Love Bites. Rachel Burke K

never worked out that way.

      Renee always teased me for my ever-changing love life, calling me a game player, telling me I loved the thrill of the chase. But the truth was, I hated dating. I hated the disappointments. That’s what dating was: one disappointment after the other. I guess I just hoped that eventually I’d find someone who would make all the bad dates worth it.

      And I did. I just didn’t expect him to stroll through my living-room door with my best friend.

      David Whitman. Renee had told me all about him. In fact, he had been the sole point of our conversations for weeks. When Renee had a new love interest, it was all she talked about. At the time, we were both seniors at UCLA, and Renee was interning at Pace, a local LA magazine. David was the sports editor, and every day Renee came home with a new story about him – what he was wearing that day, how he’d brought her a coffee, how all the girls in the office loved him. That was the funny thing about Renee. She called me a game player, yet she generally only liked a guy if a) he didn’t like her, or b) everyone else liked him. So essentially, she played games too, she just didn’t know it.

      Before I met David, I wasn’t sold on the idea of him. Renee was a creative soul. A creative soul who was now dating a sports editor. She hadn’t mentioned a single thing they had in common, or that she found interesting about him. It seemed to me that she felt she had won the hunk of the office and wanted to parade around with the prize on her arm. Sure, he sounded nice and cute and all, but I knew Renee. Eventually, she’d want more than that.

      When David walked through my living-room door that first night, everything in my body stood still. I understood now. None of his personal history or interests mattered. It was the effect he had on you. Those eyes. That smile. He could be a needy, jobless, alcoholic womanizer and it wouldn’t have mattered. You would have followed him to the end of the Earth anyway.

      From the instant I met David, I felt an immediate connection that I had never experienced before. It was the way he looked at me. Maybe he looked at everyone that way, but he still made me feel like I was the only person in the room. Intense brown eyes and the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. Like he was looking through me. Like he knew that he could have me if he wanted me, even if it meant ruining a lifelong friendship. He had that power.

      I hated him for that.

      And at that moment, for the first time in my life, I hated my best friend.

       Chapter 2

       Los Angeles, CA

       January 2009

      During our senior year at UCLA, shortly after Renee landed an internship at Pace, I landed one of my own at Sphinx, a local video-game company. I have no idea why they hired me, because I didn’t love video games. I didn’t even like video games. I was just desperate for a paying internship. But as it turned out, Sphinx was exactly what I was looking for.

       After several major switches, I’d decided on communications because it allowed me to take photography courses, which had always been my true passion. I loved photography because it was the only art that allowed you to capture truth in the visual sense. Renee loved music because it captured truth in the audio sense, but for me, I loved the visual. The lens didn’t lie. It highlighted the little beauties of everyday life that were often overlooked, and there was something so raw and honest about that. But I also knew that photography was a difficult business to earn a living at, therefore I picked a major that included creative courses that still had a business aspect to them, such as marketing and media studies.

       I had just completed an interactive marketing course on social media outreach, as well as a media literacy course in which we were assigned to read about the psychology behind role-playing video games. So when I came across Sphinx’s ad stating they were looking for interns with experience in online marketing and knowledge of video games, it sounded pretty perfect. I may not have been much of a gamer, but my last two classes had provided me with all the knowledge I needed for the position. Not to mention, it paid a lot. More than most internships.

       Before I was called in for an interview with Sphinx, I was contacted by a local health insurance company, HCG, who was looking for an intern to manage their website and social media pages. I like to call these kinds of experiences “blessings in disguise.” Because if I hadn’t had the opportunity for comparison, I never would’ve realized how utterly perfect Sphinx was for me.

       The HCG office was located next to the LAX airport. I was greeted by a man named Jason Porter, who introduced himself as the Human Resources Director. He cleverly referred to himself as the resident “herd,” then had to draw me a verbal map to his joke, spelling out the acronym for Human Resources Director: HRD. He chuckled at his own irony. I did not find him funny.

       Jason brought me to his spacious office, then sat down at his desk and motioned for me to take a seat across from him. He began the interview with some small-talk, asking me why I moved to LA, why I chose my major, what courses I had taken thus far. As I answered his questions, I noticed that he was actually quite good-looking. Olive skin, green eyes, nice smile. I suspected he was older than he looked, as he had the slightest hint of gray in his brown sideburns. Early forties, maybe.

       These good looks slowly disappeared less than ten minutes into the interview. After the small-talk concluded, Herd wasted no time getting down to business. He made it very clear that, when I was not in class, every spare moment would be spent working for him. On the days I did not have class, I would be expected to work a full eight-hour day, beginning at 8am, and wear a suit. I almost choked on my own disgust. I was not a morning person, nor was I a suit. And five days a week? I had envisioned working a few afternoon hours after class, three days a week at most. Herd had other plans for me.

       It only got worse from there. Herd went on to tell me that he expected the internship to become a full-time position once school was complete. He emphasized that he worked between fifty to sixty hours a week and expected this person to follow suit. No pun intended. He droned on about his role in the company and how much impact he’d had since he came on board. It wasn’t even an interview. It was Herd talking for the sake of hearing himself talk. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

       When the interview was finally over, Herd handed me his business card and frowned when I placed it in my purse.

       “You know, you should really buy a briefcase,” he scoffed in a patronizing tone. “Placing business cards in a purse is just so… unprofessional.” He laughed mockingly and shook his head, having his own little private business joke with himself. “And also, Justine, you should always wear a suit to an interview.” He looked me up and down like I was a toddler who’d dressed herself for the first time. I followed his gaze, glancing down at my black-collared shirt and charcoal dress pants. Judging by his expression, you would’ve thought I’d shown up dressed for a hip-hop video.

       As I headed toward the elevator, I passed by the work area, where all the insurance agents sat next to each other in tiny cubicles, wearing blazers and headsets. Their desks were lined with tiny bags of junk food. Most of them were overweight. They looked tired. I felt sad for them.

       Herd shook my hand goodbye at the elevator, but I no longer saw him as good-looking. I saw him as a man with a condescending, insincere laugh, who had bags under his eyes from working sixty hours a week. A man with no social life and no family, only a mahogany desk and an oversized briefcase. A man who owned an expensive house with expensive things that never got used.

       It’s funny how, in the course of thirty minutes, you can learn very, very quickly what you want in life. And, more importantly, what you don’t want.

       As a precaution, I went out and bought a suit. I refused to be humiliated twice. Luckily, I didn’t need it, as Sphinx was as far from