I knew that things were never going to work out with Carol but I went along with it anyway. I met her at some place I don’t remember and she was drinking some drink I don’t remember.

“We won’t make a good match,” I told her, showing her a photo someone took of us. “We just won’t.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re right.” She looked like the sun and I looked like Antarctica.

Carol had small ears and a tattoo of an elf playing the Playstation on her lower back. She looked great with makeup on, but looked like a stranger from space with it off. Carol hated it when people took photos of her, so I took them when she wasn’t prepared, when she was at her most honest and vulnerable. When I look back at her photos, I laugh.

Our first dinner was at Chermside Shopping Centre. Our second dinner was at my place. Our third dinner was at South Bank or something. Our fourth dinner was at her place, and the fifth was at her place again, and the sixth was at the city, and the seventh was in the Valley, and the eighth was at her place again, and I think that was about it. That eighth dinner marked the end of the thing that we had.