Heartbreakers and Fakers

by Cameron Lund

  “Don’t make that face,” Kai says, dipping a ladle into the chili and pouring it onto the rice. He sprinkles some cheese on top and hands me the bowl. “This is the only way to eat chili. Whatever else you’ve been taught is a lie.”

  “Corn bread is the only way to eat chili.”

  “Hell no.” He laughs. “Try it.”

  “Okay, fine.” I mix it all up with my spoon and take a bite. And yeah, it’s so much better this way.

  “You like it,” Kai says. “I can tell.”

  I swallow my bite and smile. “Okay, fine, yes, this is amazing.” I turn to his mom, clutching the bowl in my hands like it might disappear. I’m pretty sure I’ve turned into the heart-eye emoji. “You’re a wizard.”

  She laughs. “I like her. You’ve picked a good one, Kai.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  We eat dinner together out on the porch, the night air warm, surrounded by the chirping of crickets. When the meal is done, Kai and I help his mom collect the bowls and wash them in the sink. I grab a towel and start drying, but his mom shoos me away.

  “I can take care of this,” she says. “You two go have fun.”

  “But you cooked,” I say.

  “It’s my treat.” She takes the towel out of my hands and waves it in the direction of the doorway. “Now go spend some time together. And keep the bedroom door open!”

  The truth is that going up to Kai’s room, hanging out in there like we’re a real couple—it feels weird. Down here in the kitchen, we’re with his mom, we’re putting on a show of our relationship. But there’s no reason for me to be over here and in his room.

  “Come on,” he says. “I can show you some of my terrible paintings.”

  “Well, in that case,” I say, and then follow him up the stairs.

  Kai’s room looks the same as it did a few weeks ago, the morning this all started. I remember how nervous I felt back then, how I was searching the walls for clues to destroy him. But I don’t feel that way now.

  I look around with fresh eyes, noting the little details that are all Kai. There’s a postcard with his name hanging over his desk, Japanese characters painted beneath the English letters. His bed is made, navy-blue sheets tucked neatly into the sides. And there—sitting on his pillow—a worn whale stuffed animal I didn’t notice before, frayed and falling apart. I grab it before he can stop me.

  “Who’s this?” I point the whale’s face at him.

  “Dammit,” he says. “I forgot to hide him.”

  I wiggle the whale’s head. “Oh, so it’s a him? Does he have a name?”

  “I’m not telling you his name.”

  I hug the whale to my chest. “Please, Kai. He’s so cute. He deserves a name.”

  “He’s shy. He doesn’t like meeting strangers.”

  “I’m not a stranger. I’m your girlfriend.”

  “Fine. His name . . .” Kai lets out a heavy sigh. “His name is Doctor Whaley.” He chews on his bottom lip, looking up at me with eyes so miserable it’s like I’ve physically wounded him.

  “Wow.” I laugh. “Whaley. Honestly, your creativity is astounding.”

  “Hey, I was five!”

  “No, I love it. And he’s got a PhD. Doctor Whaley went to college, Kai.”

  Kai lunges for me, trying to grab the stuffed animal out of my hands, but I dodge out of the way, laughing and screaming and holding Whaley out of reach. I jump into the air, bringing Whaley up as high as I can get him, and Kai jumps too, but I move my arm at the last second, and somehow I’m still in control, still have him in my clutches.

  “He’s mine now!” I let out a full-on cackle. “He’s coming home with me.”

  “Whaley would never,” Kai says, all mock offended.

  “Doctor Whaley,” I correct. “Don’t insult his intelligence, Tanaka.”

  He laughs, lunging for me again, and then his arms are around my back, his hands find my stomach, and he’s tickling me. I shriek and squirm in his arms, dropping Whaley onto the rug. There are tears in my eyes from laughing. “Okay, fine! You win!”

  We’re both breathing heavily, and he doesn’t bend down to pick the stuffed animal up off the floor because his arms are still around me. My back is pressed up against his chest, the same way it was in the bunk bed, and again I have the same urge to turn around so we’re facing each other. My heart is still racing from the tickling and from the laughing, and definitely not from anything else.

