Page 3 of Return on Love

“Yes. One and only. My nemesis. The man I hate with all my heart. Who made me a butt of jokes in grad school. That’s the one I’m supposed to work with. For Three Months. God! And to think that my job and my promotion depend on it. Can things get any worse?”

Lily sips her coffee, then looks at me, wiggling her eyebrows. “He was one to look at if my memory serves right. Tall. Well-built. Broad shoulders.”

I shoot her a look of disapproval. “We hate him, Lily,” I remind her. God, this woman! “That’s not the part we remember about him.”

She smiles unapologetically. “Maybe he doesn’t look as handsome now.”

I scoff. “Yeah, right! If only. If the photos in the company presentation are to be believed, his looks have only gotten better.”

“Then maybe his behavior is now as good as his body. That’ll make for some interesting time. What say?”

I grunt. “Not for me, I’m sure.”

Lily holds my hands. “It’s been years, Eva. You haven’t seen him since your first year in grad school. I bet he doesn’t even remember you.”

That was a consoling thought. “Yeah. Maybe he doesn’t.” I sit up and nod. It seemed plausible. “You’re right, Lily. I don’t think he’ll remember me. I might not put in my resignation after all.”

“Don’t be a dumbass. You can’t ever let any person decide what to do with your life. Learn to live on your terms, girl.”

“Surprisingly, that’s one of the sanest things you’ve ever said. I’ll go there and show him who’s the boss. I’m the one that controls his funding. He better stay in line.”

“That’s my girl. Keep up this spirit.” Lily sidles up to me. “You still have that photo of him from grad school?”

I look at her and shake my head in disbelief.

“I’m kidding,” she says, giggling. “But do you?”

I flick her on the head. “We. Hate. Him.”

“So, is he like an employee there? A coder? Perhaps you can tell the founders that you don’t wanna see him, and they should keep him out of your way, y’know. You provide the money, the consultancy. Ooh. Ooh. Maybe, just maybe, you can get him fired. Only if he’s not great at his job. You have to consult them for their future growth. That can be slipped into one of your recommendations for company reorg. I mean, he called you ugly, right? Now you go out there and make his life ugly like hell.”

Well, technically, he had never straight up called me ugly. But what he pulled was seriously messed up. I was in my first year of grad school. Majoring in finance, but I had taken a creative writing course. I always wanted to write a mystery like Agatha Christie, my favorite author, back when I was an early teen. Anyway, when I dropped the whole wanting-to-write bomb on Dad, he just laughed it off like it was some kind of joke. So, I laughed along, too. But that’s not the main point here.

I took that course, and guess who else was there? Ryan. It was his second year; I think. He was by far the best-looking guy in that class—think Brad Pitt level. It's no wonder he enamored most of the girls, and some boys too, especially first years. And yup, guilty as charged, I was no exception. He was goofy, fun-loving, always surrounded by friends. In short, the opposite of me. But I really, really wanted to talk to him. So a common friend introduced us.

I still remember that day vividly. I dressed up extra special in my new killer blue dress. Ryan was hanging with a couple of buddies, deep in some conversation that had them laughing their butts off. Like they were cracking up so badly that Ryan was holding onto his stomach. Me and my friend strolled over just as the laughter started dying down. They turned to us, said hey to my friend, and I flashed my biggest smile. It was the moment of truth when my friend introduced me, and, out of nowhere, Ryan turned to me and puked. Yup, you heard that right. He literally couldn’t even look at my face without losing his lunch all over my pretty dress. That’s the level of disgust he had for me. And not a single sorry spilled from his pretty lips.

The incident gained a life of its own, leading to me being called Eva the Emetic. I, who was supposed to be the victim, somehow transformed from the injured party to the injurer who had done something so traumatic, just by being me, to make Ryan sick. Over time, I transformed from the injurer to a mere joke.

Memes of me scaring a Dracula, causing Thanos to destroy himself, and even making Darth Vader puke inside his helmet were circulated. I hated them, but I have to say, some of them were quite funny. I took them in my stride, though it made an already difficult time at grad school much more difficult.

Since that debacle I avoided him like the plague. Honestly, it wasn’t a Herculean feat, considering we only had that one class together, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t dying to cross paths with me, either. But Fate has a wicked sense of humor, and my bad luck wasn’t quite done playing games with me. So, get this—for our big, final project in the course we had to pick partners via a good ol’ lucky draw. And you won’t believe who I pulled out of that hat. Yep, Ryan, the one and only!

I hated it, but I sucked it up and prepared myself to work with him. I didn’t need him to be my friend or even for him to like me. We were there to study, and we could be professionals about it. Or so I thought.

I’d have forgiven his rude behavior, his laughing with his friends and making a disgusting face as soon as he saw me, and all the memes and jokes that his behavior made me suffer. I was big-hearted enough for that. But he tried to mess with my grades. And that was something I could neither forgive nor forget.

The professor had called us to explain the project and clarify any doubts we had. I arrived early at his office and heard a voice before I could knock. Ryan’s. Talking about me!

“I’m sorry, Sir. I can’t do this project with Eva,” came Ryan’s drawling voice.

“But why? You’re one of my best students. You know your grades might suffer,” continued the professor, to convince him to go as per the regular plan of the course.

“I do. But I’d rather do it alone.”

I seriously hit my limit at that point. How dare he! He hated me so much that he was ready to sacrifice his grades so as not to work with me. I stomped away, holding back tears that burned my eyes. After a solid ten minutes of letting off steam, I got my emotions in check and went back, making my apologies to the teacher for my tardiness. Thankfully, Ryan had already left. The prof told me what I already knew, that I’d have to do the project alone and he would grade accordingly. He was kind enough not to tell me why Ryan backed off, and I never asked. I couldn’t.

I rarely ever saw him after that semester. We were in different courses, and if he was anyone else, I could’ve just forgotten about him. But he was Ryan! The next semester, he developed an app for tracking finances and creating an individual P&L. Guess who he asked to be his partner? My brother. No kidding. And worse, Alex accepted as if he didn’t have enough on his plate in his last semester in grad school. And to add to that, they chose some of the best students to try out their app. It kinda became like a thing of prestige. How do you know you were relevant in your class? You were invited to test out the app. Of course, he left me out. The bugger turned my own brother against me. It was when they ran into trouble that Alex asked me, nay begged me, to be part of the beta team. I reluctantly agreed, if only to trash the app.

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