i loved you || nick sturniolo au

one

grindr; for the hopeless romantics

i scroll through grindr aimlessly, waiting for the sleepiness void to take over. it's almost 3:00a and i have to start getting ready for school in an hour.

as i'm about to force myself to go to sleep, i get a match.

nicolas, 18

i scroll through his pictures once more. you can't see his face in any of them, which is usually a red flag. i see it more as a beige flag. maybe he'll ask for my snapchat and i can see what he looks like.

his location isn't ridiculously far. I might've already seen him before at school or something.

it shows he's online, so i decide to shoot him a message.

me: super odd question

me: do you go to somerville high school?

he immediately gets offline.

you're so stupid, elliot, i think to myself. he probably thinks i'm some overaged gay weirdo or something. if i matched with someone and their first question was them asking what school i go, i'd probably delete grindr all together and pretend like nothing happened.

but there's something about nicolas that gives me deja vu. like i said, his face isn't in any of the pictures. they're more like things he's interested in.

a green dot appears next to his name.

he's back online!!!

me: i'm so sorry if my previous text freaked you out

me: i'm not a creep, i swear

nicolas is typing...

i begin breathing rapidly.

he keeps writing and deleting and it's stressing me out. is he gonna go off on me? accuse me of being a creep.

finally, he sends a message.

nicolas: sounds like something a creep would say :)

i sigh in relief.

so i didn't freak him out.

me: did my texts freak you out?

me: i hope they didn't

me: i didn't mean for them to sound weird/creepy

nicolas: i've received dick pics from old dudes, you're low-key kind of refreshing

low-key refreshing? what the hell does that mean?

me: low-key refreshing?????

nicolas does that stupid write/delete thing again.

nicolas: refreshing

nicolas: like

nicolas: you're not sending dick pics being like "would love to see you slobber on my schlong"

me: that is so gross

nicolas: you're telling me

nicolas: i've gotten like five so far today

i understand where he's coming from. i had a dude message me saying he'd love to fill me up. i cringe at the thought of that.

before i can respond, nicolas goes offline.

maybe it's a sign that I should go to bed as well.

but let me scroll through his pictures again. still no face pics. i think of all the reasons he won't show his face.

maybe he's actually like 45?

or maybe he's a catfish?

he's also avoiding questions. he never answered if he went to somerville high.

me: gn nicolas