Make Me a Double: An enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy by Raina Joy Wilder

Author:Raina Joy Wilder [Wilder, Raina Joy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mirror House Press
Published: 2023-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

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How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

In the coming days, the initial mollifying effect of Chuck’s vulnerability and comforting embrace wears off and I am left instead with a slow drip of remorse for telling him something dark and deep within me, for letting him even have the slightest glimpse of my mother and my pain, because now I’m terrified he’s going to somehow use it against me. Additionally, I’ve begun an inventory of his wretchedness as I tally everything he’s done so far to drive me bonkers: teased me like a uncreative schoolboy, humiliated me by faking someone’s identity, and then the unforgivable face in the toilet incident. How I, for one moment, even buckled and leaned into him for a hug when he’s shown me exactly who he is from the get-go is so far beyond me that I don’t even know if I can trust myself around him at this point. Because who knows what might happen next time I’m alone with him—I might kill him, or worse, kiss him.

Because the night after our encounter outside my apartment, I had a dream I kissed him.

Perhaps I should call it a nightmare, but the eeriest part of it was that in the dream, I was utterly contented. I was standing in a forest, surrounded by butterflies that floated between the tree branches and landed like quivering, colorful leaves. He held my warm hand in his warm hand. I bent up toward him, he caressed my chin with a finger, our lips locked, my eyes shut, and I saw nothing but I felt everything. Everything, everything, everything.

Then my alarm sounded and I woke up with a gasp, jolting upright in bed, turning to my mirror to ask, “What the hell was that?”

I still don’t know, but it’s utterly chilling. More frightening than a Shirley Jackson book, more sensually disturbing than Lolita. I would rather turn into a cockroach than turn soft for that man. This is why I have gone to great lengths to avoid Chuck for a week and two days now and counting … and the threat, of course. The vague threat that I have something coming.

Perhaps I should have accepted a truce.

“I’m sure he was joking,” Eva says as we open together on Saturday.

Eva suffers from a near terminal case of optimism, especially when it comes to Chuck. For example, he has returned ten percent of her texts since they started corresponding. We did the math. Yet she is sure he is interested in her. Another example? Last week the police visited Brady’s on two separate occasions because customers out front were exhibiting drunk and disorderly conduct (shrieking, arguing, vomiting in a potted plant). Eva is convinced that the police presence is a positive sign that Brady’s is a safe, protected place. And yet she hid behind the bar as if she were afraid a bomb was going to go off the whole time the drunk and disorderlies were arrested.

“Chuck’s not joking,” I assure her.

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