The Lovestruck Intern

Chapter One

Six months earlier

New York

The boring life of Monica Anderson.

If she had a reality TV show, that was exactly what she would like to call it. People would get to tune it and watch how mundane, ordinary people lived their life in the bustling city of New York. The city was known for sky high building, street food, hectic jobs with little pay and people who didn't have any time to give a f**k. It was busy, busy, busy for them and they liked it that way.

For Monica, she was recently unemployed, living with her boyfriend, who was also unemployed in a drab apartment. Her life wasn't supposed to be this way, if only she had finished college like her best friend, Ellie Harper, who was now a million miles away. She was married and lived in England with her husband and daughter.

Life wasn't supposed to be this way, but somehow she let it be. Monica was the wide-eyed ambitious college freshman, waiting to explore the new life of extreme freedom. Prior to her moving to college, she lived with her mother, Donna, stepfather, Eric and stepbrother, Josh, who was only a kid.

She couldn't wait to get out. It was nice being with them for as long as she could remember, but it was time for her to move out and make out life on her own terms.

Monica was selected to study Information Technology at Syracuse University. She had wanted Columbia University but couldn't get in, so she had to make do with what she was given. She moved out of her mom’s house, and moved in quickly with Ellie in their small, cozy dorm room. They both got into the same college, and she just knew it was going to be perfect.

Everything was perfect until it wasn't. Monica couldn't balance her party life with studying, so she skipped classes due to constant hangovers at campus parties, and that was when she met her boyfriend, Greg Newman.

Greg was the average good looking adult male, with a trimmed beard, dirty blonde hair and an obsession with baseball hats. Even though Ellie found it stupid and annoying, Monica didn't mind. She was into him and he made her laugh. A lot.

Monica continued skipping classes, until after freshman year, and she was the lowest in her class. She tried harder to do better with studying, but it just wasn't working out, so she decided it was finally time to give up school for good.

‘Are you insane? Monica, what has gotten into you? Is this because of Greg?’ Ellie cried out in frustration. She watched her best friend and roommate as she stuffed her clothes into the same luggage she arrived at the school campus with a little over a year ago.

Monica sighed. ‘I think this is what's best for me. I don't think I'm a great fit for this school, or any other school for that matter. Like Greg says, you've got to wing it to win it.’

Ellie couldn't keep her mouth shut even if she tried. Something was seriously wrong with her best friend because this was unlike her. She knew Monica to be smart and independent. They've been friends since Middle School and it wasn't right to see her go down this path, especially because of that goddamn awful Greg Newman.

‘What? Are you seriously quoting Greg in this situation? Monica, listen to yourself. You're not thinking straight. I agree that school might be crazy. Like, I haven't had a proper shut eye for days, but hey, that's the price we’ve got to pay. I know we can scale through this together.’ Ellie’s hazel eyes were warm to watch, especially when she was emotional. Monica was blessed to have Ellie in her corner, she was her everything.

Monica straightened her back, and continued tossing more clothes into her luggage. Then she stopped, holding a blue tank top and eyeing it suspiciously.

‘Is this yours or mine?’ She said, throwing the top at Ellie but her friend failed to catch it, so it landed on the floor.

‘You aren't listening to me, Monica. What's wrong with you?’ Ellie yelled.

Then Monica stood still now. ‘There’s morning wrong with me. If you think I'm doing this for Greg, then you're wrong. I'm doing this for me. I've got it all covered. I've got a job waiting for me and I'm going to do that until I can figure out what to do with my life. I promise you, I know what I'm doing.’ She moved closer to Ellie and held her hands.

If only Monica knew that she was young, stupid and very wrong. She didn't know a single thing she was doing then. As soon as she dropped out of Syracuse University, she moved into a single room apartment and successfully paid her first month rent, while working as a cashier at a donut shop. Then, she got fired the following month and began working at a spa, where the boss was a creep with a hand fetish. He was obsessed with hands and would make suggestive comments on them.

As soon as Monica was done with that, paying rent became a problem. She wasn't supposed to, but she was left with no choice, so she moved in with Greg, and the rest is history.

After switching jobs and career paths, she was unemployed for the sixth month and didn't own a dime in her name. Greg, on the other hand, had been working two jobs as a janitor at a firm and a dishwasher at a food outlet. He wasn't earning much, but at least it was enough for them to survive. Until he got fired at the firm and decided to quit the other, leaving them with nothing.

Monica couldn't continue like this. She didn't know what to do, but she knew it was impossible living this way. Greg was still fast asleep, snoring in bed when she picked up her laptop and found herself on those job search websites.

Most of them were fake, filled with disturbing Ads, with netizens trying to sell illegal, expired or non-existent things to you. Ellie had often talked about how these sites worked with landing a job, but for Monica, she just couldn't believe it.

This particular website, JobsFind came with an app and a pop-up message chimed suggesting she used the app for easy access and a daily notification of jobs available near her. Monica ignored the message and continued looking.

When she was getting bored of looking, and considering trying out a new website, or giving up altogether, she spotted the Ad, Do you have what it takes to be the next intern at Max Group? Apply now if you’re tech savvy, hungry for innovation with a flair in technology.

Max Group? That sounded familiar. She swore she had heard that name somewhere before. Off to Google. She typed the name in the search engine and viola, she was right!

It was the same Max Group with the super young, attractive and rich CEO with a lot of tech innovations. Everyone knew about them in New York and the entire East Coast.

Monica moved her cursor to the Ad and clicked on it. To apply for the intern position, all she needed to do was fill out a Google Forms with her information. She began typing her name on it when she stopped herself.

What do you think you're doing? You don't even have a college degree, she thought.

She knew it was wrong to go on with the application. Applying for an intern role at Max Group wasn't going to work out anyway. There were going to be a thousand or more applicants seeking that same position, so how was she going to get it? Also, her qualifications were non-existent. The bells rang loudly in her head.

But she stopped the ringing bells anyway. She filled out the form and clicked send. Her qualifications might have been false, but they were too good to ignore.

Maybe the police would come after her for being a fraud, or her application would be tossed down at the, we regret to inform you … pile. But none of that mattered to Monica. She gave it a shot and that was all that mattered.

She had just returned from the corner shop. Monica took off her jacket and sat on the other couch, that looked filthy but really wasn't. It was the same, old couch from Greg’s college dorm and he liked to call it an artifact.

As soon as the computer booted, she ran straight to the JobsFind website. Since she hasn't gotten any jobs yet, she decided to try out some more.

A notification sound rang softly and a message symbol popped up on her screen. She moved her cursor to it and double clicked on it. Monica was the least expectant of the next thing she could find on her screen.