Page 2 of Fake It Till You Make It

“No lies detected.”

“Trust me.” Amarie sniffed. “I spared you the slings and arrows of Russell’s brutal verbal assault.”

Amarie, ever the amenable girlfriend, had traveled a circuitous route to maintain peace, to avoid his temper, but she was sane enough to know her former fiancé would’ve lashed out at Vali to hurt her. Twelve months into their relationship, and she applied the term loosely with his tomcat tendencies, she and Russell were not the pining couple whose hands were always pawing at the other like she’d dreamed of. Sharing her misgivings with her mother had led to a prompt dismissal of her feelings and an accusation that Amarie’s mental hyperactivity would lead to a bad decision that would sabotage her future. Sure enough, her motherhad praised a cautiously optimistic Amarie on her engagement the following year. Even her father had foregoneworking lateto join the two of them for a celebratory dinner.

The Prius crested a mountain into a Norman Rockwell utopia. Lush grasslands on the right, a serene lake beckoning gingham blankets and romance novels from the passenger window. A soaring kaleidoscope of trees waved to all who entered this untouched paradise. On her left stood a lone house, majestic and proud. This had to be the place.

“Stop the car.”

“Okay.” Vali slammed a hammer foot on the Prius’s brakes. The abrupt action fishtailed the car’s rear end. Gravel pelted the under-chassis. Inside the vehicle both passengers and the back seat contents jostled against the door panels. When the momentum released its hold on their churning stomachs, she and Vali exhaled in a rush.

“Sorry.” Amarie winced.

“More warning next time or I’m calling you an Uber.”

Pausing, Vali angled her head for a view of the house on the hill. The quiet serenity surrounding the stately home with its gabled roof and open-gallery veranda was a stark contrast to D.C.’s Georgia Avenue congestion. She cut the engine at the curb of a majestic country farmhouse complete with a storybook white picket fence. Lavender-tipped wildflowers blanketed a meadow wider than a city block as a breeze, soft and fleeting, bent the tiny blossoms into a subtle bow. Amarie couldn’t afford to break, either. Life had twisted and bent her hopes beyond any semblance of her vision board. She could blossom where planted.

“Where are we again? Is this a low-budget surveillance stakeout of Russell’s baby mama?”

“No.” Amarie choked on her own laughter. “We’re in Service, West Virginia.” She motioned to the rural townthey had driven through with its quaint cobblestone streets. “And don’t make me laugh. This reality TV show is my life.”

“It’s a very lovely house and vet practice—in West Virginia,” Vali emphasized. “Just saying, leaving your no-account fiancé is making you act loopy.”

Amarie let her forehead fall onto her friend’s shoulder, a steady support for the weight of this life-altering flight of fancy she’d undertaken. “I’m laughing, Vali.”

No doubt her decision to dump the charming gynecologist—her mother’s words—and hiszirconiadiamond ring in the trash can had disappointed her parents, but she was the one who had endured years of office gossip. She was the one who had held her head high under the pitying side glances of his friends’ unsolicited prep talks:You hang in there, girl. He’ll get better.

Angling her head, Vali gave her a wide grin. “I know you’re hurting, girlfriend. But would you rather cry or laugh over Russell?”

Amarie shrugged, not sure how to feel. Six years of wasted time deserved a full-on sensory meltdown, right?

“He had Stacia in our bed… total lack of originality.”

Vali’s brows shot up, registering her surprise. “The divorcée who brings Panera Bread pecan braids every Friday?”

“That’s her. It’s brilliant, really. Stuffing me with pastries while Russell spread her jam in the back office.” The fact that Amarie had been easily distracted with mouthwatering sweet bread while another woman stole her man should have led to crippling embarrassment. But after walking in on a naked Russell and the receptionist she’d hired four months ago, then having to make the emergency call to her best friend from the hood of her broken-down vehicle, recounting the story was low on her twenty-four-hourhumiliation list. The fairy tale faded long before last night’s final page was written. Amarie’s prince charming never slayed her dragons. No, Russell’s sword apparently was attached to an automatic drawstring that lowered his boxers and spread fair maiden’s thighs. Strangely enough, she couldn’t pinpoint when the relationship had entered a death spiral. Somewhere between her juggling to open the clinic every morning, the frantic dash to afternoon classes, or the late-night library study sessions, they’d drifted into toxic complacency.

“How much longer till the tow truck arrives for Prince?” asked Vali.

A fresh wave of anxiety squeezed her lungs at having abandoned her beloved safe haven on a coarse gravel shoulder behind the town’s marquee. Working in the D.C. metropolitan area, with the sprawl-and-crawl traffic of five million people, Amarie spent more time in her car than at a physical address. Prince was a home away from home.

“No money for that.” Amarie shook her head, truly dismayed at the swiftness of Russell’s financial reprisal. “After accusing me of shattering his heart, Russell apparently removed my access to our credit card.”

“No way,” Vali gasped in outrage. “It… it hasn’t even been twelve hours.”

Amarie nodded in agreement. “The ATM debit PIN has been changed, too.”

“You earned every dollar in that account. Butt wipe,” Vali snapped, narrowing her eyes. “I hope you tagged him back.”

A slow smile raised the corners of Amarie’s mouth.

Vali’s smile widened with wicked delight. “What did you do, naughty girl?”

Amarie counted off on her un-manicured fingers. “Hidthe clinic’s website. Deleted the YouTube page. And because I’m that girl, I closed his LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook business accounts.”

“Dang, a full-on social media massacre. Dr. Feldman is ex-communicado.” She beamed. “I’m here for it, girlfriend. He should’ve been paying for your services. Seriously, you saved and earned that man a fortune. He wouldn’t be on the top one hundred doctors in the D.C. area list without your social media genius.”

“Thank you.” She had accomplished something noteworthy, though unacknowledged. Her pounding heart slowed to a fast jog for the first time since she’d walked in on Russell’s funfest. Amarie had created and maintained the online presence for Russell’s practice for years. He’d never bothered himself with the logins or passwords. During their time together, she’d worked forty hours a week, off the payroll, to maintain his online visibility. She’d created press kits, written publicity pieces, and uploaded client testimonials for him and his colleagues. His patients had doubled in the first eighteen months of theirpartnership, as he’d called it. Instead of a paycheck, he’d surprised her with her very own prepaid Mastercard. He’d presented it in a wooden carved box with a giant purple ribbon, her favorite color. With a long sigh, Amarie acknowledged the comfort she’d settled into with Russell’s periodic conciliatory prizes. Repeating her mother’s mistake, she had numbed her heart to the stab of Russell’s infidelity, finding the strength to refocus on completing her Bachelor in Nursing degree while cauterizing her wounds with the knowledge that she held a secure place in his life. After all, they lived and worked together—she had his faux-diamond engagement ring on her finger. Stacia’s pregnancy had snatched Amarie’s blinders by the pubic hairs and ripped them off.