1.

Two months later

"Morning Clara!" Joshua waved at Clara excitedly as soon as she stepped into Le'Fonse.

Clara had hired Joshua two months ago as a part-time barista in her cafe. He was only 20, a university student currently majoring in international business and management.

He had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks. He was fair, almost pale white. His unfathomable, golden brown eyes contrasted exceptionally with his light toned face. He was not extremely muscular, with 8 pack abs or 16cm biceps. However, he could stand out in a crowd, which was mostly due to his way of carrying himself.

In fact, Clara realised that their cafe had gotten more university students, women especially, for the past two months. She was not surprised though. She kind of expected it when she hired Joshua.

"Morning Josh! Have you had breakfast yet?" Clara asked as she walked into the counter and took out an assessment file from the drawer.

Joshua nodded and stood beside her. Clara felt strange because he was rather quiet today.

"Maya is going to stop by later this afternoon. Could you please pass this to her?" Clara handed an envelope to Joshua and his eyes widened when he saw the wedding invitation.

"You're getting married?" Joshua asked nervously and followed behind her closely. His lips pressed tight, attempting to hide the disappointment look.

Clara gave him a strange look and laughed.

"Pfft! I wished!" She said. "It's my friend's,"

"Oh!" He let out a huge breath and nodded.

"Anyway, I gotta go!" She said while looking down at her watch. "I have a meeting in 10 minutes. Remember to pass this to Maya! Thanks a lot Josh!" She patted his shoulder and rushed out the door before Joshua could say anything.

Joshua was disappointed when he did not get to talk to Clara much today. He enjoyed working in the cafe because of Clara.

She had been the nicest person to him, helping him a little with his studies and giving advices on his future goals. He looked up to her because she was smart, kind, selfless and the most down to earth woman he had ever met.

"I thought you were going to ask her out today," Jeffrey, another barista, cleared his throat and asked.

"We all know the answer to that," Joshua sighed.

"You haven't even asked yet. How'd you know?"

"She's obviously out of my league. Do you think she will date someone six years younger than her?" Joshua explained and placed the wedding invitation laboriously in the drawer.

He then continued, "I'm still studying. No career, no money... I got nothing!" He sighed deeply.

"And what makes you think she cares any of that? You know Clara. She's not the kind of person who judges people for what they don't have," Jeffrey explained and walked to the food display chiller when one of the customers waved her hand at him.

He was right. Clara was kind. She probably would not judge. But he wanted to be better.

For her.

******

(12:30am) Jessy: Two more months! You girls have two more months to find your plus one! I can't wait for my Boracay trip!

Clara groaned and threw her phone on the bed.

"This girl is stressing me out!" She said to herself and grabbed the Dyson hair dryer resting on the dresser.

It's been five months now.

Maybe it is time to get herself out there. Get back into the dating game.

I'm fine though. I really don't mind being single at all.

She always told herself that.

But was she really fine? Was she fine with eating alone? Watching a movie alone? Shopping alone? Not that Jack ever accompanied her to shopping anyway.

She did try to spice up her life. Hitting the gym, doing yoga, attending cooking, baking and painting class during the weekends. Keeping herself occupied.

She had been doing that for the past five months and life slowly became a routine to her.

She did not have many friends. Zaphire, Maya and Jessy were her only genuine friends and that was enough. But they had all been too busy with their work and life, just like her, they only met up for dinner once or twice a week. She was not close with her subordinates.

Work is work.

After drying her hair, she plopped down on her bed and grabbed her phone again. The Textin app caught her attention. It had laid on the first page of her Home Screen for some time now.

Should I?

She shook her head.

I'm done getting hurt. This whole love thing won't work out for me.

Sometimes she felt like she was waiting for something that was not going to happen, getting her hopes up for nothing.

"It wouldn't hurt to be friends though, right?" She suddenly said out loud to herself.

"But friends may lead to something else. And you'll still end up hurting," she told herself that.

"So what? I'm just supposed to stay single forever while Jack gets to play little family outside?"

"But I'm perfectly fine without a man. I can do everything alone. Why would I want to jump back into the deadly hole again?"

She suddenly felt like a crazy woman, talking to herself. She contemplated the app in her Home Screen and finally decided to give it a try, convincing herself that she did not want to pay for their Boracay trip.

******

"And so I told her I would never date her. Of course I wouldn't. She was so lame... and fat too. I mean I wouldn't mind if she had some curves here and there. But hers was just fats,"

Clara stifled her irritation and forced a tight smile to the handsome, dark-haired man who was sitting across the table as he grimaced in disgust.

Handsome but an asshole.

"You know I actually asked you out on a date because I thought you were kind of pretty and totally my type too,"

Kind of pretty?

Clara clenched her fists under the table and tried to calm herself down. It was a Friday night and she did not want humiliate this man in public.

Regret burned her. She had sit here for 30 minutes and listened to this man that she came across on Textin ranting on every girl he went out with, like they were below him.

It reminded her of Jack. Jack had always condemned every girl he came across, even strangers on the streets. It tick her off when he had openly insulted and body-shamed his own ex-girlfriends to his friends and in front of her too.

She bent her head and started texting Zaphire underneath the table.

(7:05pm) Clara: Call me RIGHT NOW.

She looked back up at the man in front of her and gave him a half smile as he continued talking. She had glanced fleetingly at the waitresses as they walked around in the restaurant busy taking orders.

After waiting for two minutes, her phone started ringing.

