Chloe thought it was a joke. Then she tried it.
"Boyfriend free" was the name of the app, and Chloe had downloaded it at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, half-laughing, half-crying into a pint of salted caramel ice cream.
She thought about Jake’s laugh. Marcus’s stupid joke about the raccoon in the trash can. The grocery store stranger’s eyes—she couldn’t even picture them anymore.
The app refreshed with a new tagline: “Boyfriend free. Heart full. Welcome back.” boyfriend free
Her phone buzzed with twelve backlogged messages, twelve ghosts returning at once. She winced, then smiled—actually smiled, for the first time in weeks.
Chloe stared at the screen. The ice cream had melted hours ago.
The app had a new notification: You are now boyfriend-free. Would you like to upgrade to “feeling-free”? No more longing. No more loneliness. No more love. One-time offer. Chloe thought it was a joke
She typed back: Exactly.
She deleted it. Then she texted Jake: Hey. I know you’re not ready. I’m not either. But I miss the raccoon story.
First went Jake, the musician who’d said “I’m not ready for a relationship” after seven months of acting like her boyfriend. Poof. His texts stopped arriving mid-sentence, as if reality itself had edited him out. on a Tuesday, half-laughing, half-crying into a pint
And for the first time, she didn’t need an app to decide what came next.
The premise was simple: you swipe on men, but instead of matching for romance, you matched for the void they left behind. A guy who ghosted you after three perfect dates? Swipe right, and the app would ensure you never saw him at a coffee shop or mutual friend’s party again. An ex who still liked your Instagram posts from two years ago? Erased from your algorithm. A situationship who sent mixed signals? The app would filter his number out of your phone—no block, no drama, just a clean, quiet disappearance.
Then came a Thursday when she woke up and couldn’t remember what it felt like to want someone. Not heartbreak—just… absence. She looked at a cute barista and felt nothing. A friend described her own messy breakup, and Chloe nodded blankly, as if reading a weather report for a city she’d never visited.
He replied three dots. Then: It’s 3 a.m.