Page 2 of The Match Faker

Mitchell <3: i know you were really excited for my birthday and stuff. and if you don’t want to come in to work today, i totally understand. my mom said you can use one of your personal days.

Mitchell <3: but…

Mitchell <3: gah this is so hard!!! i think we should see other people, ok?

Mitchell <3: like…i think we should break up.

I read the words over and over again. Haüs Interiors is down the street, I can see it from here. And Mitchell isthere. His parents ordered breakfast for the whole office as part of his birthday celebration. Heart pounding in my ears, I look around, waiting for him to jump out and tell me I’m the latest victim of a hidden-camera practical joke show.

The city around me gets blurry as my eyes fill with tears. Clearly, my body knows what my brain has yet to understand.

With a deep breath in, I rack my brain for a suitable response, but what is there to say?

My co-worker boyfriend dumped me minutes before I was scheduled to arrive at work, where I’ll have to beniceto him because it’s his motherfucking birthday. Where I’ll have to spend most of the day with him since I am the head designer’s—his mother’s—assistant. His mother, who knew he was going to do this since she’s already approved my personal leave.

How do I respond to what is arguably the most embarrassing thing that has ever been routed through a cell phone tower?

Hot, angry tears fall. Normally, I’d be embarrassed to cry in public, but at least the tears are warm. I have worked so hard—so fucking hard—to be perfect, to be good enough.

He couldn’t even do me the courtesy of breaking up with me in person.

I am not perfect. Not the perfect daughter or sister. Not the perfect girlfriend.

That makes me angriest of all. After all the work I’ve done, all the sacrifice, it’s still not enough. It never is.

My phone vibrates again as another text comes in. The screen hasn’t locked yet, and I see the message from Mitchell right away.

Mitchell <3: i hope we can still be friends :)

That’s when something breaks in my brain.

A scream tears out of me, a sound between a battle cry and a sob, as I lift my phone over my head and spike it onto the ice-covered ground, where it shatters into pieces.

Kind of like my pride.

1

JASMINE

February

Zara Afzhal is perhaps the finest person I work with at Haüs. Since the worst moment of my personal and professional life, Zara is the only person who hasn’t avoided eye contact with me, or gone conspicuously quiet when I’ve walked into a room, or suppressed a giggle after I’ve walked past.

“Hi, Jasmine,” she says from behind the receptionist desk as I step into the office after lunch.

Normally, I’d eat at my desk. As Anaïs’s assistant, I work closely with her, yet she insists I sit with the team in the open-plan, bullpen-style office. Naturally, that has made lunchtime incredibly awkward.

The noon sun reflects off the glass buildings around ours, illuminating the minimalist white and gray decor of our foyer, making the space golden and hazy. Sunbeams reach toward the mostly open workspace beyond the front desk and filter through the spiral staircase that leads to the private office on the secondfloor, giving the impression that this place is a honey-colored paradise rather than a washed-out prison for my dreams.

Swallowing back the unease that bubbles up inside me each time I step through the front door lately, I tap the salt and slush from my consignment designer booties.

“Anaïs and Butch want you to go straight up to their office.”

“Oh.” My heart stumbles and I stop dead as the door clicks shut behind me. A meeting with Anaïs is nothing unusual. A meeting with herandButch? Not good. Not good at all. The last time an employee met with both of them, privately, he was fired. He messed up all the papers on Butch’s desk, yelled obscenities while he stormed out, and supposedly took a dump on Anaïs’s BMW’s hood. I didn’t witness the last one though.

I grimace at the box of six gourmet donuts I picked up to enjoy with Jade tonight. It’s probably unprofessional to arrive at an ominous work meeting with baked goods in a box emblazoned with the wordsGlory Holeacross the top.

“I’ll take those,” Zara says. Her heels, most definitely designer andnotsourced from a consignment website called Luxury Flea Market, tap on the concrete flooring as she comes around the desk. “Leave your coat here, too. I can take it all to your desk.”

---