1

He hadn’t planned on taking the subway. It was a Tuesday, mid-afternoon. He had left work early, navigated the labyrinth of cubicles to step out into the cold air—completely at a loss. He was loath to admit it, but he was nowhere near where he had hoped to be when he had imagined himself at twenty-eight. His mother had told him every morning that he was destined for great things. She had said it when he was a child, as he sat on the linoleum floor of the kitchen and watched her cook, and when he had grown up and left home she texted him a daily reminder.  In his childhood it had seemed sweet. In adulthood it felt like a reminder that he was not living up to her expectations. A reminder he anticipated every morning. 

 

“You are destined for great things.”

“You are destined for great things.”

“You are destined for great things.”

“You are destined for great things.” 

 

It was a constant even on the day she died. 

 

“You are destined,” the message read.

 

He had puzzled over it for a good ten minutes, eventually deciding that it was her way of switching things up. As always, he did not answer. Maybe, knowing what he did now, he would have. He had, at one time, considered his mother to be his best friend—when he was young and stupid and hadn’t yet realised that all people will reveal themselves to be awful if you wait long enough. 

 

He dug his phone out of his pocket, thumb sliding across the cracked screen protector. He bypassed the nondescript lockscreen and 128 unread messages, going straight to the dating app he had downloaded a few weeks ago after drinking a bottle of rosé and watching Sandra Bullock fall in love. An array of airbrushed images immediately came into view. He swiped right languidly—no pattern to his selections—and messaged the first person who matched with him. 

 

dtf?

 

Are you unemployed? Lol 

 

no, just have the day off.

 

Ok 😂 yeah let’s meet up 

 

where are you located?

 

Vaughan 

 

i’m in downtown toronto

​

Take line one, you’ll get here fast 

​

I’ll be waiting 😜 

 

He grimaced. As a principle, he avoided public transit with the sort of devotion typically reserved for long lost lovers or crossing the street when faced with a group of middle-schoolers. He did not particularly enjoy its bleak industrial landscape, or the beleaguered drunks that somehow always seemed to consider him a superb conversationalist. In the past weeks he had taken the train four times—which was four times too many. He had gone home to hear the reading of his mother’s will—he had inherited two thousand four hundred and twenty three dollars and her collection of ceramic raccoons—and to attend her funeral. The night before the funeral he had been awake until 3AM searching the internet for ‘vaguely depressing eulogies,’ and due to this looked emotionally devastated at the wake the next morning—a minor positive to his insomnia. He had stared at the obnoxiously patterned carpet until the colours blurred together, like he was pressing his palms against his eyelids. His father was not there, something he found himself increasingly grateful for. The man’s unadulterated joy would have made the funeral even more depressing than it already was.

 

On the day his mother died, four hours after he had received “You are destined,” his father’s name had flashed on his phone screen. “She’s dead.” 

 

It was too much, the tone of voice, the low rasp of a man he had not spoken to in years. He knew immediately who she was. He did not ask his father how he knew, or how it happened, or what they were going to do next. He did not want to talk to his father any longer than was absolutely necessary. His mother was dead. 

 

He hung up the phone and accepted that fact. 

 

The subway was relatively quiet, the sort of midday lull before schools let out, before people began to get off work. It was the sort of environment that provoked too much thought, made him wonder if he was making an idiotic decision going out to Vaughan of all places to meet a person he had never seen. That had never stopped him before, but as climbed down into the underground, his mind began to wander. As he settled into a window seat and stared out at the expanse of darkness, it occurred to him that he was not particularly dtf. He had only sought after an internet acquaintance because today was the anniversary of the day which he had proved to the universe—and his mother—that he was not, in fact, destined for great things. He typed out a message, pressed send. He knew it wouldn’t be delivered. An upside of the out-dated infrastructure preventing proper cell phone service. Still, it was something. A step in a direction. 

 

When he got off at Vaughan Metropolitan, he hesitated. Across the way, the Northbound subway car had its doors opened, presumably stopped until the schedule commanded it to move again. To his left, the rickety escalators moved up, back to the outside world—to the harsh climate of an industrial suburb. He did not move towards them. Instead, he took confident steps across the platform, to the Southbound subway. To any outside observer—to me—it appeared as though he knew exactly what he was doing, exactly where he was going. He sat down in a seat a few feet away from mine, and took out his phone, his shoulders straight, his expression determined. 

 

sorry something came up, can’t make it

 

Lol ur ugly anyways

 

He smirked, pocketing his phone. He was a lot of things, but ugly was not one of them. He was an amalgamation of his parents’ best features—his father’s sharp brow, his mother’s Grecian bone structure—the sort of cheekbones that would make most people seem gaunt—something he had been complimented on all his life. I would have done the same, had I not been confident that he would be less than receptive to my opinion. 

 

With only the two of us on board, the doors slid closed, leaving the concrete room of Vaughan Metropolitan behind.