RIVAL HEARTS: FORBIDDEN LOVE TRIANGLE

The email had said nine a.m. sharp. It was 8:15 a.m., and I stood before the glass walls of Starlak Corporation. My resume pressed flat against my chest.

My jaw dropped as I stepped into the lobby, which was polished with marble floors and chandelier light.

"Good morning. Welcome to Starlak Corporation. How may I help you?" The receptionist asked.

"I'm here for an interview scheduled for 9am."

"Okay, follow me." She led me to another room where other applicants were waiting. 

I gazed around the building in awe. The glass tower of Starlak Corporation was more intimidating in person than any photo online had shown me. 

I settled into a navy blue outfit, which Emilia insisted I wear after the blizzard morning of outfit changes.

I adjusted my blazer as I sat upright, my chest tightened, running through every answer I'd rehearsed in the mirror.

I had applied to Starlak a month ago, but I never got a response. Emilia always pressured me to apply to other places, but I couldn't let it go. Everything I'd read about Starlak told me that was where I was supposed to be.

Now sitting in the room, after living rent-free in Emilia's apartment, I could finally feel a new start for Ama Wellington.

"Ama Wellington?" 

I swallowed a pill before I walked in.

The interview panel sat behind a long table - three of them, sharp suits, sharper expressions. I answered every question they threw at me. Confident. Prepared. I could feel myself doing well, could see it in the way one of them nodded along.

After my interview, I didn't know what to expect; a sense of confidence, yet fear, encompassed me. "Yeah, I got this," I said to myself.

I spent one reckless hour daydreaming about my life here, maybe the start of something.

"Good day, everyone." A lady called out. She looked precise, controlled, who looks like she's never been caught off guard.

"I'm Elena Woods. The senior secretary in this establishment. I'm glad to have all of you here. With me are the results from the interview and your credentials already submitted." She said with a warm smile on her face.

Looking at the piece of paper in her hands, I knew my name had to be assigned to one post for sure.

"And it's going to be an honour working with you all. Good luck."

My eyes lit with excitement as I anticipated my name.

The first was called.

And another 

And another.

"Congratulations to the selected; the rest of you can try again next time. Thank you." 

"That's not all right? I mean, I didn't hear my name. There is another list, right?" I didn't know why or when I said that. The whole room stopped, staring at me.

"What's your name, Miss?" Elena stepped towards me.

"Ama Wellington." 

"Miss Wellington, thank you for your time today." Her voice was pleasant, rehearsed - the voice of someone who'd delivered this exact speech many times before. Unfortunately, the board has decided to go in another direction. You're not what Starlak is looking for at this time."

Not what Starlak is looking for. Not good enough. The words rearranged themselves in my head until they sounded exactly like my father's voice, and something in me - exhaustion, maybe, or the last scraped edge of my pride - wouldn't let me just nod and leave the way I usually did.

"Why? There must be a reason why?"

Elena blinked at me, like I wasn't meant to question their verdict. "I'm sorry?"

"You said another direction. I'd like to know what that means. I answered every question exactly how I prepared for it. So either I did something wrong that I'm not aware of, or the reason isn't really about the interview at all." My voice shook on the last few words, but I didn't look away from her.

Other candidates began to whisper to each other, but in all, I stood unshaken before Elena.

"Hmm... Miss Ama,  you can rest assured that our board members aren't biased in their decisions. It's simply a board decision, Miss Wellington. I don't have further details to share. Thank you."She replied.

I didn't know what else to say. I didn't have anything to prove. Maybe I was just too afraid to accept the fact that I'd lost once again. So I thanked her, because that was the only thing left to do.

 I walked out with my folder still pressed to my chest. I stopped by the cafeteria to get coffee before making my way to the elevator.

By the time I hit the lobby, my eyes were burning with tears. Good for nothing. How can I change my life when I can't even secure a job? How can I prove him wrong?

I was walking too fast, not looking where I was going, not minding the conversation happening around me, until I hit something.

Better still, someone-hard enough that my coffee slipped out of my hands, down onto an expensive-looking shirt.

"Fuck. Watch where you're going." The man snapped. 

With my face still bowed down. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't looking; let me help you clean it off." I grabbed a napkin from my bag and started dabbing his shirt before I fully understood I was touching a stranger's chest in the middle of a lobby.

He caught my wrist and yanked it out hard. "Get your hands off me. Who allowed someone like her inside?"

I stood there, coffee-stained napkin in my hands, head still bowed to the ground in the same company that had just rejected me. Now, I accidentally spilt coffee all over a total stranger; I should have just stayed home.

"Throw this woman out of here. She doesn't have a place here." The man yelled.

Something in me, already raw and bleeding from the last two hours, snapped clean in half.

I finally looked up. Tall. Sharp-dressed. Eyes the colour of something I'd never seen on a person before - emerald green, burning straight through me with a fury that had nowhere else to go, apparently, except me.

"Excuse me?" My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "Who the hell do you think you are? With your cheap designer suit you probably got from Primark. Asshole."

I didn't wait for his response. I walked straight out of Starlak Corporation, past a lobby full of strangers staring after me, and didn't look back once.

***

I cried into Emilia's arms the second I got home. She didn't ask questions, just held me until I was ready to talk, then made me eat something even though I had no appetite.

That night, I wrote in my diary until my hand cramped, my thoughts circling back - not to the interview, not even to the coffee-stained stranger, but to my father's voice. You are good for nothing.

Maybe he was right.

I picked up my phone, and I found myself hovering over my mother's contact - my thumb an inch from calling her. 

But I didn't call. Some doors, once you close them, you tell yourself you're not allowed to open them again.

I was almost asleep when my phone buzzed - an email; the subject startled me awake: Welcome to Starlak - Offer of Employment.

I sat up so fast and read it twice, then a third time, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into a rejection like everything else had that day. But they didn't.

"Ahhhhhhhh," I screamed so loud the whole neighbourhood probably heard.

Emilia rushed towards me as I waved the phone over her face. 

A few hours ago, Elena told me I had no position. Now the same company is offering me a position I hadn't even applied for. Secretary to the CEO. 

None of it made sense, and no part of me believed it was luck.

Ding.

Another message came, but not from Starlak.

Unknown number: Congratulations, Ama. You don't know me yet. But you will.