“And doesn’t he know it. Why’dyouvolunteer?” Mikey’s on my Matchmake Me development team, so maybe Rory figured we’d work better together than two people pulled from different groups, but I have the distinct impression that my pal here offered up his services willingly.
“I don’t have good memories of elementary school,” he says, rearranging his dirty blond hair, collected in a rubber band at the back of his neck. “My therapist said it might be a good way for me to heal.”
Christ on a cracker. This is going to be a disaster. My gaze darts to the clock anchored over the door. It’s in a cage for some godforsaken reason—would one of the little rugrats steal it?—which momentarily distracts me from the realization that our students are going to descend on us in a matter of minutes.
“I don’t believe in immersion therapy,” I say. “We might both be screwed, but look on the bright side, we only have to teach class once during Thanksgiving week.”
“It’s on the last Thursday of November,” he says forlornly. “That’s at the very end of the month this year. We have four weeks until then.”
He looks a little panicked by the thought, so I quickly change the subject. “Have you been in touch with your highest percentage match on the app yet?”
Mikey is one of our beta testers. So am I, actually. Unlike me, though, he did it on purpose.
Bryn’s the one who signed me up and wrote my profile. I suppose that’s morally ambiguous, but she’s my twin, and she was probably more honest about my personality than I would have been. I’d be more annoyed by the interference, but the matchmaking AI, which my sister and I named Judith in honor of the imaginary friend we had as kids, immediately informed me I had a 97% match.
I have to pursue my supposed match—it’s the perfect test of the app I helped create—but I’ve sent him two messages so far, and the guy can’t even bring himself to type out a simple “hi” or “what are you wearing?” I’d settle for a dick pic, although Judith is like a strict schoolmarm and won’t let us exchange pictures or identifying info until the one-month period of testing is complete. I mean this literally. She has enough intelligence to stop such messages from reaching the intended recipient.
The thought of trying to find a guy based on his dick pic is hilarious, like a shitty version ofCinderella, but I digress.
To be honest, I’m not surprised my highest match is an asshole. The Mayberry women have an unfortunate history with men. My grandmother is so toxic that I’m pretty sure my grandfather had a heart attack just to escape her, and my mother has been married so many times she doesn’t celebrate her weddings anymore. (Or maybe she just stopped inviting me.) As for me?
I’ve found it easier not to engage in anything but a little fun to keep the edge off.
The one time I did let myself get moony over a boy was in high school. I had a thing for Cole Garrison, who was a year ahead of me. Even then, he was dreamy, with wavy dark hair and puppy dog eyes that would make a girl of weaker constitution offer to do his homework. But that’s not why I formed an attachment to him.
No one else knows this. Not even Bryn.
It started during junior year, when I made the decision to reach out to my father, who’d adiosed when Bryn and I were too small to remember much about him. Auggie wasn’t cruel or dismissive. He seemed genuinely pleased to hear from me…once I explained who I was. But he was—is—vapid and vain. In short, he wasn’t the person I’d imagined him to be. I’d always been interested in programming, ever since I was a kid and one of my mother’s ex-husbands, Jay, helped me build a computer. Jay was great, but in my mind, my dad was even better. He was some misunderstood genius. I’d hoped he would be out there doing great things, kind of like Rory but older and statelier.
Instead, I found myself talking to an aging party boy, just this side of pathetic, who’d moved to New York in pursuit of great things and found only mediocrity.
After I spoke to my dad, I took a walk in the woods near our house, tears streaming down my face, and I ran smack into Cole Garrison. Literally. I probably looked a mess, but he sat me down under a big hemlock tree and wiped my cheeks. Then he pulled out a crunch bar from his backpack, looking kind of embarrassed, and offered it to me, saying chocolate always made him feel better. I ate the whole thing. He asked me what happened, and naïve fool that I was, I told him everything. He talked me through it, telling me that my worth wasn’t predicated on my parents. To my shock, he actually knew about a prize I’d won my sophomore year for a super simple app I’d created for the school cafeteria. He’d reminded me that it was only awarded to one student per year in all of Western North Carolina, and it usually went to a senior. It had never gone to someone from Highland Hills before. “Besides,” he said with a grin, “you’re tough as hell.”
“So you’ve noticed, huh?”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” he said.
There was a moment when I almost kissed him…and he looked like he wouldn’t have minded. But maybe he just felt bad for me due to all the tears and whatnot.
After I calmed down, he walked me home. Before sending me off, he pressed my hand in his and said, “Holly Mayberry, I’ll be seeing you.”
Which was kind of bullshit, because he never sought me out. In fact, he shifted back to mostly ignoring me after that. I’m no wilting violet, Ididtry to talk to him, but it seemed like he’d always find someplace else he had to be. After the way he buttered me up under that hemlock, I’d dared to think he believed I was special, but suddenly I was like shit on his shoe.
Asshole.
So I one-upped him. Instead of pretending he didn’t exist, I taunted and baited him. I—
“Holly, are you listening?” Mikey asks, sounding a bit annoyed.
Oops.
“Yes, but can you repeat the last three-to-five things you said just to be on the safe side?”
“So you weren’t listening.”
“Yes, I thought that would be clear from the context.” But I grin at him as I say it, and he smiles back, because even though we aren’t exactly equipped to understand each other, we do like each other.
“My match is nice.” He glances up at the clock and drums his fingers against the side of one of the monitors. Looks like he’s as excited for this lesson as I am. “But she’s only around a 70% match. I mean…she likes reality dating shows.”