  Slowly, the laughter subsides, and then Kai lifts his arms off me and I step away from him, making my way across his room, putting a good three feet between us. I don’t know what just happened, how I keep finding myself in these positions where I forget for a brief moment that this is all supposed to be pretend.

  Kai picks up Doctor Whaley, setting him gently back onto his pillow. Then he sits down on the bed. I sit in his desk chair, and I realize we’re back in the same places we were only a month ago, the first time I came up here. Everything felt so different then.

  “So, you like whales a lot, then, huh?” I ask, trying to pretend like everything is totally normal.

  Kai nods. “Yup. They’re fucking majestic.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I had this book of whale facts I used to read all the time when I was a kid. Like, you could not get me to put that book down.”

  “That’s kind of adorable,” I say, and the sincerity in my voice startles me. Because Kai’s story is making me feel all warm and fuzzy, and these are so not feelings I’m supposed to be having around him.

  “Like, did you know beluga whales love music? They’ve done studies where they play music for belugas in these underwater speakers and they start dancing, like in rhythm.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say, trying to hold back a smile. “What kind of music was it? Was it maybe . . .”

  “Don’t say it,” Kay warns, laughing.

  “. . . a whaletz?”

  “Wow.” He sighs dramatically. “That was . . . really exceptionally terrible.”

  “Was it played by an . . . orcastra?”

  “You’re really trying so hard, though,” he says, laughing. “That’s the worst part.”

  “I’m really fintastic at this, Kai. I’ve found my porpoise.”

  “I’m supposed to be the one who makes the awful jokes around here, Pen.”

  “Well . . . now you know how it feels.” And then, because I feel like I’ve derailed the conversation, because I really liked the excited look on his face when he was talking earlier: “Tell me another whale fact.”

  “So you can make fun of it?”

  “I’m not!” I put my hands up. “I’m into it. I’m into—” I cut myself off, because I was going to say the word you. This is fake, you idiot, I repeat to myself. Fake, fake, fake.

  “Okay, well, did you know that Moby-Dick was based on a real story?” Kai’s eyes light up, and he stands and wanders across the room over to his bookshelf. “This epic whale sunk this British ship in the eighteen hundreds. The crew swam to shore and then had to resort to cannibalism.” He thumbs through the shelf and then slides a book out, facing it to me. Moby-Dick.

  “It’s like you’re setting me up,” I say, laughing. “There are so many puns I could make right now, it is actually painful.”

  “Fuck,” Kai says. “You’re right. I’m so off my game. This is a real low point for me.” He tosses me the book and, surprisingly, I catch it. “You ever read it?”

  I turn the book over in my hands, examining it. “Yeah, in English last year.”

  “I remember back when we were kids, you used to read all the time.”

  I tense up, my shoulders suddenly rigid.

  “I used to notice you sometimes on the playground,” he continues. “I thought it was awesome.”

  I look up at him, surprised.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not . . . that’s not me anymore.”

  “No, I thought it was so cool.” He’s smiling and I’m looking for something, anything sinister behind it, but it isn’t there. He seems genuine. “You actually kinda got me into reading, you know that? Like, I’d see those books you were always reading at school and you looked so absorbed in them, and I wanted to read them too. So I’d go borrow them from the library when you were done. And then you got me that book Lord of the Flies for my birthday once. I loved that one.”

  I remember going to the store with my mom to pick out a present for Kai’s party. I’d gotten him Lord of the Flies out of spite, because I’d thought he’d see himself in someone like Jack—would mount my head on a pike if he could. “I didn’t really think you’d read it.”

  “Of course I did,” he says. “Actually, um, I have something for you.”

  He turns and runs his hand along the spines of the books on the shelf, then finds one and pulls it out. It’s small and worn, half the cover ripped away. The Giver. My book.

  He holds it out to me. “I’m sorry I kept it for so long.”

