Today was going to change my life, I just didn't know it yet.

I took time off work in the morning to run around campus, collecting all the documentation I needed to renew my OPT visa. It was still well before the deadline but other international students recommended that I get it done ASAP. This spoke directly to the part of me that wanted to be ahead of the curve, which was why I went for it. My academic counsellor engaged in the process and after a few days of getting the final signatures and approval stamps, I was ready to file the application today.

When I made it to the office, I was a drenched in sweat. The blast of air conditioning was welcome, even if I faced an afternoon of putting up with my nemesis. To my fortune he was away from his desk when I barged. After firing up my work laptop, I set myself as Do Not Disturb in the instant messaging system of the company and set out to work.

Emails pinged in my inbox a couple of times but I ignored them as I filled in the application, making sure to double, triple and quadruple check every digit I typed. My heart hammered in my throat as I worked on my file. Every time I had to do something like this it felt like there wasn't enough oxygen in the room to keep my brain functioning normally. Instead of being calm and logical, I panicked, thinking about getting a rejection if I made the littlest typo. I was so engrossed in this that I didn't even notice when Gabe returned to his desk beside me.

Despite the air conditioning, I continued to sweat. At some point I started to pray that this went well, that it could lead to buying me all the time I needed to impress Jeff and his bosses into hiring me full time, and not Gabe—and also sponsor me for a H1B. That was my dream, to have a work permit that allowed me to stay in this country for a good while. So I could establish roots and grow and thrive without fearing for my safety.

It wouldn't do anything to erase the fear I carried within me over my family's safety, though. But maybe if I worked hard enough, if I rose within the company to better paying positions, maybe I could help support my family. And ultimately, maybe I could bring them here. At least mami. I highly doubted that papi or Cora would ever consider it.

The cursor blinked as it hovered over the finish and submit button. I went back one more time, perhaps the twentieth, to make sure everything was perfect. I wished I had someone next to me who could offer a fresh pair of eyes but there was no one here I trusted with my life like this. Eventually I hit the button. All the adrenaline coursing through my body rushed down and out. It was as though my entire frame dropped to try to catch the falling level, starting by drooping shoulders and jelly arms. I allowed myself to just lower my hot cheek to the surface of my desk, close my eyes and breathe until my heart rate slowed down to normal.

It was done. Gracias a Dios.

When I opened my eyes again it was to meet Gabe's directly. His eyebrows were scrunched up and raised, as though he'd been analyzing a complex equation that he couldn't solve. I opened my mouth, ready to fire some Spanish choice words at him, but he just turned back to his screen and ignored me.

Con que es así.

Okay, two could play that game. I straightened up and checked my inbox. There were sixteen emails that had come in the course of the time I took filing the application and all of them were between Gabe and Jeff. I went to the first one in the thread where he requested a quick calculation from Gabe and I. The familiar hot flash of instant stress returned. Quickly, I skimmed through the entire thread and found that the request was due for a conference call Jeff was already in with his boss, Marty, and Marty's corporate bosses. And of course I hadn't even noticed because I was only too busy securing my future.

I gritted my teeth as I opened the attachment Gabe sent in his response, probably after working on it silently beside me. Of course I knew that after rescinding our deal he would go on full frontal attack. I had no right to feel like he'd betrayed me by not telling me that we had that request. And yet I still felt like he'd gone behind my back to send the calculation quickly and get all the praise.

In full spite mode, I went over every detail of his calculations and a flare of joy erupted in me when I found one mistake. After combing through everything and confirming it was only the one mistake, but that it caused a five percent deviation in the result, I fired up a very kind and helpful note to both Jeff and Gabe with the correction.

It was hard not to gloat when Jeff responded with his gratitude for catching that detail. I straight up wanted to punch the air when Gabe responded admitting to the error's existence due to the quickness of his response.

"Haven't you heard?" I told him over my shoulder in a singing voice. "Quick doesn't always mean better."

He rolled his eyes and still dared to retort with, "That's what she said."

"So that's how it's gonna be now, huh?" I folded my arms, taking pleasure in ignoring his comment. When his attention returned to me I added, "Cutthroat and backstabbing."

