Olivia
“We need to do some collateral damage,” I tell Kiersten and Henry. We are at a cafe down the street having lunch, but I am so focused on the task at hand that I have hardly touched my sandwich.
“You don’t think Kiersten’s series is doing that?” Henry asks as he takes a bite of his grain bowl.
“I’m not saying that,” I say. “The series is a hit. I’m surprised how many listeners have been loyal after the Luca fiasco. But speaking of the Luca fiasco, we need to address the elephant in the room. Because people are still probably curious about what happened.”
“Are you going to tell them?” Henry asks. “Admit that we fucked up? No offense, Livv but it sounds a little risky.”
“It would be suicide,” Kiersten says flatly.
I nod. “I know. I know. We have to be tactful. But not addressing it is just as risky. It makes us look like a drama podcast going for shock factor instead of self-help,” I say.
“Or, as I like to call it, empowerment and improvement,” Henry says, and I smile.
“Exactly.”
“So how exactly do you plan to execute this?” Kiersten asks. “Because it’s going to be nothing short of brain surgery. One wrong cut and it’s lights out.”
But I just continue to smile. Suddenly, Sadie takes a seat next to me. “Sorry I’m late. Work is insanity,” she says as she sets her sunglasses on top of her head and smiles at Henry and Kiersten, who are lost. “Did you tell them yet?”
“Tell us what?” Kiersten asks skeptically.
“I’ve thought this through. And if you trust me, I have a plan. Well. Sadie came up with it. But we think it could work,” I say.
“Wait,” Henry cuts in. “So the two of you are…”
“Good,” I say, and Sadie agrees with a grin.
“Of course we are good. And I’m also good with Livv and Luca,”
“Alrighty then,” Henry says. “Let’s hear this master plan.”
“I want to do an episode about catfish,” I say, and Kiersten and Henry both look confused.
“Haven’t we been doing that?” Henry asks. “This feels very Groundhog Day.”
But I just keep smiling. “I want to do an episode about catfishing in the current series.”
“Still lost,” Kiersten says impatiently.
“Your current series is all about real love stories, right?” Sadie asks.
“It is called Real Life Love Stories…” Kiersten says, but Sadie is salty enough to dodge the sarcasm.
“We want to do an episode centering around Luca and Olivia. I mean, honestly, who has a wilder love story than them?” Sadie says.
“Go on…” Henry says with narrowed eyes as he takes a sip of boba.
“I want to tell everyone everything. The good, the bad–”
“The sexy,” Sadie says with a little shoulder shimmy.
“It would start with the truth. With who I thought he was. What my plan was. My motive for doing it. And then…the truth.”
“So you want to recap your entire chaotic story in the hopes of romancing our skeptical listeners and polishing the reputation of the podcast,” Henry says.
“Pretty much,” I nod, and they think about it.
“People are going to eat it up,” Sadie says.
“And not because it’s juicy, high-concept, or loaded with drama,” I say.
“Even though it kind of is,” Sadie giggles.
“But because it’s real. It shows mistakes. It shows vulnerability, loyalty, and betrayal. It shows what really happens when people who have been burned by love put themselves out there. It shows…the truth…” I blink my eyes multiple times, finding they are suddenly hot.
“I love it,” Henry says. “Let’s do it.”
“Yeah?” I smile, and he nods.
“Hell yeah,” he grins.
“Hold on,” Kiersten cuts it. “It’s good. Don’t get me wrong. It’s really good. But there’s just one tiny concern…”
“Which is?” Sadie asks.
“It’s not a love story,” she says.
“Sure it is,” Henry argues. “It’s got all the elements.”
“Except a happ…” Kiersten says, and I bite my lip. Sadie offers an empathetic smile and squeezes my hand.
“And that…” I say as I do my best to swallow the lump of emotion in my throat, “Is what I’m hoping to change by doing this episode.”
Everyone offers me the same smile as Sadie’s. Because I think it’s safe to say, all we can do is hope.
* * *
“This is Kiersten K.”
“And this is Olivia Ramone.”
“And I am Sadie, a guest host for the day.”
“And this is Unmatched, Real Life Love stories,” she goes on.
We are live and, as usual, listeners are piling in, giving me faith that this could work.
I have my notes, carefully written so that I say everything I need to say.
Hopefully without choking or throwing up or anything else that would sound off-putting in a state-of-the-art microphone.
And all I can do now is hope that Luca is listening.
We did decide not to leave that totally up to fate. Kiersten tagged Luca as a suggested listener on the podcast, and Sadie may or may not have texted Matt about it. I don’t know all the details and I didn’t want to know. Writing the content for the episode was nerve-wracking enough.
“Today we have a special treat for you,” she says. “An episode that will answer a lot of questions you may have had about our last series. You know the one. Catfish, betrayal, an attempt to catch what we thought was the biggest catfish in the dating world.”
“Emphasis on thought…” I add in before Kiersten goes on.
“But don’t worry, I’m not here to string you along.