  I set Moby-Dick down on the desk and walk toward him, taking the book gingerly out of his hands. “Thank you.” I hug it to my chest. I know it’s just a book, that it doesn’t mean anything, but it feels like an apology. It feels like so much more.

  “I read it right after you loaned it to me. And then I meant to give it back. I wanted to tell you how much I loved it, but then, I dunno . . . things happened . . . and then it was too late.”

  Pukey Penelope. The name hangs between us in the air, a silent horrible thing; the words I wish could be wiped clean.

  “I’m sorry,” Kai says, his voice low. “For everything.”

  “Thank you,” I say. And I mean it. I clutch the book closer to my chest.

  “You know,” he says. “I really feel like you were the only one who actually saw me back then.”

  “What are you talking about?” I laugh at his actual ridiculousness. “You were friends with everybody like the second you moved here. It was always so easy for you.”

  Kai laughs. “You think picking up my whole life was easy? I had to leave my dad behind, all my friends, had to move across an ocean to a place where I didn’t know anybody. Started a new school—which was mostly white kids, by the way—and I didn’t know how I was supposed to act. Remember on that first day? I was so cold and my mom dressed me in this stupid snowsuit and everyone stared at me like I was an alien.”

  “I liked your snowsuit,” I say.

  “That’s what I mean, though.” He sits down on the bed, and I take a seat next to him, hesitant. “I was so sad back then, you know? So homesick, and everyone on that first day was already friends. Nobody even looked at me. And then I saw you reading, and you smiled at me, and it was that little smile that got me through it all. I was like, This girl gets it.”

  “I felt the same way,” I say, smiling now. “I mean, when you came over to talk to me. But then you became friends with Jordan and everybody else and you were so cool so fast without even having to try. They all wanted to be friends with you just because you were from Hawaii.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Exactly. They only wanted to be friends with me because I’m from Hawaii. You think that’s a good thing? I mean, I took it. I ran with it because people were finally talking to me, thinking I had, like . . . merit all of a sudden. But, like . . . I’m way more than where I’m from, Pen. I wanted real friends, not people who thought I was cool because of whatever stereotypes they’d associated with me.”

  “Oh.” It all makes so much sense now that he’s said it. I can’t believe it never occurred to me. I was so jealous back then of how the kids swarmed him at recess when they found out where he’d moved from. But I hadn’t noticed that before that moment, he’d been just like me—someone lost and afraid and looking for a friend. That underneath it all, that’s who he still is. “But everyone is real with you now, right? I mean, you and Jordan . . .”

  “Jordan was the best back then.” He runs a hand through his hair, like he’s uncomfortable to be bringing Jordan into this. “I still remember Danny Scott asking some stupid fucking question about whether I surfed to school, some microaggression bullshit about whether my family lived in a grass hut on the beach, and Jordan schooled him. We started shooting hoops together and he never asked me about any of that stuff. He just asked me about me.” He laughs, shaking his head. “But that’s how I felt about you too. I wanted to get to know you better, but you avoided me after those first few days. Like as soon as Jordan and I started hanging out, you disappeared.”

  “Well, Jordan made me so nervous back then, so that probably had something to do with it.”

  “Really, this has been a thing since then?” He bites his lip.

  “Since forever.” I sigh. “I do this thing when I like somebody where I can’t even look at them. Like if I make eye contact and he sees me looking, suddenly he’s going to know everything I’m thinking and if he knows I like him, that would be the worst thing.” I don’t know why I’m telling him all of this, giving him a glimpse into the tangled mess of my brain. I look away, my eyes flicking down to stare at the carpet.

  “But why would it be the worst thing?” He’s looking at me—I can feel his eyes on the top of my head, but I’m finding it extremely difficult to look up from the floor.

  “If he doesn’t know I like him, I can’t get hurt.” This is all too personal, even after everything we’ve been through.

  “Sometimes it’s worth the risk, Pen.”

