Together But Not Really

CHAPTER - 10

"Damn you, Jess. I had told her this dress is too short. I shouldn't have listened to her." Alison muttered under her breath while annoyingly trying to fix her dress which would raise every time she would move even the slightest bit.

And she was moving a lot for that matter while aggressively tapping her foot on the floor and trying to supress her urge to bite her nails. A habit she had formed whenever she would feel anxious. And to say that she was freaking out at the moment would be an understatement. Her hands were sweating non-stop. This was a bad idea.

Mission abort!

Misson about!

Code Red!

With every passing minute as she waited for her so-called blind date, she felt like standing up and storming out of the average-looking hotel that Jonathan, her blind date asked her to meet at. She wasn't sure what she was even thinking when she agreed to this crazy idea of Jess. Her best friend’s ideas have always been bizarre. And for one those ideas have always infamously put her in absurd situations. Like now.

"If this doesn't go right, I am so killing you, Jess." Alison muttered under her breath as she gulped down the water from the glass in frustration.

Alison was someone who had never been on a blind date. Ever. And that just added fuel to her anxiety. She wasn't a social butterfly to begin with. No wonder why she hadn't ever dated anyone until Ethan had finally confessed to her. So, yeah, she was a noob at this blind dating stuff. And if someone had told her she would go on a blind date to make her ex jealous, she would have laughed right in front of their faces.

But this time was different. Ironically, she was about to do what she had decided she would never do. She always thought she would never be that girlfriend, the jealous type. And to be honest, she never was. But the dickhead decided to cheat on her. That jerk played her heart and stomped upon her feelings. So yeah, this wasn't thinking straight. She wanted this. She wanted this revenge.

"Where is he? It’s already 9." Alison thought to herself as she and Jonathan had planned to meet at the said restaurant by 8:30pm but it was nine already.

A fear started to creep its way into her mind. What if he decided to ditch her at the last moment? He sure looked too handsome to agree to meet her. Or what if it was prank for him? Alison felt small. Since the day she found her ex in bed with some other girl, her self-esteem had hit rock bottom. Though she wouldn’t admit it but she couldn’t hide it either.

It was enough, she thought. She was sure he wasn’t going to come so she stood up and turned around to get her coat from her chair and head back home and maybe dig a grave for her dear best friend Jess on her way. She realised there was no point in waiting for that guy anymore. It upset her; it really did. But she was too stubborn to shed any tears. Especially not over a guy, again. That too, a guy she hadn’t even seen in real life.

“Miss Alison? I am extremely sorry for being late.” Her grip on her coat lessened and a broad smile broke out on her lips. He came.

Alison quickly turned around and met Jonathan. And her smile was wiped out the moment her eyes landed on him. She faked a smile to look polite as the guy sat down on his chair and as Alison didn’t want to be rude by leaving straight away as this Jonathan had showed up just now. But damn, was she not disappointed! She doesn’t body shame people and nor does she make jokes about someone’s age. But what the hell, she was literally freaking catfished here. Jonathan didn’t look like “the Jonathan” at all.

“You look… very different.” Alison pointed out while trying to keep the fake smile on her face. And let’s say she tried to sound as nice as she could, while all she wanted to do at the moment was to cuss at him and storm out of this hell hole.

“Hahaha a bit, I guess. Anyway, I am so sorry for being late. There was just too much traffic.” While keeping her humble façade up front, Alison internally screamed at this mockery, “a bit” he said, she thought to herself in disbelief. This guy literally had a pot belly and his head seemed to be deprived of hair. This guy surely didn’t even seem to be twenty-four, unlike what his profile said, and he had the audacity to laugh and say he looked a bit different. Alison really begged to differ. If anything, the guy was “a bit TOO DIFFERENT”, totally far away from his stupid catfishing profile.

“Hahaha yes traffic. I know it can be annoying. Excuse me, I have to go to the washroom.” Alison quickly stood up, fetched her bag and coat and walked-jogged on the pretence of going to the restroom before he could utter a word. Mission escape Mr. Catfish.

“Okay, I’ll order something for us by then. Be back soon.” Alison heard the guy say as she walked away and she could barely hold back her laugh. The joke was on him. She wasn’t coming back.

“Why the hell did this have to happen to me? My luck sucks. Arghhh God, why are you doing this to me.” Alison groaned in frustration as she continued to spit out profanities while splashing cold water at her face angrily in the restroom to calm herself down so that she wouldn’t look like a psycho who was out for a kill. Why? You might ask, it was she was having a BAD DAY. She was pissed at everything and anything that was happening in her life. Because nothing seemed to go her way. She wasn’t ever very lucky, but at least she wasn’t ever very unfortunate either, up until now at least.

Ring!

Ring!

Ring!

“Now who the hell is calling me.” Yet again another groan escaped her lips and she realised that she was groaning a lot lately. Anyway, she stopped swearing and reluctantly picked up her mobile from the sink to check the caller's ID and they better have a good reason for disrupting her self-agonizing session. It was Jessica. Alison knew that she must be calling to get the tea about her date.

“Tell me you are at his place right now for a wild night.” Jessica’s high-pitched voice pierced her ear and Alison felt it bleeding. Well, the bleeding ear drums were surely a little exaggerated but her best friend was kind of nearly making her deaf. Note the sarcasm. But just how Jessica’s voice would get whenever she would get too excited, so it was safe to say that after so many years, Alison’s ears had become immune to it.

“Hello to you to Jess!” Alison spoke and she could imagine Jessica rolling her eyes at her lame response.

“Yeah, yeah hello. Anyway, now tell me what is going on? Did you get to touch his umm well carved abs by any chance?” Jessica teased from the other side, while Alison sighed in disappointment. There weren’t even any, so how could she have touched those non-existent abs?

“No dear, but his balloon belly was so squishy that I literally got wet at its sight.” Alison joked, her bitter sarcasm dripping with every word.

“Balloon what?” Alison could hear shock in Jessica’s voice.

“I was catfished bro. I was catfished. That Jonathan guy looked like some thirty-five-year-old if not more. The picture he had posted on his profile must be at least 10 years old.” Alison told her best friend truthfully with a sigh. She was upset. Even though she wasn’t interested in this whole blind date thing and even though she was doing it for revenge, it still did hurt her a bit. It didn’t make her that sad, instead it peaked her frustration.

Alison was walking in the lobby while trying to stretch down her short dress which would ride above her knew when each step it took. And it turned out to be more of a challenge when she was trying to balance her mobile in another hand while trying not to let her coat slip off from her arm. And these high heels were literally killing her legs. She was sure they would leave a bruise.

As Alison awkwardly tried to navigate the lobby in her short dress and uncomfortable heels, she suddenly lost her balance, her foot catching on a slightly raised part of the carpet. Panic shot through her as she felt herself tipping forward, her heart racing, and her eyes instinctively squeezed shut, bracing for the inevitable embarrassment of a face-first fall on the floor.

But just as the rush of impending doom engulfed her, she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist. It was a sudden and unexpected sensation, a lifeline that yanked her back from the brink of humiliation. The impact that she'd anticipated didn't come; instead, she found herself pressed against a firm chest, the smell of a subtle cologne wafting into her senses.

"Thank you so-... !" Alison raised her face to look at the man she was grateful to after all he saved her a*s from the utter humiliation. But soon her smile died down and her expressions morphed to displease.

"You..." Her voice cracked at the end a bit as she angry removed his hands and broke out of his embrace which made her feel like cockrouches crawling all over her body. She would have accept the embarrassment of falling in front of everyone instead of being saved by him out of all people.