Page 50 of It's Only Make Believe

“How serious are you about her?” she asks.

“I’m in love with her,” I say.

“So will this make any difference either way?” Mel asks.

I nod.

“Yes. I can’t see myself being with someone who has lived a lie the whole time we’ve known each other,” I say.

“But assuming Justin is lying, you want to stay with her?” Mel says and I nod.

“Yes, of course,” I say.

“Then don’t hire anyone. Ask her yourself. You’ll know by her reaction whether she is lying or not. And if she’s not, you two can have a laugh about it and you won’t lose her. If you hire someone and she finds out, you’re done,” Mel says.

“Thanks Mel,” I say. “That’s sound advice.”

“I have my uses,” Mel says with a grin. “Do you want me to call down and have her come up and talk to you?”

“Yes please,” I say.

I wait until Mel has left the room and closed the door behind her and then I start pacing back and forth in my office while I wait. I have a really bad feeling about this, but I have to know for sure if it’s true or not, and I do think Mel was right about the problem with hiring someone to find the answers for me. Also, that takes time, and Louisa would know straight away that something was off with me.

I stop pacing and go and sit back down when there’s a knock on my office door. I want to look like I’m calm and in control of this situation, even though I feel like I’m the complete opposite of both of those things.

“Come in,” I say, and Louisa comes in and smiles at me.

“Sit down,” I say, and her smile turns into a frown I presume because of the cold tone of voice I used on her.

She sits down.

“What’s up?” she says.

“I’ve just had Justin in here telling me how you’re toxic and he wished someone would have warned him to stay away from you right from the start,” I say.

“The same Justin who beat the shit out of himself and blamed you for it,” Louisa points out.

I nod.

“Yes. And at that point, I told him to get out of my office, but then he said something else. Something so crazy I should have just laughed him out of the building. Except I have to admit that parts of it made sense … Tia,” I say.

I wait for her to ask who the hell Tia is, or why I’m using Justin’s pet name for her, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just stares at me for a second and then her face crumples and she covers it with her hands as tears spring from her eyes. I hate the fact that she’s crying, and I really hate the fact that I’m the one who made her cry, but I guess it’s confirmation of what Justin told me being true.

I give her a minute to get herself under control and when she sniffles and uncovers her face, I hand her a tissue. She takes it and wipes her eyes and then blows her nose. She looks more like herself again except for her red nose and blotchy cheeks.

“Start talking,” I say.

“Louisa is my best friend. Her father wanted her to do this internship. She didn’t want to do it. I needed a job and so we came up with the idea of me pretending to be her,” Louisa, sorry Tia, says. “It sounds so silly now, but at the time, it made perfect sense. I’m so sorry for lying to you about who I was, but I had never even met you when we concocted the plan. I never would have dreamed we’d end up dating and I did try so hard to stay away from you that way. I hoped I could finish my internship, then come clean with you and see where things went from there.”

“So, our whole time together, you’ve been someone else,” I say, trying and failing to get my head around that.

“No,” Tia says, shaking her head. “No, it’s not like that. I have been using someone else’s name, but that’s it. The rest of it is the real me. I’ve never actually pretended to be Louisa. You know that yourself because Enrique warned you what Louisa would be like, and I am nothing like that.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” I admit.

“Say you’ll forgive me,” Tia says. “Even if you can’t do it right now. Say you’ll forgive me in time, and that we can get past this.”

“As much as I would like to say that I can’t, because it’s not true,” I say. “I just … I can’t even look at you,” I say and that’s the truth. The thought of her not being in my life hurts like fuck, but the idea of staying with her and knowing she lied to me all of this time is too much. I can’t do it.

---