"Hi Carl" I manage. I even bring the corners of my mouth up.

"Hi Stacy" he smiles, empty as always.

Everyone loves Carl. He's charming, witty, and such a polite gentleman. There's really no reason to hate him. He's never done anything wrong... But, I don't know, there's something about him that just absolutely makes my blood boil. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something dark and evil there, deep down inside, I can just tell.

"How was your weekend?" I ask, bubbly as ever. I wish I could hiss, snarl or maybe bark at him, but I'm nothing but nice.

"Oh it was great! How was yours?" He sits down in his cubicle across from mine. The fact he spends all day in my eyeline, seperated only by a thin lineolum hallway makes me resent him even more. If he had worked in sales, or IT, perhaps he'd be tolerable. But I have to hear and see him every single day.

"It was wonderful."

It wasn't.

I spent all weekend cleaning up my apartment, learning a new recipe, and perfecting my eyeliner for a girl who would never show up. She cancelled last minute. Literally, last minute. I had the food on the table and the wine poured, which I ended up drinking all of myself, drunk texting pleas to stay together and pathetically begging her to not break up with me.

Silence carried us through the rest of the morning, but I could swear Carl was staring at me through the corner of his eye the whole time.

At lunch, I went to my usual spot. Our usual spot, Becca and mine. But she wasn't there.

"Weird to see you sitting there without your bestie." Carl laughed. He knew the difference, but mine and Becca's relationship was another unspoken secret, like my disdain for him, or his for me. "Did something... happen?" He said in a tone too close to his customer service voice.

He knows. He's known all day and he's just waiting for the minute to push my buttons about it. Fucking asshole. He's basking in this. He loves torturing me through that stupid shit-eating grin he loves to sport.

"Oh, no! She's taken the day off" I smile. "The flu." I give a little side nod.

"Oh, that's too bad..." Carl looks away. His acting skills could use some work. I have no idea how it manages to fool everyone else.

"I guess I'll have to cancel our date tonight then. I wouldn't want to get sick, too."

I want to pick up my plastic knife and jab it in his juggular. I want to scream. I want to claw and scratch and bite him. But I'm too put-together. I've been hiding my hatred from him, pretty successfully I thought, for quite a while. But now, my eye involuntarily twitches. The only giveaway.

In my head, I've killed him. I've let him bleed out on the floor and spit on his corpse. I've covered the floor in blood and torn apart the room in rage.

"Hmm, I guess you will." I say nonchalantly, not pausing, not showing my sudden change in heartrate, and not even so much ad looking up from my salad.

Bastard. He's dead to me.