Coastal Erosion

The first message arrived while I was scraping barnacles off a salinity probe. My phone buzzed against the metal workbench, and I nearly knocked it into the tidepool below the field station deck. I wiped my hands on my waders, smearing gray-green grit across the screen.

Constant. New match.

The photo showed a man standing on a ferry deck, wind pulling at a dark jacket. His face was turned half away from the camera, toward the water. Ash, 38. The bio read only: I pay attention.

I almost swiped left. The photo was too good. The bio was too short. I had been on the app for six weeks, long enough to learn that men who wrote things like that were either lazy or performing depth they did not have. But the ferry deck. The water. I looked at the chop in the background, the way the light sat low and amber. Puget Sound, maybe. Or the strait. I swiped right.

The match was instant.

I set the phone down and went back to the probe. Barnacles had colonized the housing again, tiny gray volcanoes crusted along the seam where the sensor met the plastic. I scraped them off in long strokes, letting the fragments fall into the tidepool below. The water there was shallow and warm from the afternoon sun, and a small crab scuttled sideways under a rock when the first shell hit.

The phone buzzed again.

You're working late.

I looked at the time. 6:47. The sun was still high enough to throw my shadow across the deck, but the state office had closed an hour ago. Most people would assume a marine biologist worked nine to five. Most people would be wrong.

Field day, I typed back. Barnacles.

On the salinity probe?

My thumb hovered. I looked at the probe in my hand, the crusted seam, the wire leading back to the data logger. Then I typed: How did you know that?

You mentioned it. Last week. The coastal erosion study.

I had not mentioned it. I had barely spoken to anyone last week. I had driven out to the north beach every morning, walked the transect lines with the GPS unit, measured the retreat of the dune line. I had eaten lunch alone in the truck. I had gone home and slept.

But I had updated my profile the week before. Marine biologist. Coastal erosion monitoring. Fieldwork most days. That was all. No mention of salinity probes or barnacles.

I typed: I didn't mention that.

Three dots appeared. Then: You're right. I saw the photo you posted. The one with the probe.

I had posted a photo. Two weeks ago, on a different platform, not linked to the app. It showed the field station deck, my boots, the probe lying on the bench. I had captioned it barnacle season.

I felt a small cold spot open between my shoulder blades. I closed the app and went back to work.

The next message came at 9:14 that night. I was sitting on the floor of my rental, eating cold pasta from the container, when the phone lit up.

How was the north beach today?

I stared at the screen. The pasta sat heavy in my mouth, oil and garlic and the faint metallic taste of the cheap sauce. I had not told him where I worked. I had not told him anything. I had barely answered his last message.

Who are you? I typed.

Ash. We matched today.

How do you know I was at the north beach?

A pause. Then: The app shows general location. You were near the coast. I guessed.

It was a reasonable answer. The app did show location. I had enabled it myself, months ago, without thinking. The north beach was the only fieldwork site within twenty miles. A guess, nothing more.

But I did not believe it.

I set the phone face-down on the floor and finished the pasta. The refrigerator hummed in the corner of the kitchen. Outside, the fog had come in thick, and the streetlight outside my window was a blur of orange through the glass. I could hear the ocean, a low steady pressure against the shore, two blocks away.

I picked the phone up again.

What do you want? I typed.

The reply came quickly. To know you.

I laughed. It was a short, sharp sound in the empty room. Then I typed: That's a line.

It's not a line. It's the truth. You're interesting to me.

You don't know me.

*I know you check the library out on Tuesdays. You borrow books about coastal geology and then return them unread because you're too tired to read at night. I know you drink coffee at the place on Harbor Street before your field days, and