I don’t like how you linger

Elaiza woke to an unfamiliar notification sound coming from somewhere near her pillow.

At first, in that strange space between sleep and wakefulness, she tried to ignore it. Her brain could not even identify what was ringing, let alone where the sound was coming from.

But the notifications kept buzzing.

Again. And again.

With a groan, she finally forced herself awake enough to search for the source.

Her phone.

She pulled it into her hand and squinted at the screen.

8:30 a.m.

Right.

Do Not Disturb must have turned off, and now every missed notification from the night had started flooding in at once.

Still, this ringtone felt unfamiliar.

New.

Frowning, she pulled down the notification panel.

An unfamiliar app icon stared back at her.

A pink beating heart wearing black sunglasses, with a smug little smirk on its face.

At least eleven or twelve notifications from the same app.

Elaiza sat up so abruptly the blanket nearly slid off the bed.

She opened one notification carefully.

Her first thought:

Did I accidentally click on spam? Did I download something without realising? Is my phone hacked?

Her brain has barely started functioning, and it is already being bombarded with too many questions, forcing the cortisol generator inside her body to switch on aggressively.

She suspiciously tapped the notification open.

Then froze.

…Wait.

Wasn’t this that famous dating app?

Now she remembered seeing ads for it everywhere.

But how the hell had it ended up on her phone?

Her eyes widened.

She shook her head as if physically rebooting her brain, then sat straighter in bed.

“Lauren.”

The name left her mouth like a criminal accusation.

Immediately, she dialled Lauren’s number while aggressively chewing the inside of her cheek.

The phone rang. And rang. Then disconnected.

Elaiza called again instantly.

This time somebody picked up.

A voice emerged from beneath what sounded like several kilos of cotton.

“Lizie… will call you later…”

Every syllable rolled in a different direction.

“No. Get up. Right now. Or else,” Elaiza said in dangerously calm pretend anger.

“Huh… what happened… you okay?” Lauren mumbled. “I’m sleepy… I’ll call you back na, babes… lemme sleeeeeep…”

Elaiza waited silently on the other end.

She was almost certain Lauren had started snoring the second she finished that sentence.

“Lauren,” Elaiza said again, her voice now even flatter, “stay right there. You better not flee. I’m coming.”

She threw off the blanket, changed clothes in record time, grabbed her keys, and locked her apartment behind her.

Within minutes, Elaiza was standing outside Lauren’s front door, viciously knocking with the kind of violence usually reserved for police raids and emotional betrayal.

Lauren was a deep sleeper.

Mild attempts were not going to achieve anything.

After a short pause, Elaiza knocked again.

This time with the doorbell. And a call to Lauren’s landline for additional psychological pressure.

Three or four minutes later, she finally hears the door latch unlocking before the door slowly opens a few inches.

Elaiza pushes it open and steps inside.

The sight in front of her almost makes her burst into laughter.

Lauren’s pajamas are barely hanging on to their responsibilities. Her hair looks as though a bird built an entire family nest on top of her head overnight. Pillow and blanket creases are stamped all over her cheeks like abstract artwork.

She stood there silently, eyes barely open, somehow still managing to look at Elaiza with the defeated expression of a criminal awaiting sentencing.

But Elaiza did not laugh.

She did not want to compromise the seriousness of the situation.

Receiving no response, Lauren slowly retreated toward her bed like a guilty, sleep-deprived cat.

Elaiza walked straight into the kitchen and made coffee for both of them.

By the time she came back, Lauren was already asleep again.

This time diagonally across the bed, one leg hanging off the side, half her body dangling dangerously close to the edge.

Elaiza set the mugs down on the bedside table, then carefully pushed Lauren farther onto the mattress before she fell off completely.

Lauren woke slightly from the impact.

With the speed of a dying sloth, she slowly crawled upward and attempted to sit against the mountain of pillows behind her, rubbing her eyes.

Elaiza placed the wooden tray on the bed and handed Lauren her favourite mug.

With visible guilt already creeping into her voice, Lauren asked softly, “Hey… what happened?”

Elaiza took a slow sip from her own mug.

Then, without a word, she unlocked her phone and held it out.

She did not ask a single question.

She just stared at Lauren.

Lauren looked down at the screen.

The app was open.

Realisation flashed across her face immediately.

Slowly, she raised her eyes back to Elaiza.

Then gave her the most shamelessly guilty puppy-eyed smile imaginable.

“Ahaaan,” Elaiza said, with the triumphant conviction of a detective finally solving a murder case. “I knew it.”

Lauren lowered her head and took an extremely cautious sip of coffee.

“Why did you do that?” Elaiza asked. “I feel so… exposed now.”

A black cloud suddenly comes down on her face. Her face looks like a grey sky before rain. Well, Lauren was expecting some storm too.

Lauren had been expecting one.

“Why? Eli, it’s not a big deal,” she said carefully. “And why exposed? Only people who are themselves on the app will see you. Who exactly are you worried about?”

“It’s not that.” Elaiza lay down on the bed beside her.

Lauren set her mug back on the tray and lay down too.

For a while they just stared at the ceiling.

After a long pause, Elaiza starts, “I do not know. It’s more about… I have never used dating apps, and it feels weird. It is not like I am desperate to find someone again in my life, you know… but opening myself out there like that feels like a cry for help…”

Lauren turned toward her and immediately cut in.

“Don’t think too much. You’re giving it way more importance than it actually deserves.”

“But it feels important,” Elaiza said. “And even if I go ahead with this… how do I know I’m not just trying to fill a void? What guarantee do I have that I won’t make the same mistake again? Misread someone again? What if I end up again with someone toxic, someone like him, and still give him the power to hurt me again?”

