But That's How Romantic Comedies Work

"Bro, you gotta go get her!" Stu said while seated at his gaming laptop, focused on Counter-Strike 2

Frederick was laying on his back on the couch, both palms covering his face. "I can't." His voice came out muffled and drawn out, those effects shortly withdrawing when he removed his hands. "I told you: she's going to the airport."

"Then get in your car and go to the airport too!"

"She's already at the airport. I mean, how many times do I have to tell you this?"

"Did you tell me when I was in the middle of this game?"

Frederick was about to say 'no', but then he paused. "No. You were seated right there in front of me." He gestured towards the cushion chair diagonally across from him.

Stu peeked back at him before facing the monitor again. "So, Raya was at the airport when you told me like half an hour ago?"

"No! I had said that she was going to the airport." Frederick took his phone from his chest and looked at the time. "I'm saying she's there now."

"Bro, whatever," Stu said with a shake of his head. "Oh hell yeah, I got him!" He mashed a few buttons in coordination. "I still say that you should go get her."

"I'm not..." Frederick sat up and swiveled his legs, setting his feet to the carpet. "I'm not gonna go to the airport. Then what am I gonna do? Go 'hey, Raya, I'm sorry for everything, please don't get on that plane'?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

Stu set his controller down on the desk and removed his headphones, which had been hanging about his neck. He spun around in the chair to face his friend and, recently, roommate. "You do exactly that."

Frederick scoffed.

"Don't 'tch' me. You know how it goes. You're supposed to go after your girl."

Frederick mumbled. "She's not my girl."

'Not anymore,' he thought.

Not after all that had happened.

Raya had confused him for a French chocolatier and baker named Michel L'orvat who had allegedly quit his craft and moved to an undisclosed location. Many of L'orvat's fans speculated that he had gone to a small village in the Swiss Alps. Others assumed he had packed up all of his things and left Europe entirely. Raya had been in the second category of fans. She said that she had not heard anything about L'orvat for the last two years.

Then she saw Frederick leaving a florist's shop with a golden box of chocolates in one hand. Upon opening the door for her, he had dropped the chocolates, which scattered all over the pavement. Raya had felt so bad. She apologized profusely and helped Frederick gather some of the fallen treats while he told her that she didn't have to, and that it was his and his clumsiness's fault.

Raya giggled such a musical giggle, pulling some of her dark hair back over her ear before looking at him, recognition finding her eyes. "Michel," she had said. "Michel L'orvat? You're...you're here...right outside the city..."

And Frederick, finding her brown eyes to be so magnetic, had glanced back at her, absorbing her cute smile and the joy upon seeing him. It had been how Naydeen used to look at him. Naydeen had been the one who he had gone shopping for: getting the flowers and chocolate to try to brighten her up by surprising her at work. They had had another argument that morning after Frederick questioned who John was--the same John who appeared on her phone screen when she left the device on the kitchen counter. Naydeen hadn't understood that Frederick was still trying to heal after he had caught her in Ramon the gardener's arms when she thought Frederick was still on his work trip.

He had come home early.

He had a boxed ring in his pocket.

And Naydeen had her lips on Ramon's neck.

Five months after that--after having forgiven her--Frederick and Naydeen had fought again, and hours later, he bumped into Raya who thought he was a once-well-renowned chocolatier.

So, for the next seven months, Frederick was Michel L'orvat. He apparently looked like him, so why not play him? He researched the man and learned bits of his history. Then, a week later, after seeing Raya at a coffee shop, he sat with her, and they ended up speaking until the employees had to kick them out ten minutes after the shop closed. She invited him to a book event at the library where she worked, and what did Frederick do? He went to the event. He had even read the book she mentioned she was in the middle of reading. He found some recipes online and learned to bake some of Michel's known trinkets. He had even gone to baking classes and learned more about how chocolate is handled. This transformed into more meetings with Raya, more conversations, meeting her friends, meeting her mother who had come to visit from Singapore, introducing her to Stu, and telling her a bit of his thoughts and history that had nothing to do with Michel's. He had ended up becoming a figment of who Michel L'orvat would have been had he lived in a Venn Diagram of his and Frederick's life.

And most of it had occurred while Naydeen was still in the picture. She ended up taking off with a pilot across the country and never came back.

It was after that when Frederick and Raya shared their first kiss. The days that followed were filled with more kisses, more giggling and laughs, more reading, sharing of dreams, and so many more events that he would never forget. He had even furnished a loft so that she could have her own painting studio that also came with a mini library and nook. Her own location. Her Raya Space, which he had called it, and she so happily accepted it, asking him why he would use his chocolate-making hands for building something for her.

"Because I love you," he had answered. It was the first time he said it. And after Raya tearfully returned the sentiment, his heart had been full.

Such a full heart he had for only two weeks.

Then Michel L'orvat returned with a new recipe book that he said he had developed while garnering new recipes and techniques while away in the Swiss Alps.

Points had gone to those fans who speculated his location there. A gargantuan amount of more points had been lost for Frederick after Raya saw Michel's announcement on Instagram.

And now Frederick sat here on his couch, hearing what Stu was saying, but mentally hearing more of Raya's last words: 'I never loved you, Frederick. It seems like I only ever loved your fairy tales.'

She had been so used to calling him Michel, even after the revelation, but when she said those final words: she had remembered what his true name was. They came after she said that she was going to move to Singapore to be with her mother, and that she could not live in a place that no longer existed anymore.

'But what about the studio?' Frederick had asked. He never received an answer to that. Raya had only glanced away, looking off someplace else, before those aforementioned final words came.

They were words that currently repeated in Frederick's mind as he sat on the couch, half-listening to what Stu was saying. He did catch the last part.

"...and that's why you should go get her back, man," Stu stated. "You weren't trying to be Michel no more. You were you, forgetting that you were Frederick because she made you feel like a new man. Yeah, it's lame or corny, but come on! You learned a lot from those books and poems you were reading with her!"

Frederick took in the words. He truly did. He looked at the time on his phone, remembering Raya's departure time. He remembered the devastating look on her face before she walked back into her apartment without another word. He remembered how she didn't have any tears after having seen so many of them after she discovered that he was Frederick Madison and not the person she had spent so many days, afternoons, nights, hours with. He remembered how she said that she didn't fall for him because she thought he was Michel L'orvat: 'I fell in love with you because you gave me a part of you that enhanced everything in my heart.'

At least she thought he did, was what she said after. The truth was that Frederick had given her those authentic pieces of him, and he tried to explain that. But she continued questioning, continued crying, continued screaming, and throwing things at him, telling him to get out of her apartment.

Her apartment, she said. It had been theirs. She picked it out, and he had gotten it for them.

She had slowly started taking back all that her heart gave him.

Frederick replayed all of those scenes over and over as he leaned back in the couch. He lifted his phone again, stared at the time once more. He mentally summoned the flight's departure time once more. He lowered his phone to his lap, closed his eyes afterward...and sighed.