The green dress I’d saved up for was still in Claire’s bedroom when my phone slid beneath her couch. I reached into the narrow gap and pulled out something bearing my own eight-year-old face. Then I noticed a note in Claire’s handwriting dated the exact day we matched on Tinder—and realized she’d known who I was before I knew anything about her.

My phone had disappeared between Claire’s couch cushion and the armrest while she was in the bedroom changing into the green dress I’d bought her.

I muttered something I definitely wouldn’t repeat around my mother and pushed my hand into the gap.

My fingers brushed against two quarters, a pen cap, something that felt disturbingly like a fossilized potato chip, and finally my phone.

But when I pulled my hand free, a photograph came out with it.

It dropped facedown onto the rug.

I picked it up automatically.

Then I stopped.

The photograph was old enough that the colors had started fading along the edges. A group of children sat on what appeared to be a library floor, each holding a book.

Near one end of the row sat a skinny boy with uneven brown hair and a missing front tooth.

Me.

Eight years old, maybe nine.

I knew immediately because I remembered that horrible striped shirt. My mother had insisted it made me look “handsome.”

I had never given Claire a childhood photograph of me.

Beside me stood a girl about the same age wearing purple glasses.

I turned the picture over.

Written in faded blue ink were the words:

“Nora + Ethan, Summer Reading Club.”

Below that, written much more recently in black ink, were five words.

“Found Ethan today. Tell him.”

Underneath was a date.

I checked it twice.

It was the date Claire and I had matched on Tinder.

A chill crawled across my arms even though Claire’s apartment was warm.

“Ethan?”

Her voice came from the bedroom.

I kept staring at the handwriting.

A second later, Claire stepped into the living room.

The dress fit her exactly the way I’d hoped it would.

Emerald green, just as I’d imagined when I returned to the boutique without her. Her dark hair was loosely pinned behind one ear, and she was still fastening the earring on the other side.

For a moment, she smiled.

Then her eyes landed on the photograph.

Her fingers remained frozen against the earring.

She never finished fastening it.

“Where did you get that?”

I nearly laughed.

“Your couch.”

Claire didn’t respond.

I lifted the photograph.

“Who is Nora?”

Her hand slowly dropped.

“Ethan…”

“No.” I pointed at the date. “Why did you write this the day we met?”

She looked toward the couch as if another explanation might somehow be waiting there.

Finally she said, “Because I knew who you were.”

I stared at her.

“Before Tinder?”

“Yes.”

The bright green dress suddenly looked almost ridiculous against the room.

“You knew me before we matched?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Instead of answering, Claire looked at the photograph.

I read the note aloud.

“‘Found Ethan today. Tell him.’ Tell me what?”

She reached for the back of a dining chair but didn’t sit down.

“Nora was my sister.”

I looked again at the little girl beside me.

Something shifted at the edge of my memory.

Purple glasses.

A laugh.

A book lying open across two sets of knees.

But each image disappeared before I could hold onto it.

“Your sister?”

“My half-sister. She was much younger than me.”

“Why am I in a picture with her?”

Claire finally looked directly at me.

“Because you were friends.”

The answer should have made things clearer.

Instead, everything became more confusing.

For six months, I’d believed I knew exactly how Claire and I had entered each other’s lives.

I was 25 and almost ready to give up on dating apps entirely.

Claire was 45. She had seemed different from the first message she sent me. Direct. Funny. Completely sure of what she wanted.

The 20-year age difference made me hesitate, but not for very long.

Our first coffee lasted nearly four hours.

She remembered that I hated cinnamon in coffee.

I remembered that she bought terrible refrigerator magnets whenever she traveled.

By our third date, she knew my boss’s name, my favorite pizza place, and how I’d gotten the scar on my wrist.

With Claire, I’d never felt like I had to wonder what she meant.

Apparently, what I’d been wrong about was where she had come from.

“So you matched with me because of Nora.”

Claire didn’t try to avoid the question.

“At first, yes.”

I put the photograph down on the coffee table.

“Wow.”

“Ethan, I wasn’t trying to trick you into a relationship.”