Page 6 of Not Your Valentine
Does Thursday work for you? Taylor asks. I thought we could try this new hand-pulled noodle soup place on Dundas.
I click on the link. Each menu item is accompanied by a picture, and my mouth starts watering. It’ll be perfect in this cold weather. I know what I’m ordering already, and I can practically taste the rich broth. Taylor will probably order the same thing. He likes soup as much as I do and…
I freeze. I’ve got a solution to my having-a-fake-boyfriend-is-too-much-work problem!
“I’ll ask Taylor to pretend to be my boyfriend. What do you think?” I look at Lucifer.
He doesn’t reply, of course, because he’s a goddamn fish.
But this really is a sensible plan. Taylor and I are friends, so it’ll be easy to take a few pictures together, and rather than making up a guy’s name and career, I can use his. Not much work at all.
Of course, he’ll have to agree to this, but he’s usually game for anything, and he’s told lies on my behalf before—back in high school science class, for example. The likelier complication is that he already has a girlfriend, and she won’t appreciate him posing as my boyfriend on social media. To my knowledge, he isn’t seeing anyone right now, but maybe he just hasn’t gotten around to telling me. He does date a bunch, and he actually enjoys things like Valentine’s Day.
Hmm. Well, I have a couple of days to give this plan some thought.
I send him a response. Sounds good. See you Thursday.
Then I return to drinking my bubble tea and wondering which show I should watch next. You know, the important things in life.
Chapter 3
Taylor was actually the first friend I saw after the video went viral.
Right after Charlie dumped me, I just sat there, too shocked to say anything. I wish I’d thought of a good comeback, something to make me seem a little badass in the video, but alas, I didn’t think of anything to say until much later, when I was reading all the responses on social media.
By the time I got home, less than an hour after the break-up—I bolted immediately, leaving him to pay the bill—my phone was already blowing up. Some jerk who went to my elementary school recognized me and posted the link to my Instagram, and I was bombarded with comments and followers. The notifications were overwhelming.
I responded by simply deleting the account.
Regrettably, I did read the viral thread on Twitter and the comments on the video. Yeah, I know that wasn’t very smart, but sometimes, I lack self-preservation. Besides, it was an unfamiliar situation: I’d never gone viral before. There was rampant speculation about what I’d done to deserve Charlie’s words, plus lots of discussion about my outfit and appearance.
All the attention—it was my worst nightmare. And the obsession over tiny details and jumping to ridiculous conclusions…I hated the rapid unpredictability of the whole thing. I felt nauseous, the food from that ill-fated dinner threatening to come back up.
Many people did defend me. Even though they didn’t know me at all, some women said that I could do better and I was too good for him. But it was still attention I didn’t want.
Whitney, Jasmeet, and Esther texted me, of course, and all I could do was say that the shame hadn’t killed me.
Yet.
The next day, after a poor night’s sleep, I went into work, hoping if I kept my head down, nobody would talk to me. It was possible no one had seen the video, right?
However, as soon as I got in, one of the PhD students in the lab hurried toward me, phone in hand.
“You’re famous!” she said.
“Unfortunately,” I muttered.
“Did you see this?” She showed me a new GIF: my slack-jawed response to Charlie’s break-up speech. It had apparently become quite popular.
“Are you okay, Helen?” my boss asked.
All the different parts of my life were getting mixed up—I prefer to keep my personal life separate from my professional life—and my brain felt close to exploding.
“I have a migraine.” A lie, but my head definitely wasn’t in a good place. “Two migraines, in fact,” I added, just for good measure.
Then I drove home, shut off my phone, and curled up on my bed.
Mid-afternoon, I cautiously turned on my phone, half-surprised it didn’t literally combust in my hand from all the strain it had been under. After assuring my family that I was still alive, I got a text from Taylor, who said that, unless I told him otherwise, he was coming to my apartment at six o’clock to pick me up and possibly get me drunk. He claimed he would find the quietest, darkest bar in the city, where no one would recognize me and give me any trouble, and if they did, he would fight them off.
