After selecting a perfectly engineered man, Victoria Scott discovers that being in a relationship with a bot is hard. Especially when he can't even get your name right.
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Over the next couple of weeks, life continues on without Adam. I'm surprised at how much I don't miss him and wonder if I should reevaluate how badly I want a relationship.
After listening to a client berate me for almost an hour about why she deserves full coverage on her now failing autofly engine, I have a major headache. I push myself up from the glass-wall cubicle and head for the lounge. I'm in need of coffee. I still have four more hours of this shit.
The lounge is empty save one person. Lyla James. Her back is to me but it looks like she's fixing herself a cup of that trendy anti-aging tea.
I draw in a steady breath before I meet her at the counter, but the sound of her sniffling causes me to pause. Is she crying? I strain to listen, awkwardly frozen behind her. When she yanks on a nearby paper towel and blows her nose into it with repetitive whines, it confirms that she is indeed crying.
Normally, nothing could make me happier than seeing this. Everyone's little social princess having an episodic breakdown in the lounge? How unprofessional. But even my cold heart can't just leave her like this.
"Lyla?"
She spins around; her eyes widen. "Tori," she says and then exhales. "It's just you."
Whelp.
I clasp my hands. "You alright?"
For a girl whose dream wedding isn't until October, it's a little early to be wasting tears over things gone wrong. I should know. Paxton didn't dump me until two days before ours.
Lyla wipes her eyes and steps out of the way. "Of course, of course. I'm just...I'm on my period."
I fix her a stare. "So nothing is bothering you?"
She shrugs and looks down at her mug. "I remember it like yesterday, Tori. I never did get to tell you how sorry I was that Paxton did that to you. I couldn't find the words. I... I wimped out."
Rocked to my very core, my entire face becomes crimson. "It's fine." I swallow. "The truth is that there are no words to say when something like that happens. It's just shitty."
Lyla nods and when she brings her head back up, her newly colored gray eyes are full of tears. Each tear falls like a silver drop of paint down her brown cheeks. "What if Mateo does the same thing?" She begins to cry so uncontrollably that she hiccups in between saying, "I caught him looking at a female bot site last night."
Oh. Oh, shit.
Before I reply, I retrace my steps back to the lounge door and lock it. Despite how I feel about Lyla, no one needs to see her like this. She'll never recover from the office talk if they do.
I then head back to her and grab her hand. I take her to the suede couch in the corner. "Lyla, that isn't going to happen."
She blows her nose into the paper towel. "How do you know? You said so yourself that the bots know how to please. And-and you're always posting on ConNekt about how sweet and thoughtful Adam is."
I pat her back, holding my laugh. "Um, so Adam is currently getting a factory reset. He had so many issues."
Her crying stops but the hiccups remain. "What?"
I sigh. "Like the sex was good because he's basically a human-shaped vibrator but other than that, he's been a pain in the ass."
She gurgles, "What do you mean?"
As I explain how he duped me and purchased the most tackiest items for the house, her eyes round in horror. I also explain how he couldn't process my emotions properly. How once he went into sleep mode in the middle of sex. And how I ultimately decided he was defective, but either way, I wasn't missing him.
"Oh my gosh! I would've never known."
"Yeah. So maybe you should give Mateo a heads up from me." I wink.
Lyla shakes her head. "I've been thinking about getting off of ConNekt for a while. It's just so fake—everyone and everything, especially me."
Her statement doesn't elicit a selfish, secret delight in me like it maybe would have an hour ago. Instead, it just inspires. "I think I'll do the same."
We hug each other and she heads over to retrieve her tea on the counter. "Maybe we can get our nails done one day. We could talk more."
"I'd like that."
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Author's Note:
Thanks for keeping up with this story--I am always grateful! Only ONE more part from here and that concludes this story :D
Question: Were you expecting Lyla James to breakdown like this in front of Tori? Hopefully it helps Tori to see that she isn't so alone after all.
