eyes.

"Nothing to worry about," I replied.

No one knew what happened between William and Emma after they left the restaurant except that at some point in the evening, Emma was strangled to death and her body dumped in the same ravine where Anna Leigh, Kimberly, and Jill were found. Emma's corpse was discovered faster than the others, her face still easily identified by her best friend, who wept as she confirmed that it was Emma.

Some people blamed the first man for what happened. If he hadn't ghosted her, Emma might still be alive today.

"I wasn't in the right headspace to be dating," the man wrote on Twitter. "I was depressed and I regret my actions."

A few hours later he added a second tweet that said he didn't even think what he did should count as ghosting.

"It was one date. That shouldn't be enough to crush a person. I'm sorry for what happened, but I don't think that it's my responsibility."

William was arrested several hours after the discovery of Emma's body. There were only so many murdered women that a person could know before it became more than a coincidence. Carole put the news on the television in the conference room and we sat and watched William's perp walk.

"This reminds me of the O.J. Simpson car chase," Carole said.

"Except he's not running," I replied.

It wasn't until I saw William's face that I realized that I'd seen him before.

"He was one of Jill's clients," I said. My stomach rumbled the way that it always did when I drank too much coffee. "I looked into him after Jill's death. I thought he was innocent."

Carole gave me a pitying look.

"I'm sure you did your best, honey," she said. There was a pause. "Though you could've saved that girl's life if you figured out it was him."

That was the thing about Carole. She always reminded me why I didn't like her initially.

William was at work at the same glittering glass building where Anna Leigh was last spotted when they arrested him.

"You're right. He doesn't look like a murderer," Carole conceded.

William wore an expensive suit and his hair looked like it was styled before the police cuffed his hands behind his back. I lamented it when William disappeared into the cop car. I wanted the walk to take longer so that I could get to know every inch of his murderous core. I tried to go to his Instagram page, the search tab already filling in the blanks of his handle from the last time I looked him up, but found it had been deleted.

The name William Thompson was trending on Twitter.

"Jill's workout plan was really working," someone posted.

"Of course it was a white man," said someone else.

My boss peeked her head into the conference room. She smiled.

"Are the two of you being productive?" she asked. She was wearing a pencil skirt and I hated how good it looked on her. My own dress was frumpy in comparison.

I smiled back.

"Of course we are. Just collaborating, you know, like you always talk about."

"Great," she said, glancing toward the screen that Carole had thankfully already turned off.

"Well, that's that," Carole said and returned to her desk.

My phone buzzed and Dog Boy appeared on the screen.

We hadn't talked since our date several days earlier. The less that I responded, the more messages he sent. It made me feel powerful. I hated that only men I wasn't especially attracted to could make me feel that way.

"When do you want to hang out next?" he asked.

I ignored the message, planning to respond to it later, and then forgot about it. I never understood how ghosting could be unintentional until I did it to him. I wasn't the type of person to forget things like that. I always remembered to eat, always obsessed over every message I sent, romantic or platonic. It turned out that ghosting was easy. Dog Boy was already gone from my brain.

I was thinking about William, even then. The cool look on his face as he walked from his building like he was walking down a red carpet instead of to a cop car. I wished his hands had been free because I had wanted to see his fingers, to understand the tools that could be so hurtful.

If only I had known that someday his hands would be on my own body, that the perp walk was a beginning rather than an end, then maybe I would've spent the rest of the day focusing on my work instead of reading articles about William until it was time to go home. Or maybe I would've started saying my goodbyes.