The next morning, I went straight from Janet's to work, with only a quick text to let Josh know what was going on.

Okay, have a good day, was all his message said in reply. He'd never been particularly verbose, but that was unusually short even for him. Worried about his lack of response, I spent the whole day eager for our date night. Tuesdays were always date nights.

When I got home from work, the house was empty except for a vase of flowers on the kitchen table, and a note that was addressed to me in Josh's writing. I left the flowers on the table and took the note with me to get ready for our date. With the semester ending and Josh going off to some fancy internship, we wouldn't see each other for several months. So this was my last chance to remind him what he'd be missing.

I slid into a floral dress and a teal and black cardigan and chose new earrings for the evening before sitting down on the edge of my bed to put on my shoes and read his note.

When I did read it, I could feel my jaw falling to the floor. "You've got to be kidding me!" I stood up, hoping he'd walk in at any moment. "What kind of sick joke is this?"

I kicked off the one shoe I had managed to secure and raced back to my purse to pull out my phone. Scrolling through the contacts, I finally found Josh and skipped straight to calling him. Contrary to what he seemed to believe, this wasn't something you did in writing.

When the call went straight to voicemail, I had my answer. The note wasn't a joke.

I'd been asking him to get me flowers for three years and the first time he decided to listen is so he can break off the engagement and ask me to please leave the ring on the table. There has to be some irony in there somewhere, but I can't find it right now.

I ripped the note in half and threw it onto the table before picking up the vase and walking across the kitchen to smash the flowers into the sink as hard as I could.

I had to try three times before the vase broke, and by that point, tears were streaming down my face and my breath was coming in sobs. I opened my phone again to see a message from him, which I ignored in favour of calling my best friend, Janet.

"This is Janet," her voicemail greeted me. "I'm unavailable right now. Please leave a message, your name, and number and I will get back to you."

I didn't even wait for the beep before I hung up and dialed her work phone.

"Janet DuBois speaking," she answered in her cheeriest work voice. "How may I assist you today?"

I sobbed into the phone, unable to form whole words as I tried to explain what had happened.

"Genevieve, is that you?" she said between my sobs.

"Yes." When I spoke it came out sounding a bit like a duck, but it was audible, so Janet changed gears.

"Are you at home?"

"Yes." I drew in a shaky breath, unable to tell her what had happened.

"Do you need me to come over?"

I took another shaky breath and managed to speak. "I'm pretty sure Josh just dumped me." I focused on deep breaths and tried to count the tiles on the backsplash.

Janet sounded confused. "How can you not be sure? Did you guys have a fight?"

My laugh came out bitter and uncontrollable. "You mean besides the one we've been having for years? No. Nothing like that." I couldn't tell anymore whether I was laughing or crying. I mean, who gets their fiancée flowers just to break up with her?

"Genevieve, you're really scaring me." Janet shuffled some papers, and I heard keys jangle in the background. "I'm coming over now."

"Could you?" I asked between my strange laugh-cry sobs. "You don't have to. I just-"

"Make sure the door's unlocked and try to drink some water." The locks on Janet's car greet her with a cheerful beep that seems terribly out of place. "I should be there in five minutes."

When the line went dead, I finally allowed myself to feel as I sank to the ground. How could he do this to me after all the work I'd done to salvage this?

I was still sitting on the floor when the front door opened to reveal my oldest friend complete with sweatpants and a messy bun. She didn't hesitate. She just rushed over and knelt down beside me, pulling me into a hug and letting my tears stain her shirt.

"Sorry," I said when I finally stopped crying. "I didn't mean to wreck your shirt. I just can't decide if I'm angry or just relieved he at least did it before the wedding."

"It's an ugly shirt, Genevieve." She waved off my apology. "And I'm definitely angry. If anyone should have done the breaking up, it should have been-"

I held my hand up, not wanting to have that discussion again.

"What happened?"

I pointed to the ripped up note on the table and she stood up to get it. Holding the two pieces together so she could read it, she stared at it far longer than was necessary. Then she looked up at me. "He broke up with you through a note?"

I nodded. "It's worse." I walked over to the sink and pulled out the remnants of the flowers I had massacred there earlier. "He did it with flowers. On date night."

"Where is he?" Janet stormed towards the backyard, probably wishing she could do something to help.

"Not here and not answering his phone." I rubbed my temples and got a glass of water.

"But why would he-?"

"Can we just pack my things and get out of here?" I stopped her stream of questions by putting up my hand. "I don't want to talk or think about this anymore, I just want to get out of here."

I could tell she wanted to ask me a hundred more questions, but she held her tongue. "Okay, let's pack your things. Do you have a suitcase? Boxes? Maybe a bin?"

I wracked my brain. "Um, I think there might be some suitcases in the basement." I followed her through the door. "But I really don't know." You'd think after sharing his house for eight months, I would know where things are.

Janet made quick work of finding suitcases and handed one to me to drag up the stairs.

"But it's not even mine!" I tried to reason with her as she pushed me upstairs.

"You might not be angry," she snapped at me. "But I am. And I don't care if they aren't your suitcases. You could take everything he owns and still give him better than he deserves, so we're packing your things in whatever damn suitcases I feel like."

I don't know what possessed me, but something about the way she yelled made me burst into a fit of laughter.

Janet must not have found it as funny as I did, because she rolled her eyes, dragged the suitcase over to my room and started pulling clothes out of my dresser straight into the open suitcase.

Once I stopped laughing, I dragged the suitcase with me to the door of my room. Not my room anymore, I reminded myself.

"Hey, Janet," I asked, gently knocking on the door.

"Yeah?" She looked over her shoulder at me.

"Thanks," I whispered.

A soft smile crossed her face, but her eyes remained tinged with sadness. "Any time, Genevieve. Truly." 

Author's Note: Loving the fake dating and want a wintery book to join your reading list? Check out my other fake dating story, a holiday/Christmas Romance novel, Under Chateau Lights. The story can be found on my profile authorelizasolares !

Hopelessly single Julie pretends to date her friend Christian in order to get her mother off her case during the family Christmas trip. But while she's there, she runs into Ronan Tremblay, the only man she's ever loved. Going from zero dates to juggling two men at once might just be more than Julie can handle.