"Sorry. I need to take this," she motioned him to stop talking.

"Hello," she said, trying to hide her eagerness.

"What do you want?" Zaphire asked over the phone with a flat tone. She could already imagine Zaphire's blank face at this moment.

"What?" Clara exclaimed even though Zaphire did not say anything. "Is it serious? Are you ok?" She planted a worried look on her face to show the man in front of her. The man looked annoyed and pointed at his watch, as if telling her she was wasting his time.

You are wasting my time. Clara thought and gave him an apologetic smile.

She hung up the call and explained. "My girlfriend had a fight with her fiancé again. She's in the hospital and I need to go now. I'm so sorry. I really am! The dinner's on me alright?" She waved to the waitress and asked for the bill.

"But the dessert isn't here yet,"

"It's fine. I don't like dessert anyway. You can stay if you want,"

To her relief, the waitress quickly returned with the bill.

"Keep the change," she told the waitress and stood up, ready to make her escape.

"Wait, is your friend ok?" The man suddenly asked.

"Yeah she is. Her fiancé isn't," Clara said to him, as if warning him not to fuck with women and rushed out the restaurant before he could reply.

She got into the Uber that she had waited for five minutes and dialled Zaphire's number.

"Who had a fight with her fiancé?" Zaphire asked the moment she picked up her call.

"You heard?" Clara gave out a soft chuckle, feeling embarrassed. "Thanks for the rescue."

"So the date clearly did not go well,"

"Don't even get me started" Clara murmured.

"How many now?" Clara could hear Jessy's laugh over the phone.

"Five... I'm coming over now. Leave some pizza for  me," she said and hung up the call.

How many dates had she been to?

Five.

None of them went well.

The first one was too full of himself. He was a freelance model. He had been too eager to show off his abs photos to Clara on the first date. He probably wished they were in private and could already take off his shirts to show her more.

The second one was bad too. He was already in a relationship and he made it clear that he just wanted sex. No strings attached, as he put it.

"No strings attached, my ass!" Clara remembered saying that to him before leaving.

The third one was an I* influencer. When he found out Clara had her own cosmetics brand, he was too eager to please. He had asked Clara almost a thousand times, even harassing her through texts after their date, if he could be her brand ambassador.

The fourth one was the worst. The moment he saw Clara, he had mentioned that he did not expect Clara to be that tall and that he had expected her to be more petite.

"Maybe you're just short," she retorted when the man had mentioned her height, which was true because she was 5'6. She had never been considered tall among her friends before. She felt like slapping his face at his insolent and unfeeling remark.

"I give up," she laid on the couch as soon as she reached Zaphire's apartment. Jessy was already on her way to the kitchen counter to grab her a glass of wine.

"Come on... you've only been to five dates. I've been to..." Jessy stopped in her tracks and started counting but gave up after a while. "Forget it. I don't even know anymore."

Clara laughed as she took the glass of wine from Jessy's hand. "Thank you,"

"It takes time," Jessy said.

"I'm not even looking for a rich, handsome and nice guy. I'm just trying to find a normal decent man. Maybe start off as friends and then see how it goes from there," Clara explained and took a bite of her pizza.

"Maybe you should try the park then. Not dating app," Zaphire suggested. Jessy laughed and earned a glare from Clara.

"Where's Maya?" Clara asked when she realised Maya was not around.

"On a date... with Stephen," Zaphire answered and scrolled through Netflix on the TV.

"A decent date," Jessy added.

"Can you not?" Clara hit her arms in annoyance.

"Fine! I'll give you a tip," Jessy sighed.

"Why didn't you say earlier!" Clara said. "I could have skipped those awful dates,"

"The tip is... don't go on a date first. Give it a month, or two even better, before you agree to meet him. Text him more. See how he reacts to most of your texts. If he's only into sex, you'll know once he brings up the dirty talking," Jessy explained.

"What if he's a jerk?" Zaphire asked out of curiosity.

"A jerk won't spend time texting you for a month or two. They don't have the patience. Usually they'll get bored by the end of the week. Longest is two weeks," Jessy said proudly, as if she had mastered the minds of different men.

"What if he's just a player? Baiting and all that stuff?" Clara asked.

"Oh then you're on your own girl." Jessy shrugged.

"Look. That's the whole point of online dating. You'll never know. You gotta find it out yourself. Getting to know a man is like getting a Christmas present. You need to unwrap it yourself and see what's inside. And sometimes you do get shitty gifts after all," Jessy grimaced.

"Maybe if you would be kind enough to stop the bet, then I will no longer get shitty gifts," Clara retorted.

"Then you'll never get out there. I know you Clara," Jessy looked at her with narrowed-eye.

They all knew her too well. When it comes to men, Clara became a coward. She would run away when she had seen a few red flags in a man. They were shocked when they had found out she was dating Jack. Even a blind man could see that man never really loved her.

Perhaps deep down, she knew it too. But she was just in denial the entire time.

"Well then I might really consider paying for your Boracay trip now," Clara fought back.

"Fair enough. We're gonna stay at Shangri-La then," Jessy smirked when she heard Clara gasped. If they were going to stay there for a week, it would cost a fortune.

"I hate you," Clara muttered under her breath.

She turned her attention back to her phone and started scrolling photos of different men on the app again.

Left... Not interested.

Right... Interested.

Left... Not interested.

Author's Note-

*In case you don't know what left and right meant, usually on dating app, swiping right means you're interested in the guy. Swiping left means not interested.*