The Long Way To You

I wasn’t looking for anything serious. That’s what I told myself anyway. It had become something like a rule, quiet and unspoken, but firm enough that I didn’t question it anymore. My life already felt like it was stuck in place, like I was moving just enough to not actually go anywhere. Same job, same town, same routine. Every day blended into the next in a way that made time feel both slow and wasted all at once. The last thing I needed was something, or someone, that had the potential to complicate it anymore.

So Tinder wasn’t about finding anything real. It wasn’t about connection or relationships or whatever people liked to pretend they were on there for. For me, it was just something to do. Something mindless. Something to pass the time between the long shifts and even longer evenings when the house was quiet and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself yet. I would sit on my bed or lean against the kitchen counter, my thumb moving without much thought, barely registering faces or names before swiping left and moving on.

Most of them blurred together after a while. Different pictures, same energy. Nothing that made me pause long enough to care. I wasn’t looking for a reason to stop.

Until I saw his.

It wasn’t even a good picture. That was the first thing I noticed. No clear shot of his face, no staged smile, nothing polished or intentional about it. Just a truck, a cattle pot, and a dog sitting at his feed like it belonged there. It should have been easy to scroll past, just like the rest of them.

But I didn’t.

I lingered there for a second longer than I meant to, my thumb hovering just above the screen. There was something about it that felt familiar. Not in a way I could immediately explain, and not in a way that made logical sense. It was quieter than that. Subtle. Like recognizing a place you have never been but somehow still understand.

I grew up around cattle, around early mornings and long days, around the kind of work that didn’t need to be explained because it just was. My dad had spent most of his life in that world, and even though I had not followed the same exact path, it was still part of me. It always had been. The dust, the noise, the rhythm of it. None of it was foreign to me. It wasn’t impressive.

It was real.

And real was something I had not trusted in a long time.

My thumb shifted slightly, like I was about to move on, but I didn’t. Instead, I found myself studying the picture again, noticing small things I had missed at first. The way the dog looked relaxed, like it was used to being there. The kind of trailer it was. The fact that whoever he was, he clearly lived a life that didn’t revolve around sitting still.

That alone should have been enough to make me swipe left.

I did not need someone like that. I did not need anything that came with unpredictability or movement or the kind of life that pulled you in directions you couldn’t control. I had already learned what it felt like to lose myself inside someone else’s expectations, to shrink into a version of my life that didn’t feel like mine anymore.

Three years of that had been enough.

Three years of being told who I should be, what I should want, how I should act if I wanted things to work. Like there was a right way to exist, and I just had not figured it out yet. Like love meant compromise in ways that slowly erased you if you weren’t careful.

By the time I walked away from it, I didn’t feel relieved the way I thought I would. I just felt empty. Like I had spent so long trying to be something I wasn’t that I didn’t entirely know what was left underneath it.

I wasn’t going back to that. Not for anyone.

So whatever this was, this profile, this moment, this pause I couldn’t quite explain, it didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. I told myself that as I looked as his profile one more time, already preparing to move on. But my thumb didn’t follow through. Instead, almost without thinking, I swiped right.

And just like that, something shifted, even if I didn’t realize it yet. I stared at the screen for a second longer, like I expected something to happen immediately. Like there was some kind of confirmation that I had just made a decision that mattered.

Nothing did.

The app didn’t change. The screen didn’t move. His profile disappeared like all the others, replaced by the next face, the next name, the next person I didn’t know and didn’t plan to.

It should have felt the same.

It didn’t.

I locked my phone and set it down beside me, flipping it face down against the comforter like that might quiet whatever had just settled in my chest. It was small, barely there, but noticeable enough that I couldn’t ignore it completely.

I pushed it off anyway.

It didn’t mean anything.

It was just a swipe. I had done it a hundred times before. I leaned back against my headboard, staring up at the ceiling. The fan spun slowly above me, steady and predicable, the same way everything else in my life had started to feel.

Predictable wasn’t supposed to be a bad thing.

It was supposed to mean stable. Safe. Put together.

But lately, it just felt like standing still.

The house had gone quiet hours ago. My mom had already turned in for the night, and my brother was probably asleep with his TV still playing something in the background. It was always like that. Not loud, not chaotic. Just…calm.

Too calm sometimes.

I shifted slightly, pulling one knee up and resting my arm across it. My room looked the same as it always did. Nothing out of place. Nothing unfinished. Everything exactly where it was supposed to be. I should have felt settled. Instead I felt restless.

It had been building for a while. Not enough to force a change, not enough to make me do anything different, but enough that I noticed in quiet moments like this. Enough that I felt it when I woke up in the morning and again when I got off work, like something was missing that I couldn’t quite name.

Work didn’t help.

Most mornings started the same way. I would unlock the door, flip the lights on, and stand there for a second while everything came to life around me. The hum of the machines. The faint smell of protein powder and sugar free syrups, the quiet before the first customer walked in like they always did.

For a minute, it almost felt peaceful.

Then the door would open.

“Hey, can I get my usual?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. My hands moved before my brain did, already reaching for the right cups, the right scoops, the right outline. I knew what everyone ordered before they said it. Knew how they liked it, how long they’d stay, what they’d say next.

“How’s your day going?”

“Good, how about yours?”

Same conversation. Different person.

Smile. Make the drink. Hand it off.

Repeat.

By mid-morning, I was moving on autopilot. The kind where you could carry on a conversation, make three drinks and once, and still not remember a single moment of it afterwards. Time didn’t drag, but it didn’t move fast either. It just…existed.

There wasn’t anything wrong with it.

That was the problem.

It was fine. Steady. Predictable. The kind of job people were supposed to be grateful for. But standing behind that counter, doing the same thing over and over, I could feel it settling in around me like something I might not be able to get out of if I stayed too long.

Like quicksand, just slow enough that you didn’t notice until it was too late.

Every now and then, there would be a break in it. A slower moment where no one was waiting, no one was talking, and I could lean against the counter and just stand there for a second. Those were the moments I noticed it the most.

That feeling.

Like I was meant to be somewhere else.

I didn’t know where. I didn’t have some big plan or dream laid out in front of me. But I knew this wasn’t it. Not forever. I had always told myself it was temporary. That it was just something to do while I figured everything else out. That eventually something would click and I would know what direction I was supposed to go in.

But time had a way of passing whether you figure things out or not. And lately, it felt like I was just watching it happen.