Faking it Till They Make It

The phone was vibrating continuously, buzzing on and off in a familial symphony of worry. Three missed calls from her mother, two from her grandmother, and a flurry of messages from her eternally single Aunt Mildred, all echoing variations of the same sentiment: "When are you going to settle down, darling?" Ava sighed, rubbing her temples. The pressure was heavy, as if something heavy lay upon her chest, reminding her that her family never believed she was good enough.

She was a congenial lawyer, a partner in a glorious law firm. What had been constructed over time was just such a successful tapestry. But all that was worth nothing in her family's eyes. There was no husband. This was not anything new. The pressure had been a low hum in the background of her life for years, rising unaided with every birthday and family function. The holidays were especially brutal, like a deliberate series of well-meaning questions about her love life delivered with a saccharine sweetness that only increased their pain.

From subtle hints, her mother had now escalated to outright commands, her grandmother's easy nudging had become outright matchmaking, and Aunt Mildred's unsolicited dating profiles were in the realm of offense. Ava felt like she was a star in a romcom with her family directing, and she, the poor one.

She pushed her chair back from the desk, the hard glow of the computer screen battering her with harsh grace as her frustration grew. The never-ending cycle of dating apps, jumping from one painful first date to the next, only to suffer another heartbreaking ghosting had left her feeling bruised and devoid of emotion. Another forced meeting with another effusive smile and another well-honed small talk.

Making an exaggerated impression on someone she couldn't be sure if she liked to begin with, felt like an overwhelming task. She fancied silence, a bulwark where expectations could not beat relentlessly on her. At the other end of town, Ethan was wrestling with the family pressure machine himself.

His parents were both great and successful entrepreneurs but entertained a slightly twisted yet equally demanding perception of what constituted a good life. For them, it was not just about finding a partner; it was about finding the right partner-someone equally ambitious, equally driven, someone who could contribute to their ever-expanding family empire, both in terms of social stature and potential business partnerships. Being a brilliant architect in a vibrant firm, the entire pressure seemed to close in on him. His parents had not been bluntly critical of him; with each pointed remark about his 'lack of focus on his personal life' and hardly veiled suggestion of introducing him to 'appropriate' girls in their social circles, the tendrils of pressure grew thicker.

He loved his parents, respected whatever they had achieved, yet hated to accept the pressure they somehow wrought for him to submit to some criteria of success. His definition of success meant being tortured several nights designing some noisy over-priced hefty buildings and not squirming through the minefield of arranged marriages or oblivious social engagements with girls whose primary qualification seemed to be the net worth of their father. The phone buzzed at a different point in time, adding to the seemingly endless list of missed calls and unabated messages.

He could hear his mother's warm yet authoritative voice ringing in his ears: "Ethan, darling, we are having dinner with the Vanderbilts next week. They do have a daughter, Deborah, who is quite… interesting." Ethan moaned into his palm. Interesting was code for fabulously wealthy and cavalierly insufferable. Another engineered meeting, another

His heart sank at the awkward discussions regarding architectural trends versus family legacies. He needed to escape and hide from the crushing essence of a parent-structured pattern. The picture of a successful, unattached, and eligible bachelor was nothing but a facade, a weary mask to absorb undue scrutiny. He missed authenticity, self-expression, without the pressure to always be the perfect son and the ideal future husband. Ironically, Ava and Ethan, although from seemingly different circumstances, had the same enemy: their families' relentless but well-meaning obsession with their happiness, a pleasant craving that was already on the verge of ruining any joy they still possessed.

There was something wrong along the lines of how they had been boxed in by the expectations of society, which became steadily distant from their desires and choices. They both needed an escape, something to extend them a breath of fresh air. They had no way of knowing that such a solution was on its way to them in the most unexpected disguise. At dusk on Tuesday, with the rain pouring down, it would seem that destiny-or soft fatigue-was at play. They ran into each other in a local coffee shop, a providential meeting that seemed so divinely orchestrated. Both seemed to drown in this ocean of unanswered emails, missed calls, and growing family expectations. After being introduced to each other at a wedding of a common acquaintance, where they'd both survived inquisition on their love lives, they shared a private moment of commiseration, an acknowledgement that extended beyond polite sociability. "This is so ridiculous," Ava conceded finally as she stirred her latte with thoughtfulness.

These words hung in the air, dense with unexpressed frustrations.

The man in front of Ethan was sipping a cup of coffee; he, too, had nibbled on a donut and waited with bated breath. "This is complete madness. It's as if our love life is more important than our individual accomplishments," he said. Thus, unified in frustration, they forged an unexpected alliance. Amid lattes and joint frustrations, they concocted a silly plan-some sort of exceptional way to spring from the pressure off each other's shoulders. They would enter a fake relationship, a careful illusion made to appease surrounding family members. It was going to be the main strategic plan that would get them both some much-needed peace. Romantic dinners were to be planned, and mad efforts would be taken to get social media to post relevant stuff monkeying around with awkward family gatherings as a so-called happy couple. It was tins to be perfect-rather an elopement from nagging relatives.

Little did they contend with the consequent aspect of their scam. The stadium which they were constructing began to get much bigger than they could have ever thought. The planned facade was growing far more complicated than either of them had expected or anticipated. The concept seed of their deception had been implanted, and the impending harvest appeared far more dreadful than their predictions could have suggested. A tour loaded with lies after lies and enthralling emotions was about to be commensed with the dreadful possibility of their pretend relationship ravaging into something real.