I walk home from a coffee date, clutching a Tupperware filled with brownies he baked. It’s cold enough that he offered me a lift home, but I refused, wanting to clear my head.

I wish I liked him. He is around my age, has a good job, and my cousin said he was cute when I showed her his picture. I think about some of the other guys—far too old, jobless, conventionally unattractive— that I dated in the past. Why did I like them and not this one? I think about how in a world of cancelled dates and unanswered text messages, when someone really likes you, they make it obvious. They bake you brownies.

Over coffee, he told me he thought I dumped him last time because we had sex too soon. I didn’t know how to respond. How could I say he was warmer when he joked that I was scared he was a crazy cat person? I remember the one with the missing eye scratching at his bedroom door, begging to come in. Are three cats too many for a single man to own? When I asked him how they are, he admitted two of them died since we last spoke. Maybe it’s a sign. I agree to see him again.

This time I won’t resign prematurely. Let the pieces fall as they may.

He asks me out for dinner. I see him from outside, sitting at a table near the window. His head is down and he’s playing chess on his phone. He’s waiting for me, patiently, well-groomed and dressed up. I note his position in the restaurant. During dinner we trade pleasant conversation topics like pawns.

Then we go to a cocktail bar. We sit at a table in the back which he calls a kissing booth. He asks me to read his Tarot cards. I make a show of spreading them on the mirrored surface of the table. My interpretation of the cards is rehearsed. You will face an obstacle. You are at a crossroads. You are going on a journey. (He mentioned he was about to go to Australia.) The last card is the Queen of Swords, sitting regally on her throne, back straight, yellow hair under a pointy iron crown. I tell him it means a strong female influence is entering his life to help him solve all the problems I conjured.

“Is that supposed to be you?” I shrug. Just reading the cards.

Back at my place, we unbox my new chess set and play a game. I’m studying openings, but I always fall apart in the midgame.

While I’m away at the cottage with my family, he asks me to play a game of chess online. My brother gives me some pointers and I win this time, catching his king in a skewer after an inadvertent queen sacrifice. We joke that his ego will be bruised now. My brother says I’m terrible at chess. I protest: “I’m trying to learn, I just bought a chess set!”

The next day, a message flashes across my phone screen: I was looking forward to seeing where it would go… The first feeling that bubbles up inside me, unbidden, before even reading the whole message (his ex-girlfriend is still in love with him), is relief.

 “What’s wrong with men these days?” I ask my mom and my brother, as we’re driving home. “You didn’t even like him,” my brother says. And though it’s true, I still feel indignant, I have to, at least for one day, so I gleefully complain the whole drive back into the city.

When I get home, I empty the dishwasher. In it, I find the Tupperware that contained the little brownies he gave me. When I first took it to the sink to wash it a few days ago, I noticed it was grimy, like it hadn’t been cleaned properly for a long time, and this disgusted me. Obsessively, I started washing it, using a bristled straw cleaner to get into the corners and under the rim, the brush coming out grey with dirt. After doing the best I could in the sink, I put it into the dishwasher for good measure, and by the time I had the chance to run and empty the machine, he dumped me, so I take it out, finally clean, and throw it into the garbage.

I realized on the way home, laughing in the car with my mom and my brother, arguing over what songs to listen to and eating fries from A&W, that there’s no point sacrificing authenticity to win a game you never really wanted to play.