Her voice broke.

“I don’t have the strength to collect the pieces of my heart and build myself from scratch one more time.”

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes before she could stop them.

She covered her face with both hands and started crying.

Lauren immediately pulled her into a hug.

“You won’t, Lizie…”

“How do you know?” Elaiza asked through tears. “I’m so bad at seeing people for who they really are. I don’t know how to recognise the real face behind the façade.”

For a few moments, neither of them said anything.

Then Elaiza spoke again, the words tumbling out now that they had finally started.

“And even if I manage not to get hurt, what if I end up hurting someone else? I’m not even sure what I want right now. What if I like someone and convince myself he’s the one, and then later realise no, that wasn’t love, I was just comfortable? Comfortable in a place that felt familiar, where I had someone, where I felt wanted…”

Her breathing hitched.

“What if my feelings aren’t organic love at all? What if I’m just looking for familiarity? And what if that familiarity includes toxic patterns I still don’t know how to recognise? What if I end up walking straight back into the same kind of damage without even seeing it?”

Lauren pressed her lips together and gently stroked her hair.

“But who is asking you to go all the way right now?”

Elaiza blinked at her. “Huh?”

“When you learn swimming,” Lauren asked, “do you jump directly into the adult pool?”

Elaiza slowly shook her head.

“Exactly. You start in the kids’ pool. You get comfortable in the water first.”

Elaiza looked at her from the corner of her eye.

Huh.

Lauren smiled and shifted closer, resting her head lightly on Elaiza’s shoulder.

“You just need to dip your toe in the water, babe. That’s all. With time, you’ll figure out what you want. But first, you need to get comfortable being around people again. Learn how they talk. How they behave. What they want. People who come here with the sole goal of finding someone. No confusion, no false friendship. Think of the app as the kids’ pool.”

Elaiza snorted softly.

Lauren continued, fully committed now.

“They’re all in there trying to learn swimming too. Nobody knows yet which stroke they’ll love, which one will give them backache, or which one will make them feel alive. Some of them may discover chlorine allergy and never return to the pool again. Who knows.”

She grinned.

Elaiza looked at her with pretend envy. “When did you become wise?”

“That is because you left me no choice,” Lauren said immediately.

Then, recognising the danger of what she had just said, she threw herself backward out of Elaiza’s reach.

“You–” Elaiza swung at her shocked, eyes wide and still processing. Then turned her back toward Lauren. “Don’t talk to me.”

“Nooo, I’m sorry,” Lauren pleaded, crawling back to hug her from behind. “Please.”

Elaiza said nothing.

“Please please… sawriii…”

Lauren shook her shoulder gently and rested her chin on it.

“Stop it,” Elaiza said at last, laughing as Lauren tried to tickle her into forgiveness.

They turned to face each other again, lying side by side, both suddenly quiet.

Lauren broke the silence first.

“What are you thinking? You can still delete the profile. Delete the app too, if you want.”

Elaiza bit her lip.

“I’m thinking…” she said slowly, “I don’t like the photos you used. And the bio is too… sweet.”

Lauren shot upright.

“Yayyy!” she yelled. “Does that mean you’re giving it a chance?”

Elaiza nodded slowly.

“But if anything goes wrong, you’re dead.”

“Hahaha… yes, madam. Kill me as you please.”

Lauren then dramatically mimed pulling an invisible rope from her throat and stuck out her tongue.

Elaiza burst out laughing.

She dragged the tray back between them and they resumed drinking their coffee while Lauren opened the app.

“Okay,” Lauren said. “Tell me which photos you want.”

“Hmm… something where my face isn’t completely visible. Wait.”

Elaiza took the phone back and opened her gallery.

After far too much back-and-forth, several rejected photos, one minor argument about angles, and a long debate over whether smiling looked too emotionally available, they finally settled on a set of pictures and rewrote the bio until Elaiza approved it.

“You need a shower,” Elaiza said afterward, exhausted by the emotional labour of finalising her first ever dating profile.

Lauren looked scandalised.

“A shower? Now? On a Sunday? It’s barely two o’clock.”

She scoffed.

“Let’s watch something.”

“Okay… what’s new,” Elaiza said, stretching toward the shelf beside the bed for the remote.

“Let’s watch a love story,” Lauren declared, “and find you a fictional man who checks all your boxes.”

“Okay…” Elaiza chuckles and switches on the TV.

Then Lauren suddenly gasped.

“What now?” Elaiza asked without looking away from the screen.

Lauren slowly turned the phone toward her.

“You already got your first like.”

Elaiza recoiled on instinct.

“What?!”

Lauren burst out laughing.

“Oh my God, relax. Nobody proposed marriage. It’s literally just a like.”

Elaiza grabbed the phone anyway.

A profile opened on the screen.

The man was very aggressively shirtless.

Not accidentally shirtless. Not beach-shirtless.

Professionally shirtless.

His bio read:

Alpha mindset. Gym. Hustle. Loyalty.

Elaiza stared at it for three full seconds.

Then slowly turned to Lauren.

Lauren completely lost control and collapsed into laughter.

“I’m deleting the app,” Elaiza announced flatly.

“You cannot judge the entire male population because one man is emotionally involved with his own abdominal muscles.”

Elaiza handed the phone back with visible concern.

“Why is he posing like a defeated gladiator?”

Lauren laughed so hard she nearly spilled coffee all over the blanket.

A second later, the phone vibrated again.

Another notification.

Then another.

Elaiza looked at the screen cautiously this time.

As if the app itself had become a wildlife zone full of unpredictable human behaviour.

And somewhere inside that ridiculous app, an entirely new kind of trouble had quietly started waiting for her.