"Wow, you make me sound like some mustache twirling villain." Gabe snorted and shook his head. "What did you think was gonna happen, Kitty Cat? You should've kept to the deal if what you wanted was to have no competition."

The logic was sound. If our positions were reversed I would think precisely in those terms. And yet out of principle I could never agree with someone who called me Kitty Cat.

"Well, if you weren't such a massive jerk I wouldn't have dropped out." It wasn't the argument with the most finesse but it was exactly how I felt. "Hopefully, this serves as a lesson for you that girls aren't toys."

I could tell that lit a fire within him when his nostrils flared and his brow plunged. He wheeled himself closer so he could whisper. "For your information I took your advice and had a nice little chat with Liz that resulted in this."

Then he turned to present the side that faced the opposite way. He had a bandaid on his face and even without him removing it, I could see a thin scratch on his cheek. My mouth opened.

"So yeah, I'm not the jerk here," he said with a grunt. "I'm done putting up with her shit."

Too quick to stop it, my mouth flopped and out came, "Then maybe you should screen your girlfriends for quality over quantity."

Heavy silence fell over us as the implications of what I said sunk in. It was a nice way of calling him a man-whore after he'd admitted to the fact, in a roundabout way, that he'd perhaps suffered abuse from his partner. It wasn't a far fetched notion that guys could be victims of this too, yet I never would have pinned such a situation on Gabe, Everyone's Babe. The guy deemed most attractive in campus for two years in a row. There were so many girls who would stop at nothing to make him happy but he'd landed Liz, who not only had a thick jealous streak but who I knew for a fact also resorted to violence easily.

I thought back to the scene where she'd threatened with hitting me and how quick Gabe had been to block the upcoming blow to my face with his hand. As if he'd known his then girlfriend could react that way. As if he'd had practice. And although we'd done a shitty thing by kissing in front of her and breaking her heart, I now wondered if Gabe had done it as last resort to completely remove his ex out of his life. Out of desperation.

And I hated the fact that I felt pity for the guy who'd made me behave like an unethical fool, and shame at myself for blaming him for the failed relationship he might have been a victim in.

I couldn't believe this... but I was just about to apologize to Gabe Cabrera.

Except Jeff swooped in at that moment and completely changed the atmosphere. "Guys, thank you so much for the save. You know Pierre, Marty's boss. He wouldn't stop screaming at us and I couldn't do the math myself, but you both really saved the day."

"Oh, no problem," Gabe said easily, as though a charged conversation hadn't just been interrupted.

I smiled to Jeff. "Any time."

"Great, I'm so happy you both can perform well under pressure." He glanced at us like a proud father. "Trust me that I'll keep this in mind for the selection process."

Suddenly I wanted to puke.

Once Jeff was done with the chat I excused myself and sequestered myself in a bathroom stall, taking deep breaths to keep my lunch in my stomach.

Scratch that, Gabe was a jerk but I was a straight up asshole. I'd always got it in my head that he was the reason why bad things happened to me or the reason for my bad moods, but the shittiness was inside of me all along. I just chose to dump it on him because he showed himself as this guy with a perfect life who could stand to be taken down a few pegs. The perfect target.

I fired off a whole ass essay to Maya and Taylor with what had just happened, including all the details I'd left out after the party. We'd spent the entire weekend consoling Taylor, which had conveniently allowed me to gloss over my own shenanigans. Some half an hour later I was done with the essay that detailed my culpability and signed off with, What should I do?

Maya's response was swift, as though she'd read the wall of text as quickly as I'd typed it. It read, Apologize.

I didn't like that answer and I hoped Taylor had a different one. Her bubble of text came to life with flaring ellipses. I ran my hands up and down my face as I waited and finally she sent a smaller wall of text back.

Maya's right and you should apologize because you just victim-blamed and that's never cool. But I kinda agree with you as well in the sense that next time Gabe needs to be more careful who he hooks up with because the same thing applies to me. It wasn't like my relationship with Amber was like his with Liz, because she didn't hurt me or anything. But she was like, so dismissive? Of my feelings for her and the little things I did every day to show her how much I cared. Like, you can be a total sweetheart but it doesn't mean that other people will appreciate it. Now my ex is with a girl who treats her kind of like she treated me and she chose that, you guys said it—she chose mediocre love over real love. And that's a lesson that Gabe needs to learn. To stop looking for mediocre love and focus on finding the real deal.

