Chapter 1
Sadie
Half of the names on the shortlist had already been crossed off. I was wrapped in my thickest coat with my auburn hair tucked into my warmest hat. I nervously tapped my borrowed pen rhythmically against the signup sheet. The names printed on the paper made my heartbeat quicken as I read them, and my palms began to sweat in anticipation. I thought about it quickly and decided to circle the second to last name. I nodded to myself then, dropping the signup sheet into the slot box set up on the high table. I took a step back, reading the long and garish Games of Love banner that hung there announcing that the new reality show’s infant season needed participants. The ad had been in the local newspaper and caught my eye when I was job searching, bent over the paper like it was my lifeline (it was) in the little coffee cafe down the street. I had quickly hopped up from my little table, nearly knocking over my steaming hazelnut latte and then apologizing profusely to my waitress. I ran down the sidewalk, quickly finding the signup table a few blocks down monitored by a bored-looking woman sitting wrapped in a blanket and popping her gum, spreading the sheets over the surface of the table.
“Name? Age?” she asked, twisting a finger in her frizzy blonde curls, and sighing loudly as if she had much better things to be doing with her time.
“Sadie Harlow,” I told her lightly, my teeth chattering audibly in the winter air. “I’m twenty—"
“Do you completely understand the rules of the game?” The woman broke in dully, interrupting me without remorse. “There’s no guarantee you’ll be chosen for the show. You also might not be matched up with your chosen man. You probably won’t be, actually. It’s a draw, like a lottery of sorts.”
“I understand all of it—” I started, once again.
“You can definitely circle whichever name you want but it doesn’t mean you two will be paired, it’s like a game of chance. Games of Love will follow randomly chosen couples as they navigate their way through a fake relationship under the guise of a documentary. Outside of the two of you, no one can know the truth of it all. At the end of the five-month period, whichever chosen couple is most successful in the lie takes home the $25,000 prize. Got it? Do you understand?” The girl stared at me, apparently unimpressed.
“Yes, thank you for that, I got it,” I answered back patiently. “I read all of that on the ad earlier.”
The bored woman raised one dark eyebrow. I must have been somewhere around her age, or in the near vicinity, but her uncaring demeanor and cold attitude gave off the distinct impression that she was older. “Then why did you ask?”
“I didn’t—” I began, confused at what she meant. She shook her head, grabbing one of the papers from the women’s choices and a pen. I just laughed a little awkwardly, brushing off her attitude on the basis that it didn’t really matter.
After I was finished signing up at the first table and the little paper was in the reality show’s slot, I made my way over to the short table where a silver carafe of hot chocolate and a tall tower of paper cups was sitting for those who signed up. I was overly anxious, for the first time in months, I felt as if there might just be a light at the end of my debt-filled tunnel. I was flat broke, and it wasn’t an exaggeration. My college tuition out of state was even more expensive than my father and I had originally thought, and New York City’s bustling street corners and busy nightlife were worlds away from West Virginia. I sipped cautiously at my hot drink and watched the sinking sun glitter over the high windows of skyscrapers, casting their soft, cold light over the city. I took a deep breath and turned around quickly to leave the tables. I collided almost immediately with a warm body, smashing my cup of hot chocolate into someone’s expensive button-up with a short cry of surprise.