Swapped Feelings | ✓

■ Unnecessary dress up

Jared

Damn. She was good. There wasn't a single mistake in those files. It was properly arranged and written. Not even a single punctuation mistake. I understood why Ford was praising her. I would be pretty proud if I had an employee like her too. She was mine now, but I still needed to-

Not mine, wait. My company's.

I had to give her some extra complex tasks. She was bound to break and make mistakes sometime, because at this rate it was not helping with my "Torture Allison" programme. It was more like "Smack Jared Back".

Already two weeks were gone and she had made no mistakes. She was always on time, did her work nicely and unfortunately perfectly. I should have punished her on the first day itself. That's why you shouldn't wait for the next time.

I criticised her, scolded her but somehow, it didn't feel very nice. It was as if I was trying to console myself by scolding her. I would have been happier scolding her for mistakes she actually did rather than my imaginary ones. She did every aspect correctly, from planning to formulation, editing, compiling and forwarding all important mails and documents to me.

Also, I couldn't even criticize her on the coffee. There wasn't much when you had black coffee without sugar but I was very particular even about the amount of coffee in proportion with the water. She got it absolutely correct. Maybe I should start having it with milk and sugar just to see how she did.

Plus, I was going mad. Since the day she had joined, I had been planning to crack her and I hadn't got a chance to get laid. This was seriously not good for my health. She was again starting to mess with my brain. Not good. Days and nights went by on how to pressurise her more, but the girl was a tough nut to break. She was doing everything perfectly and it was simply getting on my nerves.

The worst part was, she never complained. She was okay with everything I said and did everything I ordered her to do without any noise. The way she smiled when she got her job irritated me out even more so. What I wouldn't do to wipe that smug look from her face that she was winning. I could think of many things, but those were absolutely forbidden. She was my employee and no matter the number of cold showers I took, she would still be my employee.

The next day, I was fervently hoping she would be late, but I knew Allison wouldn't repeat a mistake twice. She was sly and cunning.

Exactly at 9:00, she knocked on my door. I sighed, "Come in." And she came in as usual as I was going through a mail.

"Take these documents and-" I froze when I looked up.

There was just a tiny thing.

The person who entered wasn't Alli.

~¤~

Allison

Alright. The people were ogling at me when I entered. Due to Ms. Lily, I was now in a tight blouse with a pencil skirt and stockings. My hair was in a bun but in a stylish manner with locks framing my face. I was wearing heavy makeup again after so long. I had switched to lens. I felt oddly confident but a bit weird too. I felt like I was again Alice. It wasn't a very good feeling, but if it meant shutting other people up, I could do it.

It reminded me of five years back when I went through so much trouble to dress up just to spend one day with Jared and hang out with him. At the end of the day, when he used to drop me off and give that cheeky smile, I used to feel all those dressing up for him was worth it. His contagious smile could light up everyone's mood.

I hadn't seen that smile of his yet. Not that I wanted to.

As I entered, I was satisfied to see Jared's mouth opening for few seconds and pure shock etched on his face. He looked as if he had seen a three headed monster.

Yes, small victory dance for me.

His eyes grazed me from top to bottom. He gulped and shook his head. He closed his laptop loudly.

"What are you wearing?" He finally asked, looking thunderstruck.

This wasn't what I expected him to say. I was expecting a look of defeat or appreciation.

"Dress?" It came out as a question.

"I can see that very well. I meant, why are you wearing it?" He snapped. Why was he getting angry? Its not as if he never saw me in a dress. He had seen me in so many dresses before.

"Why can't I? Its a corporate look," I frowned, looking down at my attire.

"Are you mad? Since when do you need to look corporate? I never asked you to wear corporate, did I?" He looked really pissed off.

"Why can't I? Everyone wears this," I shrugged, wincing at his tone.

"And so you decide to follow everyone, right? I never knew you followed others. You did everything your way. I have never told you that you need to dress like them. The policies tell us to wear formal clothes, not fashionable design clothes that will attract too much unwanted attention," He shook his head.

Everyone wore it. Nobody gave them unwanted attention. Was I missing out on something?

"Yeah well, people were giving me pitiful glances so-"

"You went and changed yourself. How typical! To hell what others think or say. Listen, Allison Marshall. Drop this attire. Wear your normal clothes from tomorrow. That is fine with the standard dress code. These clothes do not suit you. You look ugly," He stated, visibly annoyed.

I flinched. Wow. Way to ruin someone's confidence.

He had expressionless eyes as he stared at me, God knows thinking what. Then, he went back to his cold demeanour as he looked away. I looked at myself again trying to figure if I looked really inappropriate or came across as fake but I didn't look bad. Why was he acting as if it was such a big deal?

It wasn't even too much colorful. What was his deal?

And suddenly it hit me. The reason why he wanted me to change. It wasn't because of what suited me or not.

It was because of Alice. This getup reminded him of her. This is how Alice dresses and it was reminding him of her. Of course.

"This reminds you of Alice, right?" I whispered, finally dawning on me.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "What?"

"Alice. She dresses like this. If I dress like this, you remember her, right?" I asked loudly. His eyes were stone cold as he clenched his jaws.

Oh god, he still loved her.

And here I was thinking that despite all his hatred towards me, maybe he liked me as a person, that he was just doing it because he liked me maybe and had finally forgotten Alice. He wanted me to remain Allison and not Alice.

Stupid me.