Let’s dive into today’s story. A story of a dating app CEO who believes in love but not in fate.
And a dating podcast host whose belief in love is rooted entirely in the concept of serendipity.
Add a little revenge plot to that, some unhealthy competition, a hearty amount of tension, and a splash of attraction, and it’s the perfect combination of enemies to lovers.
And who better to tell you this real-life story than the FMC herself. Olivia?”
“Hey everyone. Yep. It’s true. We are really going to talk about me and Luca Laurent,” I say.
“For those of you who don’t know, Luca Laurent is the CEO of Realr and he’s also the MMC of this story,” Kiersten adds.
“He is,” I hop back in. “But contrary to what you might believe, to what we tried to get you to believe in our last series, Luca Laurent is not the villain of this story. Or the catfish. I met Luca through a friend. A friend who had feelings for him. And then those feelings weren’t reciprocated, her heart broke.
We’ve all been there. We all know how that feels.
Which is why my friend is not entirely to blame for everything that went down.
None of us are. But we are all responsible. ”
“You see…when I saw my friend crying into a bottle of wine, I got angry. She’s my best friend, and he was the man who caused those tears, intentional or not.
So…I did something very uncharacteristic of me.
It went against my own morals and the integrity of what Unmatched stands for.
I suggested that we get revenge. That we catfish Luca Laurent in an attempt to prove he is the biggest of all catfish.
And the worst part is, we decided to base the podcast series around it, completely unbeknownst to Luca.
“Come to find out, Luca knew that Sadie and I were friends. He also knew that we were trying to get revenge. And you know what he did? He played along,” I laugh and my friends watch and listen with inspired smiles as I tell the story.
And while I am still following my notes, a lot of it is coming out naturally.
“So here we were, both knowing the other person was messing with us, both knowing we were trying to out-catfish each other, all while going on one date after another. But what we didn’t plot, what we didn’t predict, was that on those dates, the connection would go from staged…
to real. Somewhere in the middle of it all, we started to fall for each other.
Somewhere in the middle of it all the lines blurred, and it became real.
Real enough that I betrayed my friend and let myself fall for him. ”
“But the betrayal wasn’t on Olivia alone,” Sadie chimes in. “Because the connection that I had with Luca, the date gone wrong, was my fault. A misunderstanding that hurt my ego enough that I wanted to hurt him. And what better way to hurt him than to set him up?”
I look down at the numbers. As we expose ourselves, part of me expects the listeners to taper off. But it’s the opposite. People are pouring into the chat, the number shooting through the roof by fives and tens at a time. People are invested. And I can only hope one of those listeners is Luca.
“Was it right?” I ask. “Sadie lying about the details of her date with Luca and me agreeing to catfish Luca in an attempt to label him the king of catfish, all while putting the whole thing on public blast? Of course not. It’s not who I am, and it’s not what Unmatched stands for.
Because over time the feelings were real.
And with real feelings at stake, we were bound to hurt people.
I hurt Sadie by doing the one thing I promised not to do–fall in love with the man who broke her heart. ”
“And I hurt Olivia by not being honest about what really happened with Luca and me,” she adds.
“And I hurt Luca by not telling him about the podcast. At the end of the day, everyone got hurt. But I don’t think it was out of competition or pride.
I think…it was out of fear. It’s the one common denominator for all of us.
We are afraid. Afraid of being alone. Afraid of never finding the one, no matter how many nights we go to the local bar or how many times we tweak our dating app profiles.
And most of all, afraid of actually trusting someone with our hearts when we do find the real thing. ”
I take in a shaky breath before going on.
“Luca has built an empire on the belief that algorithms and science can help people find their soulmates. Even if he wouldn’t use that word to label it.
And we, here at Unmatched, have built a smaller empire on persuading people that you can do it without an app.
Without intervention. And yet…in the end, we’re doing the same thing.
Because whether a fine-tuned app created to match you with people who might interest you is how you meet your possible happily ever after, or you run into them at a grocery store, reaching for the same carton of oat milk at the same time, it’s still not accidental.
It’s still two people looking for love and finding it. It’s still…fate.”
“And that said…I believe Luca and I were meant to connect. And I believe that despite everything that happened, we are supposed to be together. That is…if he can look past the initial motives and secrets and algorithms and forgive me.”
“We have a caller,” Henry says, and all of us look up. Henry doesn’t usually talk during recordings, and it throws me a little.
My eyes dart between them, and I mute my mic before mouthing the words, “I thought we weren’t doing callers on this series.”
“We aren’t,” Henry says back. “But I think we should take this one.”
I look over at Kiersten, who looks just as lost. Then she looks at Henry’s tablet, and her eyes go wide.
“Yeah…Livv you’re gonna wanna take this one,” she agrees, making no attempt to keep her voice down.
“Trust,” Henry says with a smile.
“Alright,” I stutter. “You heard them. I guess we are taking a caller. Put them through,” I say.
“Olivia,” Luca’s voice comes through the line, and my mouth pops open.