I had to double read the whole thing one more time but the reread confirmed the fact that I had an important question. I texted them both, What does Gabe's love life have to do with the fact that I'm a shitty person?

Both of their text bubbles flared to life and I braced myself.

For the first time Maya saw it from my point of view and she said, Yeah, I'm kinda lost here.

What I mean is, Taylor started, making a pause as she collected her thoughts before hitting us with the rest of them. That yeah Cata, you can be kinda shitty. But maybe that's exactly what he needs? A shitty person who can teach him a very shitty lesson. I'm fortunate to call you my friend so you can tell me to my face that I was being a pushover and I deserve better. Maybe you can do the same for him.

And I care, why? I asked her, not even taking the least bit of offense that she called me shitty after I'd just admitted it myself.

Put the deal back on the table. Make him fall for you. Show him what the real thing could look like and then dump his ass, she shocked me by replying.

Then Maya fired a series of texts that started by no and ended by you're both being shitty. Didn't we agree Cata should apologize instead? How does breaking the guy's heart accomplish that?

Taylor sent the little devil emoji and followed it up with, Sure, she still should say she's sorry. But this would actually help him. We need more players in the world to be cured out of their playing ways.

My phone kept buzzing but I sat there, staring at the back of the stall's door and thinking through the logic. It wasn't like Gabe had personally wronged me and I thirsted for revenge, like Taylor clearly now felt about her ex. But I had wanted to take him down a few pegs ever since I met him with his superior looks, charisma and brain. I wanted to snatch the full time position out of his hands not just because it was what my future rested on, but also to show him that I was better. That I, the immigrant with no family around, the girl who for years had forgone building many friendships or going on dates in favor of working for her GPA—in other words, the one who had to put effort into everything—could succeed over the naturally talented Gabe with the charmed life.

I could start by apologizing and start there to build my path to victory.

I mean you have a point, I texted back after I'd caught up with the chat. It sucks that he went through all that but Liz is probably the first failure in his life. One more, far from knocking him down, is actually going to help him.

This is not the right take, Maya insisted, using the grumpy face emoji in tandem. What happened to you feeling shitty about the way you've treated him?

I knew she was being the voice of reason, but feeling bad for him had been a lapse. While yes, I recognized my wrongs, I also knew for a fact that Gabe was as cutthroat as I was. Heck, he'd just given me a small reminder earlier.

I texted my reasoning to them, Look, he's no angel and I almost fell for his tactics. If I start feeling sorry for him and treating him nicer, he will take that as a sign that he finally got through to me and I'll become his next victim instead.

And we all knew there were plenty of those in campus. He wasn't like Liz, but he'd definitely left a good classroom full of girls nursing various degrees of heartbreak. I'd seen him put each one on a pedestal while he was interested and turn a cold shoulder to them when he wasn't anymore. Even the way he'd broken things off with Liz had been painful. A simple we're done before walking away.

The only issue, I continued to text my friends. Is that I don't have the relationship chops to make a player fall for me.

Maya replied with, You can acquire them BY NOT DOING THIS!!

Taylor and I ignored her and my other friend said, Don't worry, you'll have us to coach you along the way.

This is not going to end well, Maya warned. All the coaching I'll keep doing is to tell you to stop this shit or otherwise, I'll become my mama and have to tell you I told you so when you end up hurting yourself.

My stomach did flip flops again but from a totally different feeling. The same exhilaration that had roiled within when I found Gabe's mistake in the calculation came back because I was going to find and expose his biggest calculation error: thinking that girls were his toys to play with.

And if in the process I ended up with a H1B, it wouldn't be a bad deal at all.

Alright, let's do this, I told them before putting my phone in my pocket and marching back outside to convince Gabe I wanted back in the deal. After apologizing, of course.

I love how last chapter was called "Worse Idea" when the actual worse idea is in this chapter, lol. Poor Maya, she's the only one with working neurons here and is suffering.

This chapter raises a lot of strong emotions and it's understandable! Cata is projecting her own fears and traumas onto Gabe without knowing him enough to do so. This is no doubt her lowest point and she has a lot of character development ahead of her. I hope you stick around to see Cata's growth! 💙