Kiss Deceive Repeat

Prologue

I sit before the three heads of our department with dread pooling in my stomach. The only man in the committee smiles warmly at me and I give a small smile back. He opens a brown file which reads my name in bold letters on the cover and glances through it. My eyes snap to my boss, sitting to the right of the man, and I grin nervously at her. When she doesn't reciprocate it, my anxiety shoots up.

"Your file is very impressive Ms. Del Bosque, I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly?" He asks. I'm so flustered that I don't bother with the correction and simply nod my head.

The man smiles and continues, "I specially like what I see here about implementing this new filing system." I smile back, my nerves settling a little, "thank you."

"Filing system?" Diana asks in an acerbic tone. "Oh!," She says, recognition flashing over her stone cold expression. "Do you mean those colourful labels you put on all the files," she asks and the looks at her colleagues, laughing at the non-joke. "They certainly make the insides of the cabinet a lot brighter."

"Well they uh... they do a lot more than that uh..." I fret and make a wild hand gesture, mentally smacking myself for it a second later.

The woman to the Mr. Banner's left speaks next. "I notice that you have been entrusted with a lot of important responsibilities," Mrs. Brown states. I smile, "Yes, Diana has been an amazing mentor to me." Diana smiles, "Oh! And Izel has been really good at getting me my morning coffee, it's amazing how she gets it right almost every time." My heart thunders in my chest, "The first t-t-time I g-got you any c-coffee was to-to-today, what are you talking about?" I stutter and take in short gasps of air.

"Okay?" Mrs. Brown, doubtfully asks. Mr. Banner tries to break the tension in the room with a strained laugh and asks me something else. "An important part of this job is cultivating personal relationships," he says, "specially with our high profile clients who may act pompous and condescending most of the time."

I smile tensely and nod my head, "yes, I-" Diana cuts in before I have a chance to say anything else, "Izel shouldn't have a problem with that," she says. And then she adds, "her only problem might be getting too friendly, if you know what I mean?" She says and looks in my direction, insinuating her implication quite clearly.

The heads of the departments burst into laughter. My eyes sting from the salt of my tears and I roughly push my chair back. The door bangs when I shut it and the tears start falling freely as I get into the cab. On a normal day I would have shut Diana up and explained my point without stuttering or crying. But the day your abuela dies is never a normal day. And the sting of my best friend's betrayal had bruised my heart in a manner I couldn't quite explain.