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24 | Couch Surfing KAITLIN

The rain is coming down in sheets. It’s been pouring since this morning. And I cannot get down to business.

Instead of working, I am lying on the couch, scrolling through Sasha’s pictures again. Wondering why I keep looking to the past for answers about the future. But doing it anyway.

Rewinding back to high school hasn’t worked well for me thus far; it basically combusted my life. And yet I persist.

I’ve seen this image of Sasha and Bart stuffing their cheeks with popcorn at the Bronx Zoo at least five times. She almost never posts. I don’t know why I keep checking for new ones.

Sometimes her ex-husband’s feed is fun. A bevy of humble brags and bullshit gratitude. Occasionally, there is Ryan Reynolds.

But then, as if I had manifested it, magically a picture appears in stories—some kind of tropical cocktail with a pineapple skewer. Lucky, Sasha . The caption is nothing but sun and sunglasses emojis.

I do not click like.

“Mom!” my daughter barks like she’s already said it four times.

She turns on the light in the living room, and it’s only then, as I squint against the assaultive brightness, that I realize I’ve been lying in the dark.

“Ruby. What?!”

“I’m hungry. Can you get off your phone?”

Like she’s the parent.

She’s right, of course. It’s getting late. And I have given no thought to food.

“Coming, coming,” I say, pushing myself up off the couch. I put my phone aside, for now.