I’m not completely delusional. I didn’t think I’d make a true love match in what amounted to a modern day arranged marriage, but there had been this glimmering hope that we would become friends. That our common enemies and overbearing families would bring us together to form a bond. Us against the rest of the assholes in the world type thing. After talking to Sam, and hearing what he thought of me, I knew that would never, ever happen.

I called Carlos, because even though I knew he was busy, I still needed someone to validate the fact that I wasn’t some heinous troll. “Hey babe, I’m working tonight, remember?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think that was until a little later though. I was hoping to catch you before,” I explained.

“Hey baby, who is on the phone?” I heard a woman ask and my heart immediately sank. His muffled response was something about work, and while my brain was yelling for me to abort this mission and hang up, for some reason I was paralyzed with the phone to my ear as Carlos took the time to get somewhere more private to finish his call.

“Mina,” he whispered into the phone after a couple minutes.

“Explain,” I demanded in a far too quiet tone for how I was feeling.

“I met Charlotte at one of my jobs over fall break.” Over the fall break. Those words repeated in my brain because we were now halfway through spring semester.

“And you didn’t break it off and tell me about it because?”

He sighed and I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. “I needed help with those classes, and you seemed so lonely. I didn’t think-”

“No, you sure didn’t,” I told him as I cut off whatever excuse he’d been about to make. Finally, my fingers started to reengage with my brain, and I was able to hang up the phone.

I turned to look in the full-length antique mirror that stood on the opposite side of my room. My blond hair was shimmery gold, I’d always loved the way it hung down my back in a far too straight curtain of silky locks. My sister, Bea’s, hair would sometimes get all frizzy, thanks to the natural wave and curl she had. Mine didn’t have that problem. I’d always loved it. It was my best feature next to my big, blue-green eyes. Bea had brown hair and hazel eyes that were more amber and brown with spots of green. Mine looked like the Mediterranean Sea in those places where the color of the water became more vibrant near the shore. Despite my blond hair, I had long, dark lashes that made wearing eyeliner or mascara unnecessary unless I really wanted to make my eyes stand out in a dramatic way.

My mom had always told me I had a natural beauty that was different to my sister’s. She was earthy and curvy, and full of warmth. I was angelic, precious, and whatever else equated to not truly being attractive in the eyes of men, apparently. Christ, I couldn’t even have a fuck buddy situation like normal college girls. How the hell was it possible that I’d been just a pity fuck for months, or in a situation where a guy was secretly paying me with sex for the tutoring that I gave him, and I never realized it?