Summer, 35

On giving into emojis

Illustration by Lizzy O’Donnell

A few nights ago while I slept beside my partner, I almost went to bed with a woman who was not my partner. I don’t know who she was; she was no one. Too young for me, milk skin, long dark hair, wearing a short black dress. I had conjured her.

We sat at a two-top, this woman and I, in a fancy cocktail lounge — the sort of place I generally don’t go in real life, even when I can…