  I pull my eyes from the carpet then, feeling my cheeks flush. Our eyes lock together and somehow he’s a little bit closer than he was only moments before. And I realize suddenly that Kai and I are not friends. That’s not what this is at all. Because more than anything, I want to close the gap between us and kiss him.

  But kissing Kai was what got us into this whole mess in the first place. This was supposed to be pretend; just a way to get our friends to forgive us, a way to get back with our exes. This whole thing was only supposed to be temporary. Kai belongs with Olivia.

  “I have to go.” I jump up and walk to the door.

  “Hold on,” Kai says. “You don’t have to leave.”

  “No, I do, actually.” I remember the rules we made when this all started. If either of us wants out at any time, we’re done. And I want out. If we wait until Disneyland, who knows how messed up things could get before then? But how can I tell him that without admitting my feelings? “Tell your mom thanks for me, okay?”

  And then I’m down the stairs and out the door before Kai has a chance to call after me.

  NOW

  IT’S A FEW DAYS LATER, around two p.m.—almost the end of my shift—when Jordan walks into Scoops.

  I look up at the little jingle of the bell as he pauses in the doorframe, almost like he can’t decide if he wants to come all the way through. Then he shuffles inside and shuts the door behind him. He’s still wearing his hairnet from the Upper Crust, so I know he must have walked over from next door. He pulls it off when he sees me.

  “You want a banana split?” Sarah calls out, drumming her gloved fingernails on the counter. Jordan lingers for a minute on the welcome mat and then nods and walks toward us. My heart feels like it’s beating a million miles a minute. I don’t know what he could possibly be doing here in the store. Did he come to see me? He obviously didn’t come for the ice cream—Jordan is lactose intolerant.

  “Hey, Harris,” he says.

  Sarah rolls her eyes. “I’ll let you take this one.”

  “Um, hey.” My voice comes out scratchy, so I clear my throat and try again. “Hey, Jordan.”

  “I was on my break and I saw your car parked out front. Thought I’d come see how you were.”

  I look to Sarah. “Can I take my last ten?”

&nb
sp; “Be my guest.” She shoos me out from behind the counter. I strip off my plastic gloves and remove my Scoops hat (it makes my ears stick out horribly), smoothing my hair down. I don’t know what’s worse—the hat or the potential hat hair underneath. I feel so underdressed for whatever is about to happen.

  I take a seat at one of the plastic tables, and Jordan sits next to me.

  “You have to be a customer to use the tables,” Sarah calls out, and I snap back at her.

  “Come on, Sarah!” Sarah knows how important this is.

  “Okay, sure,” Jordan says. “Can I just get a coffee with almond milk?”

  “You got it, Parker.”

  Sarah keeps surprising me, honestly. I don’t get how she’s so confident around Jordan, so assured, when at school she usually doesn’t talk to anyone at all. Sarah doesn’t seem to care that Jordan is, well, Jordan.

  She brings him his coffee and he hands her a five, and then finally she’s back behind the counter and we’re ready for whatever this is. I don’t know why Jordan’s here, which way I want this conversation to go. All I can think about is my talk with Kai the other night, how I fled from his room when I realized the plan was starting to feel a little too real.

  “So, did you have fun at the lake?” Jordan asks, taking a hesitant sip.

  “Yeah,” I say truthfully. “Kai and I had a good time.” Before I can help it, my mind flashes back to the moment Kai and I kissed in the woods, me trying to cover his face with my red lipstick. Having these thoughts in front of Jordan feels so wrong.

  “Yeah. About that.” He fiddles with the lid on his cup. “So, are you guys, like, serious or something? I saw that pic you posted. You went to his house for dinner?”

  I don’t know what to say to Jordan. Is my relationship with Kai still a lie? Am I still trying to make Jordan jealous? “Oh, I mean, sure,” I say, which is not a real answer. “I don’t know. You know what they say—the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” My face flushes with heat as soon as I’ve said it because oh my god, I can’t believe I just implied to Jordan that Kai and I are sleeping together.