And I don’t even know anymore.
Not without him.
Name: Pandora Booth
Age: 28
Let’s get one thing clear. This was a terrible fucking idea.
But here I was. Staring down the barrel of heartbreak and a dating app like it was a loaded weapon. My fingers trembled as I hovered over the fields, fake identity ready to be born. The name came too easy—Pandora Booth. Something about the chaos inside me felt right in picking the name of a woman who opened a box and unleashed hell on the world.
I guess I’d just opened mine.
Did I lie about my age? Absolutely. I typed28—not because I was trying to be older, but because maybe if I could be someone different, I wouldn’t feel so fucking wrecked. Twenty-eight sounded like she had her shit together. Penn Allen sure as hell didn’t.
I stared at the empty profile picture circle. “Now,” I whispered into the dim silence, “let’s think about this... do I go full catfish?”
Answer: Yes.
Hold up. Wait. I knew this part. I needed a face—the face—something hot, unattainable, ethereal. The kind of woman Blake would have done a double-take for. Someone who wasn’t built out of library books and cardigan threads. Someone who didn’t dissolve when her world fell apart.
God, no wonder he left me. I felt it like a knife under the ribs every time I thought it.
I opened Google and typed “hot Angelina Jolie lookalike,” then scrolled through the sea of pouts, bone structure, and fantasy. Found her. The one. Sent it to my email. Saved to my phone. This girl? She wasn’t sad. She wasn’t broken. She didn’t whisper her ex’s name into the tile grout of her bathroom floor.
She was fire and leather and red wine.
She was exactly who I needed to be.
Upload image? Check.
Next: About You.
Shit.
My fingers hovered. My breath snagged.
What do I even say? What does someone likePandora Boothsay about herself? I chewed my lip, glanced over at Blake’s pillow on the far side of the bed, and felt the sting wash over me all over again.
God, I missed him. It was a hunger in my bones. I hated him. I loved him. I would’ve bled for him. Hell, Iwasbleeding for him in the worst ways.
But tonight wasn’t about him. Tonight was about her.
Pandora.
“She’s confident,” I murmured aloud, fingers tapping rhythmically on the screen. “She’s sexy. She’s mysterious. She’s not got a goddamn cardigan in sight.”
I opened my laptop and started scrolling dating bios. Everything sounded so fake.
Adventurous, outgoing, love to laugh...
Blah. Vomit. Who the hell even talks like that?
I tried.
“Not here for long. Just long enough to ruin your playlist and leave lipstick on your whiskey glass.”
